Mark Thomas (near lane) left with a .047 reaction to Chris Foster's .067 in the final round.

Thomas said he felt bad for Atchison, but knew he had to take the opportunity to get ahead while the champ was down. "Rob's a great guy and a great racer, but we're out here to go rounds and win a championship, so we have to take advantage of this while we can."

After defeating John Bojec, Neal Parker, and Terry McMillen in the prelims, Thomas lined up in the final round against Chris Foster, who took care of David Ray, Sipple, and Dan Roman on his side of the ladder. When the green came on, Thomas got the jump by .020 on Chris Foster in the Alky Funny Car final, then ran his slowest pass of the day at 6.043 to take the win. Meanwhile, Foster had a decent run going until just past half-track when his car suddenly nosed over.

"It actually had the nose out in front of Mark when it went bang! It broke a rotor in the supercharger and blew the side of the case off," Foster explained. "It lifted the blower off the intake when it let go and it was doing the dance on the intake while I was getting it stopped."

PRO STOCK

Elijah Morton, from nearby Jacksonville, NC, fell to Nobile in the semis for the second-straight race. "We've got some New Yorkers out here taking over and we would've liked to beat then, especially since this is our home track," Morton said. "This engine is getting a little tired, so we'll take it back and let Jon (Kaase) do his magic on it and we'll get 'em next time."

Pro Stock action was marred at Rockingham by a violent rollover crash suffered by veteran driver John Bartunek just after posting a 6.551-second pass at 211.79 in Saturday's final qualifying session. Fortunately, Bartunek escaped the accident shaken but uninjured, but his 2003 Cavalier was an almost total write-off.

Top qualifying honors went to John Nobile with a 6.520, with Carl Baker rounding out the 16-car field at 6.601 seconds. Fifteen drivers went home early with a DNQ beside their names.

"You couldn't write a better script than what we're going through," John Montecalvo said after scoring his second win in as many races this year. "The car's fast, the team is working well, I'm driving good, and we're having fun!"

Montecalvo, the number-three qualifier, overcame a holeshot by Floyd Cheek in the opening round, had the second given to him by a redlighting Tony Gillig, and beat Pete Berner in the semis after starting with a stellar .006 light. On the other side, Nobile easily outdistanced Baker and Ron Miller before taking a very narrow victory over Elijah Morton in his semi final.

So, not only did "The Rock" produce a repeat winner in Pro Stock, but Nobile also finished runner-up for the second-straight time as Montecalvo put together a .011/6.520/212.66 combination to the .049 reaction followed by a 6.552/212.23 effort in Nobile's lane.