As Saturday, June 6th began, an overnight storm billowed through the Dinwiddie, VA area with a number of large storms and inches of rain that down poured on the Virginia Motorsports Park facility.
After hours of drying and on-track preparations, the team found that a lightning strike had occurred over the facility during the storm damaging a number of operational pieces including portions of the timing system, the public address system and more. As the team picked up the pieces and began the single time trial session, over 175 entries spaced out through the staging lanes using social distancing guidelines and protocols. The time trial session concluded with a number of NHRA Top Alcohol Dragsters testing at the facility for the past few days.
Eliminations began and as the rounds wound down, a handful of young guns were left standing in the staging lanes in all classes. Kendall Payne from Waynesboro, VA, in the House of Payne Performance dragster outlasted the field in Hoosier Racing Tire Super Pro to claim victory while Amber Franklin made her first final round appearance as Stephen Osborne was unable to make the call in the semi-final round, setting up a final with two young guns of the Super Pro category. Eric Finch, Andre Wiggins and Billy Wiggins ended their evening in the quarter-finals of Super Pro. For a full breakdown of Super Pro’s results, click HERE.
Coming off the bottom bulb were our Pro competitors and a great crowd of them there was! Henrico, Virginia’s own J.T. Taylor outlasted them all in his ’87 Camaro. Taylor ran up alongside Matt Sayers in the final round where a double-breakout bid ended the night with Taylor coming out on top. Roger Bridges was the lone semi-finalists while Wayne Hand, Travis Leake and Daniel Duff rounded out the quarter-finalists. For a full breakdown of Pro’s eliminations, click HERE.
The future generation of drag racing was on tap all day long with the Battery Barn of Virginia Jr. Dragster category. Hunter Cunningham from Church Road, VA laid down a .018 package in the final round alongside Darik Ellington to claim a big win in his Battery Barn sponsored junior dragster. Chloe Geryes was the lone semi-finalist while Lewis Crockett, Nevaeh Gilbert and Hayle Harrell bowed out in the quarter-finals. For a full breakdown of Jr. Dragster’s eliminations, click HERE.
We are extremely proud of all of our winners and money earners from Saturday’s event which kick-started our season yet again after the lengthy COVID-19 downtime. Virginia Motorsports Park will have more information out soon regarding more events and information regarding the remainder of 2020.
