It took five weeks, four rain delays and racing at two tracks in neighboring states, but the all-eighth-mile Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) finally crowned winners of its postponed Dragstock event from North Carolina’s Rockingham Dragway Oct. 12, at Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP), near Richmond.
Tommy Franklin
When heavy rain interrupted race day at Rockingham early in September the decision was made to finish its eliminations within qualifying for the inaugural PDRA Championship Finals in Virginia. Unfortunately, light but steady rain also intervened at VMP on Friday night after just one round of qualifying and returned to prevent any on-track action at all on Saturday before again delaying proceedings Sunday morning.
The weather let up by mid-afternoon, though, permitting two more rounds of qualifying for the Championship Finals and more importantly, the completion of the Dragstock event. Elimination rounds scheduled to be finished Saturday night for the PDRA Championship Finals will be run on Monday.
Cale Aronson
Headlining the Rockingham winners list were past class champion Mick Snyder (top) in NAS Racing Pro Extreme and PDRA co-owner Tommy Franklin with his career-first Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous victory. Also winning for the first time was Cale Aronson in Aruba.com Extreme Pro Stock, while Travis Davis rounded out the PDRA pro class winners with the Pro Extreme Motorcycle title. The Precision Turbo Pro Boost final will be rerun Monday morning after finalists Anthony Disomma and Larry Higgenbotham both left before the starting tree was activated.
Winning in the PDRA sportsman ranks were Don Klooster with his first MagnaFuel Top Sportsman crown and Derrick Sholar in STT Safety Equipment Top Dragster. THE PDRA’s developmental classes saw Nicholas Rabun score the victory in Huddleston Performance Pro Jr. Dragster, while Alexis Tanner won in Huddleston Top Jr. Dragster.
(Photos by Roger Richards/CompetitionPlus.com)
This story was originally published on October 13, 2014. 
