Paul Romine and John Bullard joined Frank Ousley’s team for the event. Romine doubled as the clutch man as well as driver. They qualified well but had engine issues in the semi-finals.

The semi-finals began with two-time DRO Series Champ, Paul Romine, racing Shawn Bowen. Romine’s car seemed to never make any power on this run and labored to a 6.573/177.76 while Bowen made his third five-second/250+ lap, this time recording a 5.748/251.95.

In the other semi-final match-up, Bronge faced Hale, who had a new bullet between the rails after wounding his engine in winning the first round. Bronge put a .07 holeshot on Hale and looked to have the race won but Hale tracked him down with a 5.830/253.42 that just covered Bronge’s disappointing 6.06/240.32. Bronge’s car has been a solid five-second car but lately he has struggled to get into the fives. Almost any five-second pass would have won this race for him.

Hale had his game face on during the warm-up for the final round of AA/FC at Martin.

The Mickey Thompson Tire DragRacingOnline.com AA/FC Challenge finals between local favorite Shawn Bowen and Texan and points leader John Hale went off at a few seconds before 11 p.m. in front of a crowd of Michigan fans who stayed to the last race. Both teams had to rebuild their engines between rounds and it was the third or fourth time each team had done that -- something that even NHRA teams find a daunting task.

Bowen had lane choice and took the right lane putting Hale in the left lane for the first time in eliminations. Despite air temps in the 60’s and a track temperature in the low 80’s, the track remained excellent. Bowen put a holeshot on Hale by .016 with a .105 RT to Hale’s .121, but Hale made up the difference by 300 feet and recorded his best ET (5.7115) and second best speed (252.39) to cover Bowen’s 5.8345 at 251.86.

The win along with the 60 extra points for the Speed and ET records all but assures that the John Hale team will win a second straight DRO series championship. Hale would have to not qualify for the Tulsa event on Sept. 21-22 and Bowen would have to win just to catch Hale in the points but stranger things have happened.