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ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. - Every driver in the National Hot Rod Association dreams of a breakout year. A season when elapsed times dwindle and miles-per-hour swell on every pass down the quarter-mile strip. For Pro Stock driver Mike Thomas, who pilots the Pennzoil Pontiac Firebird, it appears that 1998 could very well be that dream season. Regardless of how the standings look when the final trophy is handed out in November, it would be impossible to deny that the year is progressing extremely well for Thomas. Ever since the season opener in Pomona, Calif., he has been sending a message to the rest of the Pro Stock class that he is ready to drive into victory lane and -- more importantly -- that he has the powerplant to take him there. The reason for the optimism is that for the first time in his career, Thomas is building is own engines under the name of Finish Line Enterprises. The obvious success the engines are forging on the track have already made Thomas' products so popular that several drivers are currently leasing their machines from Finish Line. Thomas' own success is his best sales pitch. In just his third qualifying run of '98, he easily reset his personal best ET and mph marks when he scorched the California asphalt with a 6.954 pass at 197.93 mph. He easily qualified for the elimination rounds, starting a streak of elimination-round appearances that included six national events and an invitation-only points race. Thomas continued to make the previously unattainable sub-seven-second pass the norm when he reached the ultra-fast track in Gainesville, Fla. in early March. On two consecutive qualifying runs, he lowered his personal-best elapsed time while raising his top-end mph at the same time. At that point, there was no question that Thomas' impressive early-season showing had the other Pro Stock drivers beginning to look over their shoulders. That all changed one week later in Houston, when his peers found that looking over their hood would be a better way to see Thomas' streaking Pennzoil Firebird. Overall, he laid down eight consecutive sub-seven-second runs at Houston Raceway Park including an NHRA all-time top-five ET of 6.889 seconds. The unbelievable pass put Thomas in the elite company of Warren Johnson, Kurt Johnson and Yates as the only Pro Stock drivers to ever trip the lights in under 6.89 seconds. During his impressive Texas two-step, Thomas dismantled the fastest Pro Stock qualifying field in history en route to the first national event final-round appearance of his career. In the nationally-televised final race, Thomas leap off the line well ahead of Warren Johnson but was denied the victory on the top-end of the track by a car-length. Although it wasn't quite a win, Thomas was able to head to Rockingham, N.C. with a big, second-place smile on his face. The personal-best mph mark of 199.11 set in qualifying was almost an afterthought in what was easily the best weekend of racing that Thomas had ever put together. At the invitation-only race in North Carolina, Thomas set out to prove his consistent, record-setting times were no fluke. Thomas easily accomplished his mission by qualifying in the sixth-place slot of the star- studded affair, reeling off runs of 6.955, 6.952 and 6.949 seconds. Shifting his momentum to Georgia, Thomas again showed his incredible horsepower by carding the first sub-seven second run in the Pro Stock field despite the uncooperative, ultra-humid weather. Five more passes under seven seconds were carded over the weekend which propelled Thomas two races deep into the elimination rounds. The best part of the Atlanta event, however, was the overall performance of Thomas' engines. In all, seven elimination round wins came courtesy of Finish Line powerplants including four by eventual winner Mark Osborne. In late April, Pennzoil rewarded Thomas for his stellar performances by replacing his Gumout Pontiac with the ultra-aerodynamic Pennzoil rig that he is currently piloting. Thomas spent the better part of the Pennzoil Nationals in Richmond, Va. and the Lone Star Nationals in Dallas fine-tuning the marriage of his superior engines and his new, trimmed-down chassis in real racing conditions. He also elected to stay at the Texas Motorplex after the last race to test his car repeatedly until he felt that he had it dialed in for maximum performance.
Finally satisfied after days of trial runs, Thomas headed north fully
expecting to gain his first professional win at the Mopar Parts Nationals at
Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J.
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