Just one week after winning big during the Canadian Nitro Nationals at Cayuga, Ontario-based Fast Street Car racer Jerry Mitrovic put another big notch in his holster….

The Toronto-based driver scored during a special race-within-a-race held during last weekend’s PDRA North-South Shootout held at Maryland International Raceway.

After four qualifying sessions for the first of two appearances by the Outlaw 10.5 class with the PDRA this year, eventual race winner Jerry Mitrovic put his sinister-looking, deep-black, low-slung, nitrous-boosted ’68 Camaro into the eighth starting position for the 16-car race day field at Maryland International Raceway with a 4.23-seconds run at 185.87 mph.

Separated by just a thousandth of a second from ninth-place qualifier Dale Collins Jr., Mitrovic won a closely matched opening round with another 4.23 at 186.10 while Collins threw away a 4.24 at 184.40 with a -.056 red-light start. In round two, Mitrovic stepped up with a 4.20 at 182.97 to beat fellow Canadian Wade Stevens, then went even quicker in the semis with a 4.17 win at 181.42 over a traction-challenged John Bartunek.

Waiting for him in the final was Maryland’s own Mike Decker Jr., who qualified his supercharged ’02 Camaro second with a 4.14 at 187.44, behind only the new, screw-blown ’14 Corvette of Chuck Ulsch, who ran 4.13 at 190.43 mph in Friday night’s qualifying session. Decker beat Michael Martin in round one, Jerry Morgano in round two, and another Maryland driver in Mo Hall in the semis with a 4.16 at 185.95 that earned lane choice for the event-deciding showdown with Mitrovic.

When the light flashed green, Mitrovic was late off the start with a .106 light, but Decker was even worse with a .271 reaction time. Once more, though, Mitrovic showed tremendous improvement with an outstanding 4.11 run at 187.16 to beat a very consistent 4.16 at 185.38 by Decker. Mitrovic’s final-round blast also took low ET for the meet away from Ulsch, who was upset in round one after losing traction against Stevens.

“We don’t have many passes with this new combination at all,” the Toronto-based driver said in victory lane. “It’s a 900-plus Musi motor with a Bruno/Liberty transmission. This is our third race with it and we’ve won two of them and went to round two the first time so we’re very happy with it; can’t complain at all.”

Posted by:  Ian Tocher

Photos by: Ian Tocher and John Marechal