Wed, 15 Nov 2017, 13:07 PM Fun in the Sun Saturday Results

Courtesy of John DiBartolomeo

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Saturday dawned with typical Florida sunshine and blue skies over Bradenton Motorsports Park for the 4th edition of the Fun In The Sun bracket series presented by Lucas Oil and Drag Racing Edge magazine.

Friday's festivities were cut short at ten cars by a dropping temperature and an encroaching dew point. The decision was made to continue the round in its entirety along with reinstating Mike Bloomfield who won prior to the stoppage but crashed his car after the finish line.

In the sixth round, that left David Guerra's Vega taking out the dragster of Bobby Officer, while Alan Glatt prevailed over Trevor Beard's Chevelle. Mia Tedesco ended the hopes of Camryn Frederickson's Chevelle station wagon, while Gary Williams defeated Jeremy Bargo, and finally Tim Butler defeated Bloomfield.

For round seven, Butler received the odd car bye with Guerra and Williams moving on. Semifinal round, Guerra received the bye to ensure at least one door car in the final, while Williams and Butler did battle with Williams coming out on top.

In the finals, two close friends faced off and it was battle all the way, with Guerra's door car receiving the handicap start leaving with a .004 reaction time. Williams wasn't far behind with his own .003 reaction time making it a true finish line race with Williams taking a tight .002 of a second victory.

Next up was the first of two scheduled races for Saturday, first up another $10K to win. Round five found 11 survivors; Paul Rebis, Amy Crosby, Willard Pusey; Troy Williams Jr., Andre Nunez, Michael Valli; Dwayne Roberts; Severn Johnson, Victor Fera, John Brannen; and Jeff Keen. Winners of round six were Williams, Crosby, Johnson, Valli, Keen and Roberts.

Round seven, Williams defeated Roberts, Crosby took out Valli and Keen broke off the starting line to hand the win to Johnson. For the semifinals, Crosby took the bye to the final while Williams and Johnson battled it out with identical reaction times, but it was Williams taking a .004-second victory at the finish line. The final was a little anticlimactic as Crosby broke on the starting line to give Williams the room at the finish line for his victory.

Race No. 2, the Brown & Miller Racing Solutions $20K-to-win tried to get started after Race No. 1's final, but a slight rain cloud forced officials into a hold pattern. Once the rain was out of the area and the track was dry, racing continued. Unfortunately, the rain came back a number of times halting action for several minutes before it came back with a vengeance halfway through the second round. An executive decision was made to halt the activities for the night and continue bright and early on Sunday morning when the Brown & Miller Racing Solutions $20K will be completed followed by Race #4 of the weekend, a $10K-to-win affair.