The sun had finally set by the time round two rolled around, with the track temperature falling to 125 degrees, ambient air temperature dropping to about 90 degrees and humidity going down slightly. It at least had returned to sauna-like conditions.

Critchley’s weekend was over, though, as Payne drove around him at the top end. Kuhns then went red in his ’63 ‘Vette against Hernandez, and Ashley took out his teammate with a holeshot win over Coughlin. Patterson also used a starting line advantage to get past King and head to the semis for a match against Hernandez and his Howard Moon-tuned ’57 Chevy.

Once there, Hernandez left first and led all the way, posting a 6.246 to beat the 6.275 by Patterson. In the other semi-final, Payne’s Valvoline-backed 2005 Stratus held a very narrow lead over Ashley to halftrack, but the champ powered past with a 6.238 against Payne’s 6.245 to claim a margin of victory of just .0039 seconds.

“For where we qualified (8th) it wasn’t that bad; we actually gained a little ground (in points),” Payne said afterwards. “The car ran better and went down the track every run and that’s half the battle. Mike Ashley just beat us; that’s why he’s the world champion.”

Starting from the 8th qualifying position, Jay Payne drove team owner Brad Anderson’s ’05 Stratus to the semis, where he came out less than a foot and a half short of knocking out Mike Ashley.

The final round pairing offered Hernandez an opportunity to avenge a loss at Columbus, OH, barely three weeks earlier when Ashley took the event title from him. This time, it was Hernandez off the line first with a stellar .020 reaction, and then he just legged it out to a winning 6.202 at 228.92 mph, his quickest and fastest pass of the weekend. Ashley made a good run, too, leaving with a .038 light and running 6.228 at 229.31 mph.

“If you look at the way I lost, it was to a guy who did a phenomenal job driving and to a team that did a phenomenal job tuning their car. They tuned better than us today and he drove better than I did today and that’s okay because that’s a tough team to beat,” Ashley concluded.

Mike Ashley, from Melville, NY, steered his Chuck Ford-tuned ’67 Mustang GT to its seventh final round this season, but his win total remained at five so far.

“It was great to beat the champ. Everybody is always shooting for him and we’re no different. It makes you feel good,” Hernandez said, adding that he wasn’t aware of where his challenger was all the way down the strip. “Always as a driver you try not to look over to see where the other guy is, you’ve got to race the track, I didn’t have time to look over, I mean, it was everything I could do to keep the car in the middle of the groove. We were giving it everything we had to get to the other end and the 6.20 showed it. I didn’t lift ‘til I saw the green light on the wall on my side that tells you you’ve got the win.”

The Valdosta race was the 11th of 14 AMS/TLR Pro Mod Challenge events this season, with the next scheduled for Sept. 1-5, as part of the NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park.