The 2011 season was one that delivered a lot of “Firsts” for the series. It was the first year that a Mopar racer didn’t win the championship and the first time that the point championship ended in tie, requiring a one-lap, winner-takes-all run off to determine the 2011 Victory Performance Parts Series Champion.

The series of events that led to a tie for the championship followed by a tie-breaking single race between Al Corda and Dan Beale is an interesting one.

After racing at a couple of NSS series events in 2010, racer and track owner Al Corda decided to build a car and join the series full time in 2011. He proceeded to win the first two races with his all-black Dart and took a commanding points lead that at the time seemed to relegate the rest of the competitors to racing for second place.

However, after Corda won the first two races in the five-race series, another team that was brand new to the Victory Performance Parts NSS Series, Pontiac racer Dan Beale and car owner and Cedar Falls, Iowa, track manager Dan Driscol, stepped up their game and the pair won the next two NSS Series events, turning what had appeared to be a championship lock for Corda into a serious fight.

The NSS Series swept into Cordova Dragway Park and the NSS Series final at the prestigious World Series of Drag Racing with the two racers locked in a tie for the Championship.

On Wednesday prior to the WSDR, as Series Race Director, I got the call that the engine in Beale's venerable Pontiac had tossed a rod while bracket racing the previous weekend. Chances were good he was done not only for the World Series, but probably for the rest of the season.

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Victory Performance Parts series winner Dan Beale driving Dan Driscoll’s GTO (near lane) goes off against NSS top four finisher Tim Frees (far lane) and his honkin’ Mopar wagon at Cedar Falls Raceway in Iowa.

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J  Freihage’s nine-second “C/FX” Cuda and Curt TeVault and his ‘65 Hemi Belvedere get the wheels up during a time session at Cordova last year.

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