PHOTO EXTRA

By Rod Short

It was an up and down weekend for Spiro Pappas at the NMCA/NMRA Super Bowl. On Sunday, a special starting line ceremony was held with announcer Al Tucci when Pappas retired the famous Camaro that took him to the 1996 NMCA Super Street championship. Less than an hour later, he was on fire down track in his ADRL Extreme 10.5 Pontiac after a test pass. The car did not hit the wall, but reportedly suffered significant front-end damage. It is unknown if Pappas will be able to make the ADRL Richmond event scheduled for this weekend.

Former Drag Radial champ John Kolivas made big waves in the street car community by beating three-time class champ John Urist in the Street Outlaw (true 10.5) finals. Kolivas, who was forced to change to a different rear tire by the tech officials after he had arrived, qualified first with a 7.364 at 194.35 and got through three rounds of eliminations before meeting Urist in the finals. Urist got the jump at the start, but redlighted in the process by -0.006 to hand the win to Kolivas who ran a 7.321 at 193.60, which was well under the 7.427 record set earlier this year.

In the finals of NMCA Super Street, Canadian Mike Yedgarian (left lane) used up both lanes of the race track against event winner Jim Blair after redlighting and then running a 7.446 against Blair’s 7.157 at 192.28. This was Blair’s second event win of the year in the three races that have been contested.

Defending Pro Street champ Mark Micke, seen here warming up his ProCharger powered 1967 Camaro, shook off some rust from not running a lot this year to qualify 12th in the program at Joliet, but picked it up big time with a first round win over Vinny Demieri with a 6.241 at 226.35, which was low ET and Top Speed of the round. Micke didn’t do as well in the second round, however, as he lost to Bob Vorderer, Jr. and nearly lost the car he tagged the wall past the top end.