The weekend of March 27-29 marked the beginning of another season from the Edelbrock Drag Racing Series at the 7th Annual Ross Pistons NMCA Hot Rod & Muscle Car Nationals held at Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park.

After an intense day of qualifying on Saturday, an early morning storm on Sunday delayed the action from starting until well after 3:00 pm. Late into the night, just when most of the rounds were decided and the finalists were suited up in the staging lanes, catastrophe struck when the Mickey Thompson Super Street 10.5W defending class champion, Spiro Pappas, hit the wall during his final run against Jim Blair, causing his new ’69 twin-turbo Camaro to burst into flame. Pappas was able to come out of the incident unscathed, but the NMCA officials decided to finish the final rounds at the following race on May 1-3 at Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Ky.  

Pro Street was one class that was able to finish this weekend. After a cool qualifying battle between Tony Christian and Vinny Budano on Saturday (where Budano ended up taking the #1 with a 6.38), they both managed to make it to the final. Unfortunately, Christian got out of shape during a semi-final bye run and tagged the wall. According to the incrementals, it was going to be the quickest pass of the weekend, busting a .995 60-foot time.

The damage was relatively minor, but he still couldn’t make the call when the finals rolled around, which allowed three-time class champion Vinny Budano to take the tree and pick up the Pro Street purse.