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| New Pro Mod champion Mike Janis earned his fifth victory of 2001 at Shreveport's Red River Raceway, tying Scotty Cannon's record for the most Pro Mod wins in one season. |
In the Mopar Pro Mod Shootout that pitted the top eight season points leaders in a special race-within-a-race, last year's class champion Fred Hahn, driving Jim Oddy's Summit Racing Corvette, came out on top and picked up $20,000 of the $50,000 purse for his efforts. In the similarly configured Screamin' Eagle Nitro Harley Shootout, 1998 Top Fuel Harley champ Johnny Mancuso scored the win and $8,000 of the $20,000 up for grabs in that division.
WILSON MAKES HISTORY
Beyond
all the wins and championships being handed out, the biggest event of
the weekend involved a little bona fide drag racing history, as Gene
Wilson tied the legendary Bob Glidden's single-season win record of
eight national events by defeating Ron Miller in Shreveport's Pro Stock
finale.
The Canton, GA-based driver set the number-one standard for the 16-car field straight off the trailer with a 6.571-secs pass at 212.39 mph in the first round of qualifying. He didn't improve in the second session and actually spent the third in the announcing booth, analyzing his competition for the fans.
"We skipped the number-three qualifying attempt because
our motor was losing vacuum and vacuum on a Pro Stock engine is very
precious. It just kept eating on itself and finally, in the fourth round
of qualifying we were outgunned by three or four cars that went faster
(in that round)," Wilson explained. "We went back and made all the adjustments
that we could think of to get this motor through eliminations on Sunday,
and it worked. It pulled us through."
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