LAST YEAR’S SEATTLE PRO STOCK WINNER A SPECTATOR IN 2017
The Top Fuel and Funny Car classes each attracted just enough entries to fill the order, but The Pro Stock class has just 13 this weekend.
And last year’s Pro Stock winner of the NHRA Northwest Nationals – who actually won the final round at Indianapolis, during the U.S. Nationals last September because of a rainout – isn’t one of them. Despite his storybook march to the trophy, low-budget racer Pro Stock Aaron Strong changed his status this year to no-budget racer.
Strong, from nearby Milton, about 15 minutes away from Pacific Raceways, was on hand Friday. However, he was just making the rounds through the Pro Stock and Comp Eliminator pits, visiting his former racing colleagues, or in his words, “my extended racing family.”
“I just wanted to come out and see everybody and say hi. I haven’t been to a race this year. My last race was the Finals [at Pomona, Calif., last November],” Strong said. “I’m a terrible spectator. For the last 20 years, I’ve hardly ever come to a track unless I was racing.
He said in the sportsman ranks “there’s been an opportunity or two but nothing’s come together. I wouldn’t mind doing that. There are possibilities in Pro Stock – you just have to come up with sponsorship money to do it. No immediate plans.”
The Wally statue Strong earned last year sits in his garage with his other racing hardware, but the modest Strong said he wasn’t planning to “dust it off” and bring it to the track to show it off. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable, walking around with my trophy. That was a year ago. They invited me out to the track two weeks later [after he won the final] and did a podcast from the tower. That was kind of neat.”
He did venture to Pacific Raceways recently, to the facility’s go-kart track for a bachelor party for one of his buddies. He said he didn’t wander over to the dragstrip: “I stayed away. There was nobody racing. It would’ve been like a ghost town. It would probably have been even more eerie. I would have been like a little lost puppy dog, looking down at the benches. I’d have been by myself, crying.” He laughed, maybe only partially joking.