Vinny would have to be on top of his game if he would defeat Jorge Juarbe, driving the 300Z owned by Cesar Febus. Juarbe had easily taken out Jose Escalara in the first round when he fouled, and Jose Ramos was more than a second slower in the semis. But after Vinny's and Juarbe's burnouts in the final round, what could have been an incredibly close race was all lost. While backing up, Vinny rolled back a little short. Juarbe staged and Vinny moved forward to do the same, but rolled the beams. Vinny sat expecting the starter to allow him to move back, but the lights were popped and Juarbe was gone with Vinny's lane lit red. This gave the rather anticlimactic win to Juarbe.
Pro Class
It's always entertaining when two identical cars cross the finish line at speeds of more than 200 mph. And that's what Goerge Ioannou and Ara Arslanian gave the crowd in the first round. Both competitors left the line with their Solaras at the same moment, but Ioannou had just a little more power as he pulled ahead of Arslanian by the finish by half a car length.
Grant Downing and the Venom Tundra and Matt Hartford and the Summit Racing Cavalier had a hard time breaking in the first round. This put Jorge Lazcano against Jose LeDue in the semis. And while Lazcano has run 7s in the past, he gave the instant win to LeDue when he red lit.
Ioannou had a Bye in the semis, but the real drama occurred after his pass trying to crawl out of the driver's seat. After removing his helmet, Ioannou scraped his scalp on the latch that holds up the safety netting, leaving a bleeding 3-inch gash. Medics wouldn't let him run his final round until he went to the hospital. Would he make it back to the track in time to make his final round run against LeDue?
With the final round almost through, a stitched-up Ioannou was rushed back to his racecar waiting in the lanes. And to show the crowd just how well he was doing, he laid down a 6.857-second pass at 203 mph, shutting the door on any hopes LeDue may have had of taking the Pro Class win.
All Motor
Competition was close as most all-motor entrants were within a second of each other. If any competitors had a bad launch or poor reaction, they'd probably be packing up early. In the quarterfinal round, the old-school VW Bug of Daniel Rodriguez took out the Corrado of Nate Romero.
But any hopes of Rodriguez finishing first were squelched in the semis when he ran an off-pace 12-second pass to Chad Barber's 11.426. Barber had taken out Edwin Velez in the quarterfinal round, and with a victory in the semis, Barber secured a position in the finals.
Also making his way through the pack was Buddy Dunagan. Dunagan wasn't the fastest all-motor car, but he was the most consistent, running solid, low 12-second times as well as garnering quick reaction times, as Lisa Feehely saw in the quarterfinal round and Dedrick Medina saw in the semis. Dunagan managed a holeshot on Chad Barber in the final round, but it all came down to horsepower. Barber was able to easily pull ahead of Dunagan by midtrack, finishing almost a second faster and giving Barber the IDRC All-Motor win.