CALENDAR

1/ Tyronne Tremayne is not Invincible - but he is close to it

Heading into the Nitro Champs, Tyronne Tremayne had won his last 4 starts in a Pro Stock car dating back to last season. With 15 cars on the property and Tremayne having not been in a car for close to 10 months, everyone thought that he might finally have a chink in his armor.

Then he dropped a 6.93 to shake off the rust in q1, a 6.867 @199.67 in q2 to cement the #1 spot by over three hundredths of a second.

By the time racing began, everyone was wondering just how quick he could go – and we found out, with a 6.855 at 199.85 mph enough to re-set both ends of the National Record in round, and a near identical 6.858 at 199.82 in round two.

If you don’t think that he will be out to avenge his holeshot loss in the final against Rob Dekert….. you’d be wrong. Way wrong. Expect to see “The Terminator” back with vengeance this June.

2/ Rob Dekert is one bad man behind the wheel

Coming into the Pro Stock Final, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he might be a little distracted. Throughout racing, he had been consistently a couple of hundredths behind Tyronne Tremayne, although his reaction times had been fairly solid.

Add in the weight of his long-time crew member (and partner of Crew Chief Paul Drady) Hayley Turns tuning in from her hospital bed, and you would probably give Rob a free pass.

Blocking out the distractions (and showing why he is the reigning champ) he strapped a .033 to .069 reaction time advantage on Tremayne, and held the advantage to the stripe with his slower (but still his quickest of the weekend) 6.887 to defeat a 6.876.

And he now holds a 105-point lead over second place John Barbagallo in the Championship. With only two rounds of the series left to run, it’s going to take something special to chase him down from this point.

3/ There is no Monopoly on Horsepower this year

The most surprising thing about the 15-car pro stock field at the Nitro Champs was just how tight qualifying was.

With no less that 6 engine builders represented, the top 6 qualifiers were in the 6 second zone, the top 11 qualifiers were within three tenths of a second and by the time the weekend was done, the SLOWEST Pro Stock car in the field had run a 7.06 – just over two tenths of a second behind the new national record.

Pro Stock this season is closer than it has been for a very long time. And the Winternationals can’t come soon enough, with 11 cars vying for an 8 car field meaning that just qualifying is going to be tough. Expect at least one big name to miss out – the balance of probability means that it is likely to happen.

5/ Rection Times Matter - Holeshots for the win!

Of the 16 paired runs in Pro Stock racing, 4 were decided on holeshots (including the final round). With the entire field covered by just tenths of a second, and in some cases thousandths between the cars, reaction times have never been more important in Pro Stock.

Even Aaron Tremayne, statistically one of the sharpest on the tree over the last 15years, nearly fell afoul of a holeshot. His .146 reacted 6.931 squeaked past John Kabboura’s .017 reacted 7.062 by just .002s – the closest race of the weekend.

It was just a blip on the radar though, as Tremayne bounced back in the B final (predictably) with a near psychic .001 reaction time in his win over Mario Polito, who moved up to third in the championship with a solid weekend in which he re-set his personal best ET.

The series now moves on to the Gulf Western Oil Winternationals on the 5-8 June for the second last event of the season, before the PDRC Grand Final at Dragway at the Bend on October  3-5 as part of the Springnationals.