After knocking off Cary Goforth in the first round, Hintz (above) fired off another upset in round two with a holeshot victory over J.R. Carr (6.456/215.00 to Carr’s quicker and faster 6.419/217.81) setting up the big matchup with Montecalvo.

But Hintz wasn’t the only person making noise in round one as Montecalvo put down a pair of track records with a 6.38 elapsed time at 220.15 miles per hour to overcome Richard Freeman who had a nice advantage off the line.

Richard Freeman’s Pontiac GXP

Berner and Gugliotta set up their semifinal round as Berner received a bye and Gugliotta won his sixth straight round over Cale Aronson.

While most of the first round went according to plan, a huge upset of points leader Goforth allowed Gugliotta to take over the top spot. Competing in front of his home crowd, Goforth tried to go for it all on the line but left well before the light, giving a free pass to Hintz, who picked up his first round win of the year.