Race Coverage - NHRA Pro Mods at Englishtown

Then there were the elapsed times. Anyone who thought that the Hemi was going to dominate this class had that thought erased by former Pro Mod World Champ Tim McAmis.

McAmis uses the latest Alan Johnson Olds/Wedge motors and is rumored to get a lot of tuning help from Johnson himself. The display he put on at E-Town would make that rumor hard to argue with. All McAmis did was make laps of 6.126/231.79, 6.097/231.87,

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6.097/231.20 and a losing (!) 6.084/231.95 in the first round against Mike Ashley, who ran a career best 6.125.

Then there were the eighth-mile times for those of you who are truly stat oriented. Tim McAmis had times of 3.982/184.75 and 3.968/184.93. Mitch Stott (lead photo) and brother Quain also had sub-four second eighth-mile times.

Other than the assault that McAmis put on the record book and his fellow opponents, many other racers at E-Town had incredible performances. Quain Stott ran 6.10 laps at over 230 and brother Mitch a 6.09 -- both numbers career best at legal weight.

So the bottom line at E-Town was this. It was, in terms of performance, the greatest race in the history of Pro Modified. Racers who ran elapsed times that would have been World Records just a while back found them only good enough for first or second alternate. The best nitrous oxide-injected car was still a tenth behind the best blown car. And everybody proved that on race day the victory doesn't always go to the quickest and fastest car.

ASHLEY ALMOST MAKES IT

On the track where he was "made" as a Pro Mod star when he drove his nitrous oxide-injected Firebird to a then unheard of speed of 214+, Mike Ashley almost pulled off another coupe. He parlayed a holeshot against low qualifier Tim McAmis in the first round, and a straight ahead win in the second against Thomas Patterson to get to the final round. But in the final it was just too much Mitch Stott and Jimmy Rector. Ashley's .401 light was good, but not good enough to stay ahead of Stott, who combined a .407 light with a 6.132 lap to win his second race of the year.

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