In the final round against Hopkins, Hall left .002 too soon, throwing away a stellar run that matched Wren’s qualifying mark and represented the first seven-second pass by a nitrous car on radial tires at Orlando. Hopkins went on to win with a troubled 10.813 at 83.20 mph.

After 54 cars took their shots, it was the 2000 Camaro of defending event champ Rob Golobo that sat on top of the Heavy Street qualifying list, with two-time past winner Schroeder starting second.

Fittingly, these two heavy hitters advanced through the rounds on raceday and met up in the final.

Rob Golobo said he staged a little deeper than intended for the Heavy Street final and that contributed to his redlight start. He said he’ll be back in Orlando for next year’s race, but plans to enter the Outlaw 10.5 class.

After the burnouts, there was obvious confusion and commotion in the cockpit of Schroeder’s ’02 Camaro as the Stamford, CT-based driver realized he had lost first gear. Golobo was unaware of his rival’s problems, though, and after both staged, he left with a .050 redlight. Schroeder’s car lurched forward at the green, but made it barely a car length off the line before the transmission ate itself up.

“I never knew he went red,” Schroeder said, “and when these guys (his crew) came running up all excited I put down both windows because I though the car was on fire or something. Then he started banging on my helmet yelling, ‘We won! We won!’ and that’s when I knew it. This was a crazy, stressful race!”

John Schroeder, who won at Orlando in 2002 and 2003, but took last year off, returned to the winner’s circle this year with a very lucky break.

Track operator and promoter Carl Weisinger said the 13th annual running of this great race attracted record crowds and car counts. Plus, this year was the first in which none of the qualifying or elimination rounds were interrupted by rain.

“It just keeps getting better,” he said with a smile. “There’s only one Orlando.”