Mantas Lands a “Big Fish”

His first racing effort ever at the fabled NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals has proven to be a memorable one for Toronto’s Gus Mantas.  The driver of the SS/AH ’68 Hemi Barracuda participated in the highly prestigous Mopar Hemi Challenge which was completed last Friday before the rainout.  Gus qualified #11 of 23 cars entered in that shootout and then delivered a truly shocking result in round one when he KO’d one of the event’s biggest pre-race favorites — non other then Charlie Westcott (Sr) who won the title in 2009.   Mantas won via a major league holeshot using a .015 RT and a 8.652 secs at 152.81 mph to hold off Westcott’s much quicker 8.540 secs at 156.46 mph.  Unfortunately however it appears that did have a consequence — as the car then suffered a major engine failure about half track in round two versus Joe Teuton which ended his winning bid…….BB

 (Photo by:  Bruce Biegler)