PRO MOD

Billy Harper was the somewhat surprising top qualifier in Pro Mod at Norwalk with a 6.227-secs pass in his nitrous-assisted Dodge Viper. Steve Vick rounded out the 16-car field with a 6.354 in his '68 Camaro, while notable names on the DNQ list included Annette Summer (who missed the cut by just .005 secs), former series champs Mike Janis and Ed Hoover, defending champion Shannon Jenkins, and Al Billes.

The World Nationals was the first race Thomas Patterson entered after taking two months off to concentrate on his family's Houston-based excavating business.
"If I would have known this was the way it would have transpired, I would've made
my schedule to race one and off three," he joked after winning his second career
Pro Mod title.

Eventual race winner Thomas Patterson put his blown '41 Willys into the show with a 6.343 that placed him 13th, then beat Fred Hahn, Pat Moore, and an impressive Von Smith in the preliminaries. On the other side of the ladder, Quain Stott made it through Harold Martin and a redlighting Sal Passarelli before making a bye run in the semis after Tony Pontieri couldn't answer the call.

Despite losing the reaction time battle in the final, Patterson was able to get the win with a 6.378 at 221.31-mph pass, compared to the 6.497 at 219.79 laid down by Stott in his supercharged '63 'Vette. "Even though we had Patterson by .05 on the tree, we buzzed the clutch and our luck run out in the end," Stott explained.

FUNNY CAR

Points leader Rob Atchison led the way in qualifying for what turned out to be the first all-five-second Funny Car field in IHRA history. Atchison's pole-sitting 5.832-secs pass was credited as a track record, though his crew pointed out that Dale Brand went 5.799 in qualifying number one at Norwalk last year. Regardless, Monty Todd filled the 16th spot with a 5.973 at 235.15 mph.

Jim Sickles secured his career-first IHRA win at Norwalk in record-setting fashion.

The record-keeping mix-up was laid to rest once-and-for-all in round one when Jim Sickles reset both ends of the track record with a 5.779-secs pass at 245.81 mph against Chris Foster. Sickles then went 5.801 in a second-round bye and reset his new records to 5.769 at 246.17 with another bye run in the semis.

That set up a final-round date with double-dealing Von Smith, who beat Dan Roman, Ronnie Midyette, and Mark Thomas to get there. Smith left first by .041 secs, but fell less than half a car length short of Sickles in the Meyer's RV Super Centers-backed Camaro, as it went 5.828 at 245.23 to Smith's 5.880 at 240.55 mph.

"We had a good time running against the guys over here," Sickles said after his first IHRA appearance in 2003. "This is an outstanding facility and the IHRA certainly knows how to treat its racers. This was a good win."