At NHRA’s Lucas Oil Winternationals — Surrey BC’s Shawn Cowie was spot on performance wise while recording both low ET and top speed of the event with a booming 5.163 secs at an astounding 281.30 mph. Cowie – who has owned the Pomona track in the past (7 career wins!) – did however fall just short of his primary event objective – when tire shake set in during the TAD final round and he lost to Joey Severence.

Also scoring a R/UP finish at Pomona’s Lucas Oil Winternationals was popular racer Tim Boychuk from Edmonton. Tim had a great run within the 8-car Nitro Nostalgia FC program going to the final round with very consistent runs all weekend. His “Happy Hour” Camaro fell just short of Cory McClenathan in the trophy dash race by a 4.868 secs to 4.895 secs count.

Rather big news from the recent PDRA season opener at Galot Motorsports Park in NC. That event included the debut of an all new Camaro Pro Boost car for the thriving Smokies Garage race team – driven by Scott Wildgust (Sebringville ON). Scott’s new car showed great early potential running a swift 3.665 secs however that fell short of the event’s “ridiculously quick” 16-car bump for the class.

Ryan Stack – driver of “living legend” Larry Dobbs’ TAFC notched an impressive and notable round win during the season opening NHRA Amalie Gatornationals. He recorded (what we believe to be) his career best time of 5.604 secs at 259.46 mph to knock off non other then 3X NHRA World Champion Sean Bellemeur in round one! Stack lost out however in round two to event winner Matt Gill by a 5.445 secs to 5.644 secs count.

The Canadian contingent of injected nitro cars entered at Gainesville was impressive – with three of Canada’s most potent machines – all qualifying. Quebec’s Daniel Mercier (above photo) was the quickest of the group running 5.214 secs to qualify #4 in the Amalie Motor Oil dragster. The two Ontario cars raced by Jeff Chatterson (top) and Jeff Veale in fact raced head-to-head in round one with Veale prevailing 5.280 secs to 5.350 secs. Jeff Veale was the only Canadian to advance past round one.