Red-Hot Massey Sizzles At Raceway Park

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Red-Hot Massey Sizzles At Raceway Park | Photo 02

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The NHRA Full Throttle Series reached the halfway mark of the regular season at this past weekend’s SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park - and the standing room only crowd was served up some of the year’s best side-by-side racing.

The 2011 edition of the SuperNationals saw Spencer Massey score for the second time this season with back-to-back wins in the Top Fuel category on a holeshot in the finals against point leader Del Worsham.

Mike Neff drove his John Force Racing Ford Funny Car for his second win of the year and made his fourth consecutive final round appearance after No. 1 qualifier, Cruz Pedregon, red-lighted on the starting line.

Allen Johnson had the right touch and conquered Pro Stock in an all Mopar finals against promising rookie candidate, and hometown New Jersey favorite, Vincent Nobile. Nobile gave up an opportunity to win for the second time of his young career by leaving too soon, which resulted in a big red light in his lane, allowing Johnson to take his first pewter Wally of the season.

Like the Top Fuel finals, Pro Stock Motorcycle contender Matt Smith won his first Wally of 2011 by taking out points leader Karen Stoffer on a holeshot in the finals.

The NHRA annual trek to the Garden State’s speed arena showed that making the field was the toughest part of the meet. Even Force kept the dramatics high by waiting until the final qualifying session to run quick enough to enter the tough Funny Car field. He started 15th.

Being so close to the coastline offered the professional tuners a great opportunity to use the sea level air in what they described as “Star Wars” conditions in the cool and overcast weather. So good, it produced the quickest Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle fields in the history of the sport.

Grand Marshal for the SuperNationals, Big Daddy Don Gartlis gave the command to “Put some fire in those pipes” on Sunday morning and it brought some unusual pairings for the first round.

In Top Fuel, Morgan Lucas was racing his teammate, Shawn Langdon. In Pro Stock, teammates Roger Brogdon raced Steve Kent and Ron Krisher had to put it all on the line against Mike Edwards. To top it all off, Matt Smith had to race his wife, Angie, in the opening round of Pro Stock Motorcycle for the second time this year.

That first round also brought Brandon Bernstein to his 250th round win and first winning rounds since Las Vegas back in April. Dom Lagana was heartbroken by red-lighting his chances away against seven-time champion Tony Schumacher after Schumacher smoked the tires on the run.

The classic matchup of the first round belonged to Funny Car’s Force against Matt Hagen. Force, coming from the back half of the field, gave it a good effort with his run of 4.128 seconds, but it wasn’t good enough. Hagen had his best run of the weekend of 4.101 seconds, putting the 15-time champion on the trailer. It lived up to the hype.

Speaking of Force, his operation scored its 200th total team victory in Topeka two weeks ago, but as compared to other racing teams, it is second on the all-time victory list. ESPN statistician Lewis Bloom put together an interesting list of the all-time winning race teams:

1. Petty Enterprises (NASCAR) – 268 wins; 2. John Force Racing (NHRA) – 201 wins; 3. Hendrick Motorsports (NASCAR) – 196; 4. Don Schumacher Racing (NHRA) – 157; and 5. Penske Racing (Indy Car) with 155 wins.

Luckiest man in the first round has to be Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Eddie Krawiec, who won his round of racing with a .181 reaction time over Junior Pippin. He won’t get very many opportunities like that again.

The biggest upset of the first round was Johnny Gray taking out Robert Hight in a pedal-fest that saw Gray regaining traction first and quickly outdistancing Hight to the finish line.

The rest of the race saw Nobile nip No. 1 qualifier Jason in the quarterfinals and Mike Edwards in the semi-finals before red lighting in the finals against fellow Mopar teammate Johnson. That was impressive on any race day.

Nobile’s first appearance in a Raceway Park event was when he was eight years old driving Jr. Dragster. He won his age bracket and then won the overall event, so winning comes naturally to the 19-year old.

Pro Stock Motorcycle contestant Matt Smith had to defeat the entire Harley-Davidson team of Krawiec and Matt Hines, in the quarters and semis, before beating points leader Karen Stoffer in the finals.

It took a holeshot for Del Worsham to beat his teammate Larry Dixon in the semi-finals, and Worsham had the same thing happen against him with Massey turning the tables with a holeshot victory in the finals. Massey won by .009 thousandths of a second with his pass of 3.821 seconds to Worsham’s quicker, but losing time of 4.815 seconds.

Neff reached the finals for the fourth consecutive event in taking his second win of the year and third overall in his career. His roll of successive rounds in 2011 leads the way in the Funny Car standings.

Also, Worsham still leads in the points in the Top Fuel category with Massey a close second. It’s Jason Line in Pro Stock and Stoffer in Pro Stock Motorcycle at the halfway point of the regular 16-race season with the last six events in store for the Countdown to the Championship.

The Supernationals at Old Township Raceway Park has a rich and powerful history in the sport of drag racing and the 2011 edition lived up to every bit of its expectations.

The next NHRA event is in two weeks for the running of the Thunder Valley Nationals on June 17 – 19.