Veterans dominate Stock classes

Words by Larry Crum, IHRA
Photos courtesy IHRA

This is the second in a three-part series looking at the current Tournament of Champions qualifiers from the seven IHRA sportsman categories. For Part One, click here and for Part Three, click here.

To be the best you have to beat the best – and that is exactly what the drivers in the IHRA’s Stock classes are going to have to do come October. With five world champions already qualified for the new Tournament of Champions, the field in Rockingham is going to be stout. A handful of new faces in the championship hunt will look to challenge many of the world’s best in the Stock and Super Stock categories at the World Finals in Rockingham later this year.

“Stock and Super Stock may be the most talent laden categories in the Tournament of Champions. It is frightening to look at all the world championships and national event victories that the racers currently qualified have earned,” said Skooter Peaco, Vice President of Racing Operations. “These two classes look like an all-star game.”

Making the road to victory even harder for those drivers who have never battled for a world title is the fact that many of the former champs and veterans have won multiple times, shrinking the field to only the best in that category.

“It is going to be crazy. Along with the national event winners, toss in the guys battling it out at the Summit Pro-Am level and I really wouldn’t want to have to lay odds on these two classes,” Peaco said. “The only sure thing is that I’m going to be on the starting line watching the best head-to-head racing that IHRA has ever had at the World Finals in Rockingham.”

Headlining the list of multi-time winners is two-time world champion Nick Folk (above). Folk, the ’08 Stock champion, has won three times on the national stage this season, once in Super Stock and twice in Stock. Along with a pair of Champion Systems Sportsman National wins at Immokalee Regional Raceway and Byron Dragway, his Super Stock victory at Pittsburgh Raceway Park earlier this month secured his spot in two separate fields at the World Finals.