DRO/NMM Cup winner decided on last lap of 2003 season

Words and photos by Jeff Burk
10/30/03

n the history of drag racing world championships no -- and I mean no - - championship has had as bizarre an ending as the just completed DRO/NMM Cup points race that decided the World Championship for the NHRA AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge.

Going into the final race of the 10-race series there were four drivers and teams with a mathematical chance of winning the championship. Fred Hahn, Mitch Stott, Tim McAmis, all of who had previously won Pro Mod world championships at other sanctioning bodies, and Thomas Patterson, who was still looking for his first.

This is where things started to get weird. Fred Hahn was leading the points chase but only by 15 points over Mitch Stott due to the fact that Hahn and tuner Jim Oddy had failed to quality at the previous two NHRA races and Mitch and his tuner Jimmy Rector had failed to qualify at the Dallas event. Tim McAmis had been qualifying well but taking early exits, so he was just over 100 points back.

Patterson needed some help from the drivers in front of him to have any chance to win. In other words, Hahn and Stott had to not qualify again and Patterson had to qualify in front of Tim McAmis, who had qualified on the pole for several races during the season and holds the ET record for the class at 6.084.

Points leader Hahn basically just had to qualify for the field and go one more round that Stott to win the world championship.

After three laps of qualifying, the unthinkable, the unbelievable had happened.

Late Saturday night on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the last qualifying session for the AMS Pro Modifieds began. Thomas Patterson was qualified deep in the field but, guess what? Fred Hahn, Mitch Stott and Tim McAmis had been unable to put their supercharged Pro Mods into the eight-car field. For all three of those drivers, their tuners and teams, the pressure was nearly suffocating.

Basically all that Hahn, Stott, or McAmis had to do was qualify and the championship was theirs. The first of the three to attempt was Stott. He ran his best of the event. A 6.313 elapsed time put him solidly into the field in the seventh spot.

Hahn sat in the water box and watched Stott bump into the show and knew that if he was going to have a shot at the Championship he would have to do better than Tim McAmis' 6.329. He ran a 6.332 and as far as anyone was concerned Hahn and Oddy's championship season was over.

As Hahn and Oddy rolled by in the turn-around area there was a celebration going on around the Radiac Abrasives-backed Corvette of Mitch Stott at the urging of the ESPN cameras and crews. Since the Oddy team hadn't qualified and they were solidly in the field it seemed certain the Stott crew had qualified and locked up the Championship. Stott went over and sincerely consoled Jim Oddy and Fred Hahn