Relentless rain showers forced Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) race officials to cancel Friday qualifying at the PDRA East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech at GALOT Motorsports Park in Benson, N.C. The series’ first of eight races will resume Saturday morning with two sportsman qualifying sessions and a second and final pro qualifying session before going into eliminations.
“Unfortunately, Mother Nature won today, as we expected,” said Tyler Crossnoe, race director, PDRA. “After running one round of qualifying Thursday night to get ahead of the rain, we are prepared to complete the event on Saturday with two qualifying sessions for all classes. PDRA officials are working hard to create an event schedule for Saturday to accomplish a final round of qualifying and all eliminations.”
All but three of the PDRA’s professional and sportsman classes completed one round of qualifying Thursday night. The provisional No. 1 qualifiers are Eric Gustafson in Moroso Pro Boost, Jay Cox in Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous, Jeff Dobbins in Liberty’s Gears Extreme Pro Stock, Johnny Pluchino in Schwing America Pro Outlaw 632 presented by Precision Chassis and Tim Essick in Atomizer Racing Injectors Outlaw 10.5. In the sportsman classes, the provisional low qualifiers are Erica Coleman in Magnafuel Top Sportsman and Robert Pickens in Lucas Oil Top Dragster.
On-track action is scheduled to begin with the first qualifying session for Coolshirt Pro Jr. Dragster, Gilbert Motorsports Top Jr. Dragster and Edelbrock Bracket Bash at 9 a.m. The pro classes will build on the results of their Thursday qualifying session with Q2 at 12:30 p.m. Sportsman eliminations will begin at 2 p.m., followed by professional class eliminations at 4 p.m. A complete schedule is available at www.pdra660.comand the PDRA Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pdraracing/.
This story was originally published on April 5, 2019. 
