SUNSHINE STATE NATIONALS AT MOROSO

by Angela Wall. Photos by Adam Cranmer.

Carlos Montano won the Pro Comp class in front of a large Moroso crowd of sport compact fans.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL - Moroso Motorsports Park and the National Import Racing Association (NIRA) were host to over 250 sport compact race cars on September 30. The event also had 220 of South Florida's phatest show cars covering the paddock. The sport compact fans were lining up at the front gate to see Moroso's NIRA Sunshine State Nationals.

On Moroso's quarter-mile drag strip, Florida racers were dominating the competition and took home eight out of the thirteen titles. In the Pro Import class Orlando's Walderman Vazquz defeated Trinidad, Bahamas native Ryan Garcia when Garcia broke on the starting line.

Local racer Joey Gonzalez of Japtrix was on the money in his '90 Mazda RX7 when he downed Eulfrates Fernandez of Miami. Gonzalez had a .532 bulb, an E.T. of 11.738 at 130.79 mph. In the Super 4 class Neal Sutton of Tampa, who has taken many of monies home from Moroso, was just able to take the title from Son Way when he went down the track in 12.541 seconds at 106.29 mph to Way's 12.579 seconds at 107.68.

The fastest run of the day was in the Pro Comp class run by Carlos Montano of Paterson, NJ in a '71 Datsun with a rotary engine. Montano had the old school car going 143.33 mph and the quarter-mile was gone in 8.646 seconds.

Moroso Performance Products, Moroso Motorsports Park's sister company, had their '93 Honda Civic project car on property for the event, and the team was rather impressive with a #1 Qualifying position in the Pro 4 Cylinder class. Driver Mike Kugler had his work cut out for him going up against Casselberry, FL's Travis Bussin. Bussin got the win light in the final round with an E.T. of 11.043 at 132.54 mph.

T. Callazo tries out the road course - the hard way.

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