After a busy weekend of racing including three Summit Team Finals events, the IHRA has named it’s first 12 qualifiers for the Summit SuperSeries Championship at the IHRA World Finals, taking place on October 14-16 at Virginia Motorsports Park.
At the Farmington Dragway in North Carolina, Bill Brewster and Kevin Pollard were among the top competitors for the Patriots Team in the Box class, while Roger Plyer and Scoot Vaughn brought tough competition to the event in advancing in the No Box class. Derek Degnitz and Steve Doornbosch were big winners at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. Runners-up included Amanda Fassler and Tanner Zwetow for Team Thunder. The final event of the weekend was held at the Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alb., where Rae Caswell and Dean Smith were crowned champions for Team Border Bandits, with Tim Richards and Chris Melnyk both ending the day with red lights.
Due to a new set of rules enacted this year which is expands the Box and No Box Fields at the World Finals to 16 cars rather than eight, four drivers from each Summit Team Finals event have moved on to the main event to compete for over $25,000 in cash and prizes.
Team Patriots, Division 1 Top ET class was a close call with Bill Brewster from Natural Bridge Dragstrip and Roger Plyler from Mooresville Dragway just .002-second apart in reaction time, with Plyler taking the close victory. In the Modified, class Scott Vaughn closed the night with a red light, advancing Kevin Pollard to the World Finals.
From the Division 5 Thunder Team Finals event, Derek Degnitz of Wisconsin International Raceway took the Box runoff with an 8.125 ET with a Dial in of 8.12. Amanda Fassler of Marion County International Raceway wasn’t taking this run lightly with a reaction time of .009, but missed the dial-in by .035. In the Modified class, Steve Doornbosch took the win with a reaction time of .022 in a defeat of Tanner Zwetow.
This weekend, six more SuperSeries drivers will be crowned at Pittsburgh Raceway Park for Division 3 and Carolina Dragway for Division 2.