EXTREME PRO STOCK

Chris Powers (near lane) against Cary Goforth.

Pennsylvania’s Chris Powers entered the PDRA East Coast Nationals simply wanting to get some experience behind the wheel of his new ATI Performance ’14 Camaro. After qualifying respectably in eighth with a 4.108, he charged through Mountain Motor Pro Stock veterans John DeFlorian, Dwayne Rice, and newcomer Matt Giangrande to reach the final round in the car’s debut.

“This is a new deal we put together,” Powers said. “We just came out to test this weekend and get some seat time since this is my first time in the car. I have a great crew behind me. This weekend definitely worked out way beyond expectations.”

With Extreme Pro Stock standout Cary Goforth waiting for Powers in the final round, crew chief Rob Bealko applied a more aggressive tuneup to the Sonny’s Racing Engines 830-cubic-inch bullet. The tune worked, allowing Powers to match his 4.097 elapsed time from the second round at 176.90 to defeat Goforth’s 4.100 at 176.53.

“When you’re racing against the best, you find anything you can to get ahead. Our expectation was to just go A-to-B, so we just kept doing the A-to-B thing. The final round was definitely the hardest one to get by. [Cary Goforth]’s the best in the business, so I knew we had our work cut out.”

PRO EXTREME MOTORCYCLE

Chuck Wilburn (near lane) was off the line first, but Travis Davis got past him for the win.

With a career-best run in the final round, third-place qualifier Travis Davis earned his third PDRA Pro Extreme Motorcycle win after scoring twice in 2014, the inaugural year for the all-eighth-mile series.

Defending class champion Eric McKinney qualified first with a 3.996 run at 178.78 mph aboard his 2012 Suzuki GS, while his teammate, Ashley Owens, started second, followed by Davis in third and Chuck Wilburn rounding out the top half of the eight-bike field.

All but McKinney survived the opening round of racing, with Davis easily defeating Canada's Burke Foster before edging out Owens by 13-thousandths of a second in round two. Wilburn, meanwhile, beat Foster's Canadian teammate Terry Schweigert, then sent Chris Garner-Jones packing from the semis.

Wilburn left first in the final, but Davis quickly recovered from a .015 starting-line deficit to win in 3.988 seconds at 176.05 mph over Wilburn's 4.062 at 175.27 effort.

"That was our first three-second pass and we've been trying to get that for a couple of years, so for it to come in the final and get us the win here, well, we couldn't have scripted it any better," said Davis, from Douglas, GA. "It's a big relief, too, to finally get back in the winner's circle. We couldn't be any happier right now."

The next race on the 2017 PDRA tour is the PDRA Spring Nationals, May 18-20, at Darlington Dragway in Darlington, SC.