By JM Hallas
MARION, Texas – As the IHRA Summit Super Series Bracket Racing points season comes to a conclusion San Antonio Raceway hosted its final series race, with double points on the line. With extra points, class championships are still up for grabs as well as seating position for the IHRA Team Finals held at Pine Valley Raceway Oct. 5th-8th.
While some classes are separated by only one or two rounds of racing among the top five, others are somewhat comfortable in their position. Although double points throw things up in the air for everyone. One bad reaction time, one breakage, one break out could change the final points. Another kicker in the points chase is drivers allowed to drop one race, their worst, making it difficult for me to calculate the final points.
A bonus was added by Dennis Smith of Nogalitos Gear with $400 additional going to the Electronics(Box) winner, $200 to the Foot Brake(No-box) winner and $100 each to the Street Class and Jr. Dragster winners.
Former track and World Finals champ, Scott Ball holds a fairly good lead(42) over Todd Robinson in the Electronics(Box) class with Todd Zampese third 13 behind Robinson. Brandon Bass and Greg Meuth round out the rest of the top five.
Doing double duty, T. Zampese leads the way in the Foot Brake(No-box) class with a 28 point advantage on Harold Shimek and 31 ahead of Dennis Soefje. Rounding out the top five in class are Nelson Friedeck and former motorcycle champ, Ruben Gallegos.
In the Street class Zach Tschoepe only holds a 12 point edge on Rhett Floyd with Silvia Zemgals and Norman Derks tied for third, but 36 points behind. Jessika Jackson heads the Jr Dragster standings by 24 over Gianni Carrola and 26 over Caden Meuth in third.
The Electronics(Box) Class came down to two non-points contenders for the finals, Bobby Mendez(Taft) and former track champ Brent Ritter(Seguin). Mendez in his 87 Camaro put a .001 light on the former champ Ritter in his Simpson Racing Products, Undercover Chasssis and that was all she wrote. Ritter ran his number but gave up too much on the tree to catch Mendez.
Bobby Mendez(5.51) 5.524 @ 128.21 defeats Brent Ritter(4.78) 4.784 @ 142.90
Mendez bought back after round 1 loss to Scott Ball, then beat David Cain, Emily Ball, Aaron Cole and S. Ball in a semi-final rematch. Ritter bested Todd Robinson, Carlos Carrasco sr., Joe Kozolowski, Mike Atkinson and rebought after losing to Greg Meuth in round 1.
With S. Ball and Robinson both making it to the semi-finals even dropping a race shouldn’t give Robinson enough points to make up the difference on S. Ball for the track championship.(Unofficially)
Once again both of the drivers in the Foot Brake(No-box) were not in contention for the track title. Dustin Bradford(San Antonio) was paired off against Corky Weeks(Cotulla) in a battle between a roadster and a door slammer. Bradford, in his Pack Rat Storage, Altered Roadster got 5/100th on Weeks in his Camaro and ran him down a slowing Weeks for the win.
Dustin Bradford(5.53) 5.577 @ 106.79 defeats Corky Weeks(5.95) 6.40 @ 114.21
Bradford bettered Josh Gaspard, Mike Valdez, Darin Blevins, Cole Herbold and competition bye against Sherman Davis, who broke on the line, in the semis. Weeks had to rebuy after losing to Robert Sandoval then took out J. Allen, Gaspard, Todd Zampese and TJ Rome.
Unofficially with T. Zampese making it to round 4, along with Soefje and Shimek going out in round 3 that should give T. Zampese the championship.
The Street Class finals it was Bryan Littlefield(San Antonio) going at it with Jim Spencer(New Braunfels). Littlefield, in his 75 Chevy Nova, gave up 3/100th on the tree to Spencer in his Vanilla Gorilla, GMC Truck. At the big end it was Littlefield running number while Spence broke out.
Bryan Littlefield(8.32) 8.329 @ 82.64 defeats Jim Spencer(9.73) 9.710 @ 72.13(break out)
Littlefield beat Silvia Zemgals(twice), C. Talley and V. Hernandez. Spencer got past Ken Lee, Brian Aguilera, Tschoepe and got semi-final bye.
Tschoepe making it to round 3 with Zemgals, Floyd not being in attendance and Derks not making it out of round 2 that should be enough to give him the track title.(Unofficially)
Points contender Caden Meuth(Boerne) make his way to the Jr. Dragster finals to meet Haily Ball(San Antonio). Meuth in his Quality Care Automotive, 2017 Halfscale Chassis got 6/100th on Ball at the start. Meuth would pick up the win on the top end as Ball broke out.
Caden Meuth(7.95) 8.045 @ 69.49 defeats Haily Ball(8.10) 7.996 @ 80.82(break out)
Meuth bested J. Allen, Gianni Carrola and had a round 1 bye. Ball took wins from Jackson(twice) and got a semi final bye.
I’m not going to trying to guess the track champion in the Jr. Dragster, especially with dropping a race.
