Rieger trailed Pro Street’s two biggest names, Tony Christian and Pat Musi, in qualifying. The ever popular Christian’s ’57 Chevy popped a 6.867 for the lead with Musi’s 6.959 and Rieger’s 6.999 in hot pursuit.

At round one’s conclusion, it appeared the issue would be settled between Rieger and Christian. Rieger’s ’96 Olds Cutlass hung up a 6.863 to erase Chuck Samuels’ 98 Chevy S-10 with Christian a hair ahead with a 6.861 thumping of Tony Darwin’s ’96 Viper.

Musi never really got himself untracked and into his usual mode during eliminations. He spun to a 7.00 / 201.79 in beating Robert Michaud in the opening frame, but another 7.00 was mauled by Rieger’s semi-final 6.866.

In the upset of the day, the dead nuts on Christian missed at the Tree against a surprising Joe Dellamaggiore in the semi’s with a red-light. Dellamaggiore had earlier surprised the fans with a 6.95 / 188.71 to 6.94 / 199.91 win over Annette Summer in round one.

 Reiger file photo 

In the final, Rieger whipped out the brass knuckles and mugged Dellamaggiore’s shut off ’99 Firebird with a record 6.784/206.42.

“This marks the first time I’ve begun an NMCA season with a win,” said Rieger. “Last year’s race here for us was terrible. We blew up a motor in qualifying and didn’t even make the show.

“We didn’t set the world on fire in qualifying at this race. I never got down the track in three runs and settled for the third spot. I was trying something different and it wasn’t developing fast enough, so we went back to our old set-up for the race and ran well. The 6.78 stacks up pretty good against the 6.77 record we set at Atlanta last year.”

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