Deric Kramer took his American Ethanol Chevrolet Camaro to his third final round of the season at the 31st annual NHRA Sonoma Nationals after defeating Alan Prusiensky, Tanner Gray, and Jason Line on the way to the final round.
Coming into raceday, Kramer qualified No. 3 at the Sonoma, Calif.-based racetrack. With a first round matchup against Alan Prusiensky, Kramer turned heads when he clocked in with a stout 6.506-second pass at 211.16 and took the win light over Prusiensky’s 6.671, 195.56.
With lane choice from his stellar performance in the opening round of eliminations, Kramer chose the primed left lane for his matchup against Tanner Gray. Both Kramer and Gray were .015 on the reaction timer but Kramer showed the true power that KB Racing supplies him when he crossed the finish line with a 6.523, 211.39 to Gray’s 6.532, 211.46.
Due to his impressive performance, Kramer once again had lane choice in the semifinal round but this time it came against KB Racing teammate Jason Line. Continuing to prove that he is one of the best leavers in the Pro Stock category, Kramer busted out a .006-second reaction time on Line and set the scoreboards on fire with a 6.525, 211.10 to Line’s 6.551, 211.26.
“It’s always fun beating our engine builder,” Kramer joked at the top end after his semifinal round victory over Line. “All joking aside, KB Racing really has given me some power and I knew that was gonna be a good race for sure.”
In the finals, the Colorado-native picked his lane over Jeg Coughlin Jr. Kramer and Coughlin left the starting line with only thousandths of a second separating the two. Kramer ran an exceptional 6.534, 210.54 but it wasn’t enough to turn on the win light over Coughlin’s 6.532, 212.16. The finish line margin of victory was .007-seconds.
“I wish we could’ve pulled off the victory today at Sonoma Raceway,” Kramer said. “I hate being first loser, but we’ve really had a great car all weekend. There are only a few more races left before the Countdown [to the Championship] and I think we’ve got a good chance of staying in the top ten if we keep us this performance.”
Kramer skyrocketed his American Ethanol-sponsored Chevrolet Camaro up one spot in the Pro Stock point standings to the No. 9 position with 828 points heading into the next event in Seattle, Washington next weekend.
This story was originally published on July 29, 2018. 
