On the other hand, Gonzalez and his crew had no drama and just performed the standard maintenance between rounds with engine builder Steve Petty calling the shots. For the final round match against Maggio the Gonzalez team was ready first but elected to wait for Maggio’s team to finish their heavy thrash to get their Camaro to the line.

When the pair finally got to the starting line, number-one qualifier Maggio left first with a .030 reaction time, but didn’t have the power to match Gonzalez’s turbo. Gonzalez’s slowest time of eliminations, a 6.005 at 232.95 mph, easily covered Maggio’s troubled 6.732 ET at just  205.04 mph.

Gonzalez was quick to give praise to car owner, Eric Dillard, and crew chief, Steve Petty, saying, “They figured out just what we needed for each round. We had to put weight on the car to come here to Vegas, but after Steve (Petty) found the balance on the car we had the power we needed to make the car run.” 
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Gonzalez took the $20,000 winner’s check, but admitted to being surprised. “I never expected to win, and I came out here just to have fun. I’ve only been in this turbo car for about three months, then we won the Englishtown Shakedown with it. I love driving this car and this team!“

Maggio was elated with the performance of his team after winning the 2011 PSCA Pro Street Championship and getting a runner-up finish at SCSN. 

“The records we set, running a 5.78 and a 5.76, we are really happy with that, but you saw that we had a major thrash around here, but that other team (Gonzalez) was nice enough to give us the time to get our car back together and that’s the first time (final round) that we didn’t go in the fives.” Magggio added, “We’ll be back next year, but first we are going to party with those guys (Gonzalez team) tonight.”

Outlaw 10.5

When qualifying was complete for the Outlaw 10.5 class Bill Glidden had ridden his Mickey Thompson Tires-backed nitrous-fed ’10 Mustang to the top of the 25-car qualified field. Glidden, from Whiteland. Indiana, tries to stay Eest of Topeka, KS, loves coming out to Vegas where he has lots of fans. Because he is primarily an eighth-mile racer with the ADRL and his car is purpose built for that distance, racing on the quarter is hard on the team.

“It may not seem like a lot,” Glidden explained, “but the extra runs we have to make and those extra two to three seconds for every run is pretty trying on our parts. We came out initially to try and be the first one to go in the fives in Pro Street on 10.5 tires for the $7,800 bonus.”

“Mickey Thompson had offered $1,500 for any car, any tire to be the first in the fives, but when we found out the requirements needed to win the big bonus money: 1) running a Precision turbo for $5,000 of it and 2) a certain kind of fuel injection for $1,500 of it, well it went right down the crapper for us,” said Glidden. 

Without a small block Ford engine in the trailer, Glidden then changed gear ratios but kept his 498-cubic inch Ford Hemi in the car and pushed in the clutch early - near 1,000ft- on every pass  while competing in the 10.5 class.

“I had a 10,000 rpm chip in car and when it hit the chip I shoved the clutch in.”