First points race is in the bag, rain won't stop us!

     What a day.  When I have kids, I will tell them to become a weatherman.  The only profession where you're allowed to keep your job when you're bad at your job.  With promises of sun and clear weather, we were anxious to wake up Sunday and get our first points race of the year on.  You can imagine our surprise when we woke up to rain.  The track crew at Piedmont started very early Sunday attempting to dry the rain soaked track.  From 8am to 12:30pm, the crew worked non stop to get the racing surface ready.  Even a very fine mist falling throughout the day, we were able to get the entire race in.  We made the call to give footbrake an extra round of time runs in order to get rubber down on the track prior to the Top Eliminator calls making their first run.  It appeared the decision paid off as the track came around during time runs.  The conditions were against us and we really appreciate the racers working with us.  We know its been a frustrating 2 weeks with all the rain.  We will always do whatever we can to get a race in!

     In perfect politically correct style the semi's finals of Top Eliminator had a female, a door car and a hard tailed mopar powered dragster.  I don't think you could have a more unique semi final. David Spaugh took his Indian Outlaw car to the semi finals, where he ran Todd Long.  Megan Lister had the benefit of a bye run due to her .002 reaction time the round before.  In the finals, Todd was able to take his Mopar powered machine to the winners circle.  

     In footbrake the semi's had James Hubbard from VA, along with locals Roger Rhodes and William Roberts.  Roberts has really stepped up his game the past 2 years.  He showed this weekend he's prepared to go a lot of rounds and challenge for a track championship.  In the finals, Roberts and Rhodes met up with an incredible side by side run with a margin of victory of just a few thousandths of a second.  It was good to see Roger Rhodes back at Piedmont.  He is now #1 in the points.  Will people start trying to follow him out at the next race?  We'll find out next Sunday!  

     Jr. Dragsters had a loaded field with 17 Jr's starting off the day.  Grayson lister picked up right where he left off last year.  With a string of .0 lights, he made his way to the final.  In the finals he met up with Kellan Farmer out of the Race Tech camp.  Grayson plans on showing everyone last year was not a fluke.  He finished the season #1 and is on his way to defending his title this year.  Grayson is in the far lane in this picture. I was unable to get a picture of the final run. 

     We're trying out a new class at Piedmont called Street ET.  It's a beginner class for people with street cars.  No slicks are allowed.  If you have entered a tracks footbrake/top points system the past two years, you aren't allowed to compete.  Debbie Whaley showed up in her Corvette and took top honors for the weekend.  We hope this class picks up participation and acts as a gateway to the footbrake and top categories.  

     We concluded the events around 9pm sunday.  We fought weather conditions all day, but we did prevail. We hope the racers enjoyed the new format at Piedmont Dragway of paying 2nd round winner.  We feel this is a good system for the racers and we hope they will come out and support us this Sunday when we run our 2nd points race of the year.  Remember, you are allowed 2 drops at piedmont.  If you didn't make the first race, remember, it's a long season.  We look forward to seeing you guys next week!

I'll be attempting to get video of the finals runs together this week.  I'm still learning all this stuff so hang with me.  Here is a series of pictures taking from Sunday: