CANADIAN CONNECTION

blast out of the gates in early-season US action

Story by John Waldie

Although our drag race season is still ‘in the staging lanes,’ in Canada, our racers have had an outstanding start to the 2023 season, down south.

British Columbia’s Shawn Cowie and Ontario crewman Patrick Brown ‘ran the table’ in Pomona, California, winning the first NHRA regional event of 2023 qualifying ‘number one’ and setting low ET and top speed.

Shawn and Patrick would subsequently ‘runner-up’ to defending National champion Joey Severance in his similarly powered supercharged dragster at the National event in Phoenix.

And in huge Canadian drag racing news, Spencer Hyde defeated 31 of our sport’s ‘best ever Pro Mods’ during the March 3-5 weekend, in Bradenton, Florida, at the World Series of Pro Mod (WSOPM). The Stratford, ON racer scored a monster $100,000 payday! You can see the full story about Spencer’s win starting on Page 10 of this issue.

Eric Latino / Al Billes, Justin Bond and eventual semi-finalist Kenny Lang also made the 32-car ‘A’ field, while Scott Wildgust competed in the 16-car Consolation race, which was won by Melanie Salemi, who graciously reminded us, recently, of her Canadian citizenship.

An interesting statistic for our so inclined

Pro Mod super fans is that Hyde’s winning ‘Jack and the Green Stock’ and the Kenny Lang Camaros, although only qualifying 32nd and 31st, respectively, and the Latino / Billes and Bond entries all ran the eighthmile in the mid-3-second zones (with the number one qualifiers) at over 200 MPH before the event and subsequent testing were over!

The very next weekend during the NHRA ‘sold out’ season opening Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida western Canada’s Rob Flynn captured the coveted Top Fuel victory, tuning the Mike Salinas ‘Scrappers’ entry.

Ontario racers Jeff Veale (Stoney Creek), Jeff Chatterson (Brantford) and Larry Dobbs / Ryan stack entries capably represented our province, as did Quebec’s Dan Mercier. Watch for Mercier to compete in his Rob Wendland-tuned Top Fuel Dragster in four more events later in the season.

At the next (and potentially final?) ‘sold out’ NHRA National event, in Phoenix, Arizona, Camrie Caruso (Fairport, NY) drove a KB Titan Racing Camaro (of Eric Latino and Jim Whitley) to her first ever National event win. In the process she joined defending World Champion Erica Enders as the only women ever to do so. Congratulations Camrie!

On March 30 – April 2, the NHRA returned to action for its third race of the season, at California’s Pomona Fairgrounds.

Congrats to Canadian Drag Racing Hall of Fame member Jeff Arend – driving his Australian fielded Nitro Funny Car – and Jason Kenny for their excellent showings!

In other news, in one of Pro Stock’s closest races in history, it was an all-KB Titan (Latino and Whitley) race with Dallas Glenn defeating teammate Matt Hartford.

Also at Pomona, Edmonton’s Tim Boychuk (another CDRHF member) was runner-up to legendary fuel racer Cory McClenathan in the exhibition Nostalgia Funny Carr class, in the best race of the eight-car, three-round elimination competition field. ‘Cory Mac’ went 4.868 to Boychuk’s 4.895.

And finally, a great early season ‘feel good’ story was Justin Bond’s emotional and impressive mid-March Pro Mod win in Gainesville, with his family present. Bond (Mission, BC) and his crew chief Brad Personnet actually switched from their well-qualified screw blower-style Camaro to their well-proven Pro Line centrifugal-style power adder to score a popular Canadian victory.

The two are establishing themselves as early-season favourites for a first NHRA world championship.

Documenting it all, the new Fox1 TV package complements the Fox2 Pro Mod show, providing the best-ever primetime, same day coverage for the popular class. It’s incredible exposure and Canadian Justin Bond is leading the way! IT