Twenty years of historic drag racing culminated on September 14-17 at Virginia Motorsports Park as officials celebrated twenty years of horsepower with the COMP Cams Shakedown Nationals, presented by: FuelTech. The best heads up and sportsman racers converged on the Dinwiddie, Virginia based facility for a weekend of big money purses and high competition level from Pro Modified to the Jr. Dragster shootout.
Mike Decker, Jr. rolled into Virginia coming off of a win in Pro Modified just two weeks before at the YellowBullet Nationals and the Decker’s Salvage Chevrolet decided to go back-to-back, defeating New York’s Melanie Salemi in the final round on a holeshot. Decker was .018 on the tree and ran a 3.620 at 209 miles per hour to take down number one qualifier Melanie Salemi’s 3.610 at 205 miles per hour. Todd Tutterow was the lone semi-finalist in Hoosier Racing Tire Pro Modified, presented by: Pro Line Racing and M&M Transmission while Tommy Franklin, Derek Ward and Don Tolley rounded out the weekend with quarter-final finishes. Decker, Jr. took the $25,000 prize with his WYO Motorsports powered, screw-blown boosted Chevrolet Camaro home to Baltimore, Maryland after a hard-fought weekend of close competition.
Defending PDRA World Champion, Tim Essick, proved yet again that he is one of the best sitting on 33×10.5 slicks in 2022. Essick laid claim to the $10,000 pay day by taking down Michigan’s Bill Riddle, who qualified number one on the weekend. Essick and Riddle both ran 3.951 elapsed times in the final round, but Essick had a sizable reaction time advantage to lay claim to his second win in a row, dating back to the PDRA Northern Nationals last month. Canada’s Nick Agostino was the lone semi-finalist while Nick Schroeder, Joel Wensley, Jr. and Ron Green ended their weekends in the quarterfinals.
Limited Drag Radial was the quickest drag radial category on the grounds this weekend and local runner Andy Manson piloted his ’96 Mustang to low elapsed time of the weekend with a 3.979 to take down Billy Gordon’s 4.09 in the final round. Alabama’s Mike Jones was the lone semi-finalist while Kameron Lohmeyer and Mike Smith were the quarterfinalists.
St. Thomas, Pennsylvania’s Scott Parson ran the table on X275 with a 4.250 second number one qualifying effort on Friday night and a holeshot victory over class kingpin Ron Rhodes. Parson used an .016 reaction time and a 4.29 elapsed time to defeat Rhodes in the final, who was .037 and ran a 4.27 elapsed time, resulting in a margin of victory of only .007 of a second, equivalent to only 2 feet! Dom DiDonato and Jason Berchoff rounded out their weekends as semi-finalists.
Ronny Rhodes was the definition of domination this weekend with a 4.480 number one qualifying effort and took it all the way to the winner’s circle in UPR Products Ultra Street. Rhodes had a bye run in the final as Chuck Bartholme had issues and had to be cut off before staging. Billy Brown drove Wes Ervin’s S10 to the semis before going down to Rhodes in an extremely close drag race. Valerie Clements and Steve Beaston, Jr. ended their weekends with quarterfinal finishes.
Derek Reynolds (GBodyMafia All Steel All Glass N/T Shootout), Charlie Barnes (MPC Real Street, presented by: Callies), Brad Schehr (Limited 235), Kendall Payne (Top Sportsman), Dan Walleigh (5.90 Index), Al Burkett (Super Pro, Super64 Shootout) and Hunter Cunningham (P2 Contracting Jr. Dragsters) rounded out the class winners for the COMP Cams Shakedown Nationals, presented by: FuelTech. Complete results can be found by visiting the VMP Results portal, by clicking HERE.
Next up on schedule for Virginia Motorsports Park is the Dinwiddie County Fair along with the North American Mega Truck Racing Series followed by the NHRA’s Power In The Park event on September 30-October 2 with the best Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series racers that the series has to offer. To view the remaining 2022 events on calendar, please click HERE to view the Events Schedule.
