Martin began his late spring-time Vegas experience by qualified number one in the very competitive 7.0 Pro category after only one qualifying attempt. His 7.02 second run was only 0.02 seconds away from the 7.00 second index. Earlier in the weekend, Martin tested his MULTISTACK / PROLONG Blown Alcohol Funny car and ran a 6.96 elapsed time, which served as the team's first six-second run. Heading into eliminations, Martin, the defending NHRA Heritage Series 7.0 Pro champion and his talented crew lead by Howard Mazei were quietly confident they would return to the winner circle at weekend's end.
This is when Lady Luck entered the equation.
Martin captured two consecutive round wins courtesy of bye-runs after his opponent in round one broke and was unable to make the call. Due to a short field of racers, the number one qualifier received a bye-run in round two, which propelled the MULTISTACK / PROLONG Flopper into a semi-final race with the powerful APM Motorsports 1948 Fiat driven by Paul Peterson.
The race was over before it officially began, as Peterson was a bit too quick on the starting-line and left the 'red tomato' on the Christmas Tree glowing bright. Martin raced down "The Strip" with a good conservative run, setting up a final round pairing with Richard High; a match-up of the current top two point earners of the 2010 season.
"When we attempted to fire up the car for the final round race, the car wouldn't turn over," noted Martin. "Richard had already done his burnout and the starter had us "on the clock". We eventually got the car fired up with 3 seconds left on the clock, did a short burnout and staged." Martin's lucky streak finally came to conclusion as High red-lighted his race championship away, while Martin's sat there at the starting line, dead in the water after losing power at the flash of the green light.
"This weekend was all about luck, not skill for our team," Martin concluded. "But, of all the luck we captured it was actually the sportsmanship and kindness of Richard High in the final round which gave us a chance to even compete in the money round. He was very patient with us and waited for us to fire up. We'd like to thank him and his team for their outstanding example of why drag racers are the best racers in motorsports."
Martin and his MULTISTACK / PROLONG Alcohol Funny Car team leave the Las Vegas race with the point lead. The team will be back on track in late July at the next Heritage Series 7.0 race contested at Sacramento Raceway.
To learn more about Will Martin and his MULTISTACK / PROLONG Super Lubricant's sponsored team, please visit http://www.jamairmotorsports.com.
