“We’ve had a great Summit Racing Pontiac for the last few races, but today we were finally able to get our act together on race day,” said Line.  “We made four good runs and I did a pretty decent job of driving.  With the level of competition we have in Pro Stock, you have to be perfect to win, and today we were just about there.  Still, since it was my teammate in the other lane, it was good enough.

“Today was one heck of a day for the KB Racing team and the entire Black family. They’ve obviously had a tremendous struggle, so it was nice to be able to repay them by putting both cars in the final.  Even though I didn’t win the race, I consider this one of the best days of racing I have ever had. 

“As a team, we came through when we needed to. Opportunities like today don’t come by very often, but we managed to get the job done, which as anyone who has ever competed will tell you, isn’t easy.  It makes us proud to know we did our job.”

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE

LE Tonglet had a real treat on Halloween night – a trip to the winner’s circle at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway that included a move to within 34 points of first place in NHRA’s bona fide two-driver Pro Stock Motorcycle championship fight. 

(Ron Lewis photo)

Tonglet stretched his amazing streak of consecutive final-round visits to five and notched his fourth victory in that span when his Nitro Fish Suzuki GSXR defeated Matt Smith, 6.951 seconds at 188.86 mph to 6.983 at 189.07.

When Smith ousted point leader Andrew Hines in the semifinals it enabled Tonglet to whittle the difference between him and Hines from 72 to 34 points in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

“This has been an awesome year,” said Tonglet, who now has five victories in seven finals in his rookie year.  “We have been on a roll in the last five races and we want to keep the momentum going to Pomona (Calif., for the Auto Club Finals, Nov. 11-14).”

Three days ago, however, Team Tonglet – dad Gary, LE and GT – were uncertain how well they would do.  “We broke our good motor Friday morning and we were all down because that’s the one we’ve won all the races with,” said LE.  “But we put in our new motor and the performance picked up on every run it made. We shipped the motor to Vance and Hinds to get it fixed for the (Auto Club) Finals (Nov. 11-14),” said LE.  “I’m glad we had it.”

It was flawless on Sunday. 

Tonglet began by dispatched Bailey Whitaker in the first round (6.986 at 188.81 to 7.126 at 180.40). He eliminated defending series champion Hector Arana in the quarterfinals with a 7.004 at 187.26 while Arana was slowed by mechanical problems and it was Tonglet over Jim Underdahl in the semifinals (6.948 at 190.22 to 6.988 at 190.78).

“That 6.94-second time really came out of nowhere,” LE added.  “It really brought our confidence up.”   

So did Smith’s upset of Hines.

“Matt helped us a lot,” Tonglet remarked. “That was huge when he went out in the semis and we won the race. They are a very tough team. I think the championship will come down to the late rounds at Pomona.”

Three-time world champ Andrew Hines, who had advanced to the last seven final rounds on his Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson, saw his streak snapped in a semifinal loss to Smith.

Custom Article Framing