Fri, 7 Nov 2003, 10:05 PM Gone In 8.90 Seconds

By Bob Frey Photo by:Auto Imagery, Inc.

With only one national race to go, all of the Lucas Oil sportsman world championships have been decided except for the Super Comp class, and the way I see it there are five guys who could win the whole deal. The leader in the clubhouse is Gary Stinnett who has been in the lead for sometime now. Gary, the 1998 World Champion, has 638 points as we begin the weekend and that’s all that he will get for the season. Having completed his full compliment of races Gary can only try to win rounds and maybe block some of the other guys as they try to knock him off. With wins at the national events in Denver and Chicago to go with his divisional title in Texas, Gary had had a good season and he will be tough to beat this weekend and this year.

Jack Beckman

Coming on the heels of his big win at the divisional race in Las Vegas last weekend, “Fast” Jack Beckman finds himself in the position of being the closest challenger and the guy who may have the best shot at catching Gary. With 620 points, Jack will be trying to improve on a “50” point race, which means that he has to go to the fifth round if he wants to take the lead. Jack, who won the Winternationals to start this year and who also picked up a win at the Division 7 race in Sacramento, is one of the top drivers on the west coast and his “Blackbird” stealth dragster is always one of the crowd favorites. In Vegas, Jack also drove a Top Alcohol Dragster and it will be interesting to see if he doubles this weekend or if he puts all of his attention and energy on taking the Super Comp World Championship.

Anthony Castillo is the third driver with a chance to win it all and he enters the weekend with 617 points. Based on his success at the division races at Mission Raceway (both of them), Southern Oregon and Infineon Raceway, Anthony has shown that he can adapt to any track surface and conditions and that he can win on most of them. Even though he hasn’t been in the winner’s circle on the national level, Anthony has to be rated as one of the best young drivers on tour. His weekend, and his win, could be extra special since he is driving one of the cars from the POS Racing Team, a team that lost its leader, Don Rhyne in an accident earlier in the year. What a fitting tribute it could be to Don and his family if Anthony could win it all. To add to his point’s total Anthony has to go to the fifth round, but to overtake Gary he needs to get to the seventh round, or the semi-finals this weekend, assuming that there are more than 128 cars in the class.

Steve Williams, one of the great veterans of the D-7 scene, became a contender based on his consistent performances this year. Known to most fans as the driver of that really neat teal and white Chevrolet Corvette in Super Gas, Steve has already posted wins at the Seattle national event as well as at the out of division event at Thunder Valley Dragway in Noble, Oklahoma. With a 61 point performance to replace, Steve needs to go to the fifth round to start adding points but has to make it to the final round if he has any hopes of winning the championship. Still, based on his history on the west coast, don’t bet against Williams this weekend.

Milt Gedo

The final guy who has a shot at the big apple is Milt Gedo. Milt, with his seventh round showing at the monster bash in Vegas last week jumped right into title contention but he trails the other guys with 574 points. With a “40”to replace, he’ll begin adding to his total in the third round, but if he hopes to win it all he has to win it all. Nothing short of a win this weekend can secure the title for Milt, but as we all saw last year in the Super Gas class, anything is possible.

Last year Todd Stewart went to the Las Vegas divisional race trailing Tom Stalba by a whole bunch of points and he needed to win the race out there to keep his slim title hopes alive and, if he did that, he had to go another seven rounds at the “Finals” if he wanted to win the championship and he did just that. To make it even sweeter, at least for Todd, he beat Tom in the semi-finals in one of the great races of all time. Now, with five guys still in the hunt for the 8.90 title, all of them hope to have a Todd Stewart-like weekend this time around and hope that the other guys don’t. Good luck to them all and may the best man win!!