Canadian Clout @ International Showdown!
Canadian racers were dominate during the very creative and Inaugural Pro Mod Challenge event held at Maryland International Raceway last weekend….
The first ever Canada versus U.S.A. Pro Mod showdown, which was a co-product of Canada’s PMRA and the Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod Association, and part of MIR’s 28th Annual Snap-On Tools Supercharger Showdown feature, drew an amazing racer response.
When the smoke cleared after rain deferred eliminations, it was a very familiar face from the Canadian Pro Mod scene that was once again standing tall.
Rocky Di Lecce, who won the 2013 PMRA points championship in very dominating style has accentuated that season’s effort with what may have been his single most significant victory yet. Di Lecce, driving his Metro Infastructure/Midway Automotive supercharged Camaro which is based from Mississauga Ontario, defeated another PMRA star racer, former multi-time Champion, Bruce Boland (from Stoney Creek) in the event’s all Canadian final round conclusion.
That tell tale finale saw Rocky overcome an early starting line advantage by Boland to take a 5.946 secs 245.90 mph to 6.005 secs 239.74 mph win. Boland’s strong runner-up finish came driving his supercharged ’68 Pontiac Firebird, a former Raymond Commissio car, which he only recently acquired.
2013 PMRA Champion Rocky Di Lecce once again showed his stuff!
Di Lecce ran nothing but 5’s throughout eliminations while defeating American racers, Dean Marinis, Kevin McCurdy and David Nance in earlier competition.
Rocky and Bruce were two of four Canadian Pro Mod cars which attended the event — all of which qualified. That also included Eric Latino (Whitby ON) who qualified 6th and Jim Bell (Edmonton AB) who qualified 7th.
Bell’s performance at MIR was his best yet driving his spectacular and fast improving turbocharged ’13 Mustang. For Jim that included a very rewarding first ever “five” in qualifying (5.997 secs) and then a career quick 5.976 secs while advancing to the 2nd round.
New York’s David Hance was the performance star overall as he set both low ET 5.887 secs and top speed 251.58 mph driving his turbocharged ’57 Chevy.
This independent event which can only be described as a major success drew no less then 34 cars (!) for the Pro Mod eliminator with the 16-car bump spot being set at 6.220 secs.
It all holds well for possible Can-Am Pro Mod Challenge repeat in 2014 and hopefully too will fuel a similar feature on Canadian soil (Hint-hint – Nudge-Nudge!)
Posting by Bruce Biegler
Photos by David Ross
