SEMIFINALS

Bowen and Ronny Young were the first pair out in the semifinals. In an effort to break into the fives Young had upped the nitro percentage by one and added a degree of lead to the mag. Bowen and his team stayed with their tune-up from the first round. Bowen left first by 0.003 but Young charged for the first 100 feet and the cars were side by side when Young’s tires lost traction causing him to lift and allowing Bowen to motor to a winning 5.934 at 243.19 mph.

The second pair was supposed to be a marquee matchup between Stewart and Hale, however, despite a complete spare engine under the bench, Stewart’s crew chief Jim Stanke didn’t think the team would have enough time and opted to put the car in the trailer, giving up semifinal money and points. [The rule of the series is that after the first round further eliminations will be held up as long as a team needs to repair their car if the parts and pieces are available to them.] Hale singled to a 6.029/238.47, losing lane choice in the final round to Bowen.

Preparing for the final round was basically a breeze for Hale’s team. They didn’t even bother to take the heads off of their engine and just did basic between-round maintenance while over in the “Violator” pit the Bowen team had the car down to the frame and were basically rebuilding their engine for the final round.

FINAL


Jeff Burk photo

Bowen’s team had lane choice for the final round and decided to take the preferred right lane. The finals went off just a few minutes after 10 p.m. and none of the fans had left the track, sensing a great final round on the Cedar Falls quarter mile. That is exactly what they got as both teams had their motors on “kill”.

At the flash of yellow Bowen left first with a 0.110 RT and Hale followed with a 0.209 RT. Bowen was never behind and turned on the win light for his second career Mickey Thompson Tires DragRacingOnline.com AA/FC Challenge presented by Comp Cams win and his first of the 2013 season. Bowen recorded a 5.890 to Hale’s dead game 5.914.

Bowen’s Elapsed Time was the quickest of the event and Hale’s was the second quickest, indicating these guys gave it their all in the finals.

With his runner-up finish Hale opened up a substantial 70-point lead over second place Ronny Young and third place Brian Stewart.

The next race for the series is Aug. 2-3 at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, PA.