Sun, 4 May 2008, 04:24 PM Pro Stock Round 3 Eliminations

By Dan Bennett

MADISON, Ill. - Results of round 3 eliminations in Pro Stock at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 12th annual O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals presented by Castrol:

 Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET---Speed-----Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT----ET---Speed
    3 Dave Connolly                           2 Greg Anderson                
E3   ****WINNER****  0.004  8.851 151.22                     0.052 29.371  NSR
 Prior rounds:
E2    (A Johnson   ) 0.034  6.661 207.43      (R Jones     ) 0.045  6.623 208.62
E1    (R Krisher   ) 0.039  6.668 208.10      (M Hartford  ) 0.052  6.616 208.49
 Qualified:             #3  6.595 208.36                        #2  6.590 208.49

3:12 p.m.

How much is riding on this pair? Connolly wants to continue his points surge,and Anderson wants to keep his going. Two of the strongest shops on the planet are going head to head right before our eyes.

70 degrees, 19%, and 30.13 Track temp is 109 degrees.

Anderson holds a 17-10 edge over Connolly on face to face matchups. He's 5-2 against him in the semifinal round.

OK, that lightning stuff is back as the theme from The Twilight Zone plays in our heads.

After Connolly nailed GA to the tree, both cars broke at about the same time. Anderson can't recover (I suspect broken driveline from the shake) so Connolly coasts across the line with a time that would only be a break out in Super Comp.

Absolutely amazing.

 Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET---Speed-----Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT----ET---Speed
    6 Kurt Johnson                           10 V. Gaines                    
E3   ****WINNER****  0.032  6.619 208.78                    -0.003  6.639 207.05
 Prior rounds:
E2    (J Coughlin  ) 0.014  6.620 209.33      (J Nobile    ) 0.023  6.626 207.91
E1    (T Hoerner   ) 0.056  6.581 209.36      (G Stanfield ) 0.044  9.327 127.01
 Qualified:             #5  6.598 209.39                        #9  6.619 207.50

This pair is over immediately.

Neither car cards killer short times (uh, that's why they went down the track!) but Gaines' red light seals the deal for Kurt.

Oh, by the way, the AC Delco car will have lane choice against Connolly.

The weirdest Pro Stock race in memory has one more pair to go.

Timing data courtesy of CompuLink