John Montecalvo had a stellar weekend from start to finish at the IHRA Sooner Nationals. He
qualified number one, took home Last Man Standing honors, set a new track record, and went to the
final round where he lost in a tight battle against Pete Berner. Landing himself on the pole in
qualifying scored Montecalvo a competition bye run in round one. He then faced off against Richard
Freeman in round two, where Montecalvo reset both ends of the track record with a 6.365 at 220.15
mph. He put down another impressive run in the semis to make it to the final round. The Montecalvo
versus Berner battle was a repeat of last year's Sooner Nationals final round. Montecalvo and
Berner put on a good show, with .01 separating them at the finish. Both drivers had .02 lights, but
Montecalvo's
6.395 wasn't quite enough to fend off Berner's 6.386.
"You hate to get beat any time," said Montecalvo, "but if you have to get beat I guess that was a
good way. We were in back-to-back finfals here at Tulsa and it would have been nice to win this
year, but we had a good race, and I can't complain too much about that. We ran the left lane pretty
much all weekend, which seemed to be the better lane. So when we got put in the right lane in the
finals we set up a little conservative. It wasn't quite enough, but we gave the fans a good race,
and all in all it was a good weekend. Thanks to my crew for their hard work in making this a great
weekend."
Montecalvo's impressive showing puts him in good standing for the Pro Stock points chase. The
battle tightened considerably following the Sooner Nationals with only a few rounds separating the
top four placers.
"I'm happy with our results from this weekend," continues Montecalvo.
"We've got good power. Our motor issues are obviously in the past. I think we're in good shape for
the rest of the year. There are some great competitors in this class; I think we saw that this
weekend. The points chase could really get interesting over these next few races.
I'm looking forward to battling it out."
The next Pro Stock stop on the IHRA tour is the Mopar Canadian Nationals in Grand Bend, Ontario, to
be held July 17-19. If Montecalvo continues putting up numbers like the ones from this weekend, the
fans may very well see him in the finals again.
