For Mel Bush Motorsports and Driver Tommy D'Aprile the rain delayed ADRL's Ford Drive One event
will be known as "The one that got away".
When Friday's test sessions at the ADRL'S Hardee's Independence Drags III were over it was clear
that Tommy D was at the wheel of the car to beat. Posting high 3.80 runs near 200 miles per hour
when no other team had made a full pass made it clear that the Red '62 of Mel Bush was on a
mission.
When the ADRL's Ford Drive One event re-started D'Aprile was in the second round with lane choice
over veteran outlaw racer, Todd Tutterow. Tutterow took an early lead due to his reaction time but
was no match for the hard charging D'Aprile. D'Aprile took the win with the quickest elapsed time
of the round, 3.812 at 196.33 to Tutterow's 3.917 at 197.31.
The win over Tutterow gave D'Aprile lane choice over Roger Henson's Widow Maker driven by Bubba
Stanton. Stanton took out Travis Swearingen and Wes Johnson on his way to the semis.
Again D'Aprile gave up a slight starting line advantage but was able to quickly overcome the
deficit. Then disaster struck. Just passed half-track with the race in the bag the throttle cable
broke. D'Aprile watched as a Stanton struggled to gain traction and then passed the 62' Bel Air of
Mel Bush on his way to the finals.
A dejected D'Aprile knew the race was his to loose. "We had the best car today but sometimes luck
isn't on your side. There's nothing we can do now other than move forward and put this behind us,"
said D'Aprile.
To add insult to injury the losing run counted as one of D'Aprile's qualifying passes for the
ADRL'S Hardee's Independence Drags III, leaving only two more shots to get into the field for that
event.
On his second attempt D'Aprile and his crew needed to adjust to a green race surface. Heavy rains
poured down the night before leaving bald sections on the track. D'Aprile posted a 4.10 pass good
enough for 15th at the end of the session.
While waiting in the lanes D'Aprile watched as his 4.10 was moved to the bump spot. As D'Aprile
brought the RPMs against the two-step you could hear something was not right. The engine was
screaming and when the car launched it blew the tires off ending what looked to be a promising
weekend for the Mel Bush Motorsports team.
"This is tough. These guys work real hard and for two malfunctions to bite us in the same weekend
is just unreal," said Team Owner Mel Bush. "We'll regroup and be ready for Virginia. We can't let
this get us down".
