Sun, 18 May 2003, 05:57 PM Competition Eliminator Final, Round 5 Eliminations

By Larry Sullivan

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. - Results of final, round 5 eliminations in Competition Eliminator at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 34th annual K&N Filters SuperNationals presented by Pep Boys:

 Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET-- (+/-)-----Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET-- (+/-)
 7406 Vinnie Deceglie                      1144 Billy Griffin
E5                   0.138  7.043 -0.077     ****WINNER****  0.252  8.136 -0.494
        A/A Index: 7.12                          F/AA Index: 8.63
 Prior rounds:
E4    (G Russo     ) 0.272  7.321  0.201      (D Harris    ) 0.037  8.125 -0.515
E3    (D Eckel     ) 0.038  6.619 -0.661      (K Houghtalin) 0.035  8.135 -0.635
E2    (A Armstrong ) 0.222 10.649  3.369      (V Smeland   ) 0.058  8.665 -0.105
E1    (T Ekroth    ) 0.045  7.275 -0.005      (D Bartucci  ) 0.224  8.262 -0.618
 Qualified:            #11  6.625 -0.655                        #4  8.126 -0.754

5:47 PM These two came to the final carrying mere vestiges of their original indexes, Deceglie -0.16 and Griffin a whopping -0.25 seconds in CIC penalties from prior rounds. This even must have set some kind of record for destroying Comp indexes, very few winners managing to get the win light without going more than 0.6 seconds under their index.

Griffin came in carrying the bigger load, then gave Deceglie even more with a very late light, but Deceglie's car overpowered the starting line, getting very sideways. Despite the bad start, the awesome A/Altered was closing fast at the finish, but he just couldn't catch him.

Timing data courtesy of CompuLink