Lucas Oil NHRA Sport Compact Nationals - Where It's Atco

The Modified class also featured a Cinderella story starring the number six qualifier Jose Mendez. But instead of using his seven iron on the 18th at Augusta, Jose used his Caneca Racing Corolla to dispense of Marcos Acosta in the semis. Stephan "Don't Call Me Mr. Clean" Papadakis also made it to the semis and he cleaned up Gonzales and his RX-3. In fact this one was over at the line-even though Carlos and his Mazda ran an 8.473 @ 172.67, the 8.265 @ 162.92 from the AEM Drag Civic was enough as Steph's 0.502 RT left Carlos at the line with his lethargic 0.850. In the finals Mendez cut a ferocious 0.449 light but instead of driving around him Steph limped to the finish with a 15.61 ET handing the win to Jose and his old school Corolla.

Hot Rod
NHRA officials have been hawking on JoJo Callos harder than Saks security watched Winona. But unlike little Miss Ryder, JoJo hasn't been snipping any garment tags. We can't say if such scrutiny is justified but we can see what brought it on as JoJo has been lighting the class on fire this season. It's his sheer talent as a driver and his setup and not anything else that is keeping him on top this season. And once again at Atco, JoJo's blazing 8.912 @ 168.01 was more than enough to put him on top of the qualifying ladder.

But JoJo had a tough field to face that included such heavyweights as Bruce Mortensen, Mike Crawford, Lisa Kubo, Rafael Estevez, Myles Bautista and Kenny Tran. The third round pitted the Venom Civic against the Mopar/PhatRidz Neon and while the Dodge got the jump, Mortensen was able to muscle the Honda to the win by less than a car length with a 9.520 @ 157.83 to Crawford's 9.668 @ 150.10. But the big showdown was between JoJo and Lisa who met for the first time since the 2001 Finals. Lisa nailed her best pass of the event with a 9.140 @ 158.87 but it wasn't enough as JoJo bettered the record he already owns with an 8.825 @ 161.40. The finals looked to be another great match-up between the Castrol Integra and the Venom Civic but the Honda pulled out of the groove almost immediately with an oil leak. That was just the break JoJo needed as his car was smoking at the top end where he cruised through the traps for the win.

Street Tire
Mark Mazurowski and his Titan Motorsports Supra have the potential to decimate the Street Tire class. In the first round, Mazurowski clicked off a massive 9.41 setting him up for a meeting with defending series champ Ari Yallon. But Ari got anxious at the line and red-lighted giving the Supra an easy win. Marko Djuric and his Supra also put down E-town winner John Shepherd in the other semi-final race. In the finals, Djuric's 9.725 was enough to get the win light over Mazurowski's quicker 9.680 because of a better reaction time. Hooray for Marko! But NHRA officials had warned Djuric after the semis that his car was not certified to run a sub 10-second pass and if he did it again they would DQ him. Well, Djuric did it again in the finals and guess what? He was DQed! Alrighty then, hooray for Mark!

All Motor
For the second race in a row no one could touch Jesus Padilla in the All Motor ranks. Padilla's first gen Kilo Racing RX-7 is not even all motor but rather all rotor. Under the current NHRA rules the naturally aspirated three rotor is legal. But this fact didn't stop number two qualifier Tony Shagday and his Skunk2 Integra from putting up the good fight when the two met in the finals. Tony's 10.69 in the finals was a strong effort but it still wasn't enough to touch Padilla's 10.57, which gave the controversial RX-7 another victory.