Canadian Close Calls @ Pomona
Canadian drag racers produced some outstanding performances during last weekend’s season-opening O’Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals out at Pomona….
The Canadian-based TAFC owned by Geoff Goodwin just missed winning at Pomona’s Winternationals
1) Long time Red Deer Alberta-based team owner extraordinaire Geoff Goodwin came the closest yet to collecting his first ever NHRA national event title. His team driver Jason Rupert (who has family roots in Saskatoon) wheeled Geoff’s Synoil Energy Services-sponsored Chevrolet to a superb runner-up finish in TAFC.
In the championship final Jason carved out a terrific .021 RT and ran his best time of the event at 5.653 secs at 255.63 mph but that was just passed by California’s John Lombardo who won with a 5.555 secs at 261.17 mph.
Geoff’s machine, which features expert tuning from Wally and Ryan Protz, had taken the measure of Keeter Ray, Brett Williamson and Doug Gordon in earlier round action.
Edmonton’s Don St. Arnaud set top speed of the meet in TAD
2) Don St. Arnaud continued his rise in NHRA’s TAD category. The Edmonton-based racer went to the “final four” in that program driving his A&J Construction injected-nitro car. Don qualified #3 for that eliminator and took out defending NHRA World Champion Duane Shields and then European champion Fred Hanssen (from Norway) in rounds one and two. In the semi-final round he lost out to the supercharged car of Chris Demke when tire shake unexpectedly set in.
St. Arnaud ran numerous 270+ mph speeds and his best 274.14 mph was top speed of the meet in TAD.
Scott Taylor showed his skilled racing ability again at Pomona
3) Scott Taylor, who is undisputed as one of Western Canada’s top Sportsman racers proved exactly that during the Winternationals Super Comp (8.90) program. The St. Isidore-Alberta based racer placed runner-up in SC – his only round loss coming to Arizona’s Phil Dion in the final round.
Taylor had a great showing at Pomona winning 6 rounds of competition before the car unexpectedly fell off pace to a losing 9.12 in the event final.
Posting and Photos by: Bruce Biegler
