On the weekend of May 7th and 8th, the NHRA Sport Compact Drag racing series made its second visit of the year to the sunshine state. Situated in northern Florida, Gainesville is the home of the Gatornationals and the fans here know and love their drag racing. The sport compact series event is a popular event on the calendar and the fans came out to support the racers in droves.
Coming into the event, all-motor favorite, Ken Scheepers, was on a roll with a couple of victories behind him as was GM's Hot Rod contender Marty Ladwig. Matt Scranton and George Ioannou are locked in what looks like a potential year-long battle in the Pro-RWD class and the FWD drivers John Brown and Nelson Hoyos are locking horns.
QualifyingWith a close eye on the weather that is always a little unpredictable in Florida at this time of year, the teams started qualifying on Saturday. Thankfully, the threatening clouds never produced any rain and the qualifying sessions took place without a hitch.
Qualifying produced very few surprises. In the all-motor class, current champion, Jesus Padilla, briefly held the pole with his '85 RX7, running a 10.524 at 125.73 mph until arch rival Ken Scheepers bumped him out of the top spot with a 10.464 at 125.97 mph. The Mopar Neon of Scott Mohler slipped between the two rear-wheel-drive RX7s in the final session to clinch second place with a 10.503 at an impressive 132.31mph.
The super-competitive Hot Rod class qualifying was, once again, dominated by the domestic manufacturers. Mike Crawford blasted to the pole position with an 8.597 at 163.30mph in his SRT-4 Neon, closely followed by the Pontiac Sunfire of Marty Ladwig, who ran an 8.693 at 165.95 mph. Kenny Tran was the first of the imports. Tran, driving the Quaker State Civic posted an 8.732 at 169.58 mph to tie up third. Behind Tran, in qualifying order, came the Venom Civic of champion Bruce Mortensen. Mortensen ran an 8.970 at 156.87mph.
The Modified class saw Cesar Febus and Jimmy O'Connor going at it for the top spot. Febus was simply too fast for O'Connor and clinched the pole with a 7.919 at 173.98 mph. The Venom Supra managed to run an 8.279 at 149.15 mph to secure second and Alex Deiguez took his '82 Corolla to third place with a 9.387 at 149.22 mph.
The big news at the Gainesville race was the debut of Shaun Carlson's Dodge SRT-4 Pro-FWD car. The super-clean Carlson car was the talk of the pits and Carlson wasted no time in proving just how capable the new car would be. In the first session Carlson clicked off an 8.299 at 180.21 mph, stunning the assembled spectators. Carlson followed this up with an 8.228 at 181.70 mph to destroy the old record with ease.
Nelson Hoyos, in second place, managed to steer GM Cavalier to an 8.567 at 177.61 mph, but it was obvious that Carlson was the man to beat and it would take some kind of miracle to deny him a victory on the weekend of his birthday.
Local racer Matt Scranton was not going to make beating him an easy task in Gainesville in the Pro-RWD class. Scranton clinched the pole with a 6.927 at 202.20 mph in the Turbonetics Celica. The Bullish Racing double-act of Ara Arslanian and George Ioannou put the Streetglow Solaras into second and third with a 6.973 and a 7.080 respectively.