Demito Bags Two at The Rock
The clouds that rained on the first two events of the 2008 MiRock season finally parted at Rockingham Dragway, granting perfect weather for the May 2-4 FBR Shop Bike Nationals. The weekend also included Rockingham's rescheduled March race, which was run on Saturday.
"I hate double races," an exhausted Vinnie Demito said at the end of the fairly hot weekend. Demito may not have been fond of the extra workload, but he was leaving The Rock with two of track owner Steve Earwood's winner's checks and the points lead in Orient Express Pro Sportbike.
Already the defending class champion, Demito is certainly starting the season off right. The Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania contractor also qualified his Velocity turbocharged Hayabusa on the pole at the similarly rained out Maryland event in April. That race will be run at Maryland International Raceway June 6-7, and Demito's 7.759 qualifying lap will be tough to repeat in the June heat. But Demito delivered a 7.752 for the top spot for May's Rockingham race.
Back in March's perfect pre-rain qualifying conditions, Anthony Navarro, Royersford, Pa., nailed number one with a 7.644. Navarro is also a former champion, but he bogged and lost to Dimey Eddinger of Winston-Salem in round 2 when that race was finally run on Saturday at this event. Eddinger later redlit against Demito in the March final, giving Vinnie an easy win. Navarro kept it together on Sunday, but still lost to Demito by .028 in an all-out, closely fought final round.
Schnitz Racing Outlaw Pro Street champ Dave Norris of Bryans Road, Maryland rotated the earth in March with a record 6.92 ET and 200 mph top speed, then qualified number one at Maryland in April as well. But the Rockingham track surface wasn't so kind to Norris in May, as his Suzuki's 7-inch slick spun under the influence of massive shots of nitrous. His DTM Performance quasi-teammate Ronnie Procopio of Wake Forest took advantage and beat Norris with a career best 7.02 in Saturday's final.