Talented middle-eastern based racer Khalid AlBalooshi re-discovered his winning ways last weekend at NHRA Bristol…
Khalid AlBalooshi (a native of Dubai) drove to his first victory of the season and fourth of his career during the E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by presented by J&A Service portion of the Fitzgerald USA NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.
That weekend’s Pro Mod racing portion was presented by Elite Motorsports and marked the 1/2 way season point for the 12 events scheduled for NHRA this season.
AlBalooshi used a 5.924-second pass at 247.38 mph in his Bahrain 1 Racing ‘17 Chevy Camaro to take down Todd Tutterow in the finals. He had defeated Bob Rahaim, Rick Hord and Danny Rowe in earlier competition.
Racing the very potent “Bahrain 1 Racing” Chevy Camaro – Khalid AlBalooshi came away a winner at NHRA Bristol.
That was his first event score in the category since the 2015. “KHB” was the NHRA World Champion for the Pro Mod class back in 2011.
“I’ve been thinking about retiring recently and wondering if I could still compete in this class, but finally I got a win again and it feels amazing,” AlBalooshi said. “I just came out here and had fun and this is definitely a good way to get some momentum heading into the rest of the season.”
Tutterow notched his first final round of the appearance of 2018 as his 5.948 at 242.10 was not enough to defeat AlBalooshi. He had advanced to the final round after qualifying in the last available spot (#16).
After qualifying on the bump –Todd Tutterow drove well to make the Pro Mod final round in the AAP Chevy Camaro.
With his win AlBalooshi jumps up to third in the Pro Mod standings with the victory, while Tutterow now sits in eighth. Mike Janis retains his points lead in the class by following up his victory in Richmond with a semifinal exit in Bristol.
Recent winner at VMP – Mike Janis – maintained his overall points lead with a semi final round finish.
The event’s performance stars were Camaro racers Steven Whiteley who qualified #1 and set low ET at 5.823 secs and Chicago’s Dan Stevenson who was credited with top speed of the event at 254.09 mph.
The always unpredictable Pro Mod class did include a couple of incidents – thankfully which neither driver was injured. Doug Winters hit the wall during qualifying with his popular’69 Chevelle and Texan Chad Green endured his 2nd crash of the season when he flipped his injected nitrous Camaro during round two of competition.
Florida’s Rick Hord continued to be impressive with his C7 – he qualified #2 – but lost out in round two to the eventual winner.
The E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by J&A Service continues next weekend at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio June 21-24.
Posted with files by Bruce Biegler and NHRA Communications
Photos by Luke Nieuwhof (www.DragNews.com.au)
