On the flip side Montecalvo found himself as the runner-up for the fourth time this season. Montecalvo reached his fourth final round of the season via a victory over one of the fastest drivers of the weekend Mark Martino. Martino, who briefly reset the track speed record during the afternoon session, struggled in his run against Montecalvo who ran a 6.740 second lap to give up lane choice to Gugliotta.

“This has been one of the most trying weekends we’ve ever had in drag racing,” Montecalvo said. “It was brutal. It looks like the trailer exploded. There are parts lying all over the place. We had no business getting past Pete Berner first round. That was purely luck on our side. We’ve been battling this car and changed every component we could possibly change. In the final we found the problem. I can’t tell you what it was because we changed so many things we don’t have a clue what fixed it. But now the good thing is, we know we have a fast hot rod here. The car’s fixed. We outran Frank in the final and nobody could do that all weekend. Frank was flying. We went top speed of the meet and set a new track record. So we’re just overjoyed. I’m not happy with a runner up. We’ve had too many of those this year, but I tell ya what I’m grateful for what we accomplished this weekend, because, like I said we had no business getting past first round.”

Gugliotta took down teammate J.R. Carr who gave him all he could handle in the semis. Gugliotta ran another lap in the 6.30s at 6.335 at 218.34 miles per hour, but Carr was just behind with a 6.400 second lap at 219.36 mph.

In quarterfinal action Gugliotta continued his weekend of dominance with a win over Cary Goforth, Montecalvo edged Chris Holbrook, Carr beat Robert Patrick and Martino got around Richard Freeman.

Martino was able to move on via his second consecutive run in the 220-mph range, resetting the track speed record in the process.

In the opening round Pete Berner saw his hopes of a third championship take a big hit when Montecalvo knocked him out of the first round. Berner nailed the tree, but shook the tires early in the run allowing Montecalvo to cruise around him.

Berner is fourth in points after this race and with only three events left to go, he’s looking to make a move. “We have three races left and I’m determined to do well in those three. The next race coming up is in Epping, New Hampshire. I won there last year so maybe I can repeat that and start gaining on [points leader] Frankie. If determination has anything to do with it, I’m already there.”

Dean Goforth, the winner two weeks ago in Grand Bend, also suffered an early exit at the hands of Carr.