Ed Thorton of Chino Hills, CA won the Pacific Street Car Association Summer Nationals Pro Street finale June 25 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Thornton's turbocharged 1957 Chevrolet made repeated passes in excess of 202 mph and saved the best for last when he met Clint Hairston of Alta Loma, CA in the final round.

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On paper Thornton was the favorite, having run a stout 6.71 in the semi-finals, but Hairston was keeping pace and had run 6.83 in his semi-final round win. The Hairston team had qualified in the No. 1 position while Thornton and team qualified right behind. Surprisingly, Thornton was happy with his spot in the field behind Hairston.

"The way the ladder was lining up, it looked like the number 2 position was the one to have going into eliminations," said Thornton. "We ran the fourth session with the idea of simply testing our short game -- we weren't going to run all the way down anyway because we wanted to stay in the second spot."

In the final round, Hairston left first and was slightly quicker to 60 feet, which put him about a car length ahead of Thornton as the cars crossed the halfway point, but the hard charging '57 ran past Hairston by 1100 feet and collected the win with a 6.66 at 212 to Hairston's 6.77 at 202 mph.

Artis Houston (above photo) of Compton, CA, set a new PSCA class ET record, running an 8.27 at 167.09 mph en route to victory over Tyler Whipple of Mesa, AZ in the Wild Street final. Eric Lenore of Seal Beach, CA won the Outlaw Street class.