SMITH SEEKING THIRD STRAIGHT WIN, STRANGLEHOLD ON GET SCREENED AMERICA PRO MOD SERIES POINTS RACE
NORWALK, Ohio – It ain’t over til it’s over, but if Von Smith wins again this weekend it’ll certainly be close.
With two straight wins entering this weekend’s event at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park, June 25-27, the driver of the Barwa/Al-Anabi ’68 Camaro has a chance to take complete control of the points race in the first-year NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series.
“We’re hoping to take the positives from the last two races and carry it into this weekend and win another one,” said Smith, who already has three wins and a 92-point lead through the first six races of the 10-race Get Screened America Pro Mod Series season.
This weekend’s race marks the third in a row that the Get Screened America Pro Mod Series drivers will be in action, the most taxing stretch of the 10-race schedule for the drivers in the first-year Series, but one that Smith welcomes.
“The more we race back-to-back the better it is for me and the team, just staying jelled,” Smith said. “We’re very fortunate that we had the Englishtown race and then we came home, that just helped us logistics-wise to come home. I’ve always said the more I can race back-to-back the better we race and it’s showing that that’s the way it is.”
The win in Bristol was his third overall this season – the Oak Ridge, Tenn. native had previously won at the AAA Insurance NHRA Nationals in St. Louis on May 2 and the NHRA SuperNationals in New Jersey on June 13 -- in the first six events and it’s given him a commanding 92-point lead over Danny Rowe and a 97-point lead over Jay Payne.
“While I like the lead, I want to have a bigger lead leaving Norwalk,” he said. “It’s not (comfortable), if you listen to (the other teams), we heard (in Bristol), ‘you win this and it’s done’ and it’s not even close to done. On this team, (the mindset is) keep your head down. The lead could be taken up in one race by us not qualifying.”
The last time Smith was in Norwalk, in 2007, he advanced to the Top Alcohol Funny Car final round in the Centre Pointe Collision Camaro and he finished runner-up to current NHRA Full Throttle Series Funny Car racer Bob Tasca.
While he’d certainly like a third straight win, a repeat of that runner-up this weekend would put him in a great position heading into the two-month break before Indy. After this weekend’s event, the Get Screened America Pro Mod Series will not race again until Labor Day weekend at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, which is the first of the three final races to end the season – they will finish with races in Charlotte and Las Vegas.
“I’m not crazy about (the break),” Smith said. “But hopefully, at least we’re in a good position going into it.”
Featuring the world’s fastest and most unique doorslammer cars with an extremely diverse collection of vehicles, including ’63 Corvettes, ’68 Camaros, ’67 Mustangs, ’68 Firebirds as well as late model cars, the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series offers something for every kind of hot-rodding enthusiast.
In addition to Von Smith, other pre-race favorites in the category include Californian Danny Rowe and Canada’s Kenny Lang. Veteran racers Jay Payne, Troy Coughlin and Melanie Troxel also will be in the hunt. Others to watch include Roger Burgess, Ray Commisso, Burton Auxier, Mike Knowles and Ed Hoover.
• SCHEDULE: Get Screened America qualifying sessions are scheduled for 4 and 6:30 p.m. on June 25 and the final qualifying session is at 11 a.m. on June 26. The first round of eliminations begins June 26 at 2 p.m. Pro Mod eliminations will continue on Sunday, June 27, starting at approximately 1 p.m.
• TICKETS: Tickets are available for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. Please call Summit Motorsports Park at (419) 668-5555 or visit www.tix.com to purchase tickets online.
• ON TV: ESPN2 and ESPN2HD will televise 30-minutes of racing highlights from the Get Screened America Pro Mod Series portion of the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals Sunday, July 11 at 11:30 a.m. (ET).
• ON THE WEB: Get live timing, scoring, multimedia and the latest news updates from every NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series event on the Internet at www.nhra.com. Visit the official NHRA pages on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
