Words and photos courtesy of ADRL

Although January sees a notable lack of racing in the US, the dragstrips are still alive in Qatar, and the Arabian Drag Racing League is in the middle of its eight round series. The League is home to plenty of hot racing, as the recently run Round Five showed.

After qualifying in the top spot for the second straight race in the Arabian Drag Racing League, Alex Hossler was eager to finish the job this time. That it took some good luck in the finals was of no concern to the Pro Extreme standout who had suffered his share of mishaps through the first half of the eight-race season. The second half of the year is quickly proving to be a different story as Hossler was the top driver on both days in Round Five at Qatar Racing Club (QRC), finishing the job on Friday with a fortune-filled win in the finals against Von Smith. Hossler went 4.09 to beat Smith, who struggled to a 7.94.

“We had some good runs and turned those into rounds wins and then in the finals, we got lucky,” Hossler said. “We had a lot of luck in the bank from the first three rounds and we made a withdrawal for this one.”

Other winners on Friday included Khalid Al-Balooshi in Pro Nitrous, giving him three victories in five races, 2010 American Drag Racing League (ADRL) PX World Champion Frankie Taylor in Extreme 10.5 and Mohd Borashid in Pro Extreme Motorcycle.

Race by race, Hossler had gotten closer to a finish like Friday, but the end result produced a sigh of relief from the Al-Anabi Racing driver. That he was able to win in a field that had a qualifying bump of 3.72 and featured numerous runs in the 3.6s left him even more satisfied. After qualifying in the top spot with a blistering and career-best 3.62 at 210 miles per hour, Hossler went 3.65 in a first-round win against Bader Ali. That set up a meeting with teammate and points leader J.R. Todd, and, in a thrilling drag race, Hossler’s 3.65 at 208 mph beat Todd’s 3.66 and 207 mph.

The racing wasn’t as memorable in the final, but Hossler figured he was more than due. After red-lighting in the semifinals of Round Four against Smith last week, Hossler pulled out a remarkable .001 reaction time, doing just enough the rest of the way to get the win.

“We were just able to pedal it down and we got lucky that Von had a little more trouble than we did,” Hossler said.