Canada’s Spencer Hyde shines again — wins his first PDRA National event title….
Two Canadian-native drivers dominated all the way during a record-setting Pro Boost field within last weekends PDRA Mid-Atlantic Showdown event held at Virginia Motorsports Park.
Melanie Salemi (who is originally from Orillia ON) and Spencer Hyde (from Stratford ON), were the last two racers standing prior to the final round of eliminations that saw several races decided by 1000th of a second.
That did include the final round, as Hyde left the starting line second but raced to a 3.577 in his screw-blown “Jack & The Green Stock” ’69 Camaro to drive around Salemi and her 3.606 at 207.66 by just three thousandths.
It was the first Pro Boost win for Hyde, who won Drag Illustrated’s 2023 World Series of Pro Mod event held in Florida.
“We’ve had a good car at every race we’ve gone to since that race and we just couldn’t get it done,” said Hyde, who thanked partners like Red Line Oil, Engineered Racing Services, and NGK Spark Plugs.
“To come here and do it in the quickest field ever in Pro Boost means a lot. It was five hundredths of a second from No. 1 to 16. There were no easy rounds. There were no easy cars. You had to do everything right. We did everything right today and the chips fell our way. I owe it all to my guys. They got this thing turned around every round and [Mark] Savage did a killer job this weekend on the keyboard and I drove OK. It all came together and it’s awesome.”
Spencer Hyde’s talented “Jack & The Green Stock” team were very “convincing” while winning their first PDRA event title.
Hyde set low E.T. of all four rounds in eliminations, beginning with his 3.599 at 209.20 to take out Steve King and his 3.907. He raced further into the 3.50s with a 3.569 over a red-lighting William Brown III in the second round. In a semifinal rematch of the 2023 WSOPM final round against Kurt Steding, Hyde left first with a .011 light to Steding’s .018 and finished first with a 3.559 (low ET of the race) at 213.74, which was just four thousandths behind the recently set E.T. national record.
Melanie Salemi – who now resides in Buffalo NY – was R/UP at the PDRA’s 2nd race offering of 2024
Driving Eddie Whelan’s screw-blown Al-Lee Installations ’23 Camaro, Melanie Salemi earned round wins over Preston Tanner, Johnny Camp, Derek Ward while enroute to the championship round.
Pro Boost class racing at the PDRA Mid-Atlantic Nationals was a swift and well attended affair with 22 cars entered and a very demanding bump spot being 3.638 secs.
Canada’s Kenny Lang was another Canadian qualifying car for Pro Boost. Lang drive the Al Billes Racing Camaro to a #12 slot (3.623 secs) but then lost a narrow round one decision to Travis Harvey (3.619 to 3.622 secs).
Posted with files by Nate Van Wagnen & Bruce Biegler
Photos by Steve Embling & Phil Hutchison
To view more images from the PDRA Mid-Atlantic Nationals link to the LMLCMedia event photo gallery: HERE
