After a long, bumpy, and challenging road consisting of engine blowups, reconfigurations, and just some plain old bad luck, Competition Eliminator veteran Scott Cashio turned to his father after the Dallas national event last year and asked if he still wanted to do this. After all, the Cashios, like many of their fellow competitors, consider drag racing to be a family activity. 

Cashio's father, Tommy, a lifelong bracket racer, enthusiastically reassured his son that he is all in on this endeavor. Thus continued the journey of persistence that every drag racer experiences. For Cashio, the spark he needed to reignite his passion was just around the corner. 

At the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Division 4 opener in Belle Rose, La., Cashio emerged victorious in his 2009 Cobalt, securing his first win in 11 years. Perhaps more importantly, he rose to the top of the list of competitors vying for their piece of Rodger Brogdon's alluring Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund, which offers additional prize money, to the tune of $225,000, at the end of the season to drivers competing in Division 4 events. 

To best appreciate just how much this win means to Cashio, it's helpful to understand a bit more about what it took to get there. He went through a series of purchasing, rebuilding and refreshing engines. Just when he thought he'd landed a configuration that worked, trouble would once again arise in the form of another blowup and another long drive home to Ventress, La. Fortunately, he had a powerful advocate in the form of engine builder Richard Freeman of Elite Motorsports. Freeman left no stone unturned in his quest to determine exactly how to create the power and consistency Cashio needed. As any car buff knows, high-performance engine building is as much an art as it is a science, and sometimes the trial-and-error process is arduous. In early 2022, they sent the car to Modern Racing in Mooresville, N.C. to make changes. 

"My car was at Modern Racing up in North Carolina until the Saturday before the Belle Rose event," said Cashio. "They worked with the folks at Elite and made sure it was running, but it wasn't race ready. It needed new seatbelts. I had to change the rear gear and the converter. There was all sorts of stuff I had to work on to get it ready in just four days. 

"We showed up in Belle Rose on Thursday and all the front end had been redone, new rack-and-pinion, new steering arms, new ignition system… Hey, what could go wrong? We made a test run on Thursday basically just to make sure nothing fell off or flew off during the pass. That was a pretty monumental achievement in itself."

The monumental achievements clearly didn't stop as Cashio experienced one of those "stars aligning" weekends that every racer lives for. He qualified at the top of the ladder going .71 under his index. With cool weather conditions, he knew that he would need to shut off early during each round of eliminations lest he damage his index beyond repair. Knowing this, he was mentally repaired for someone to go around him at some point. Instead, he turned on one win light after another. 

"Let me tell ya, things worked out well for us in Belle Rose by a lot of fortune. We had the quickest car on the property. But the quickest car on the property doesn't always win. And there are a lot of good drivers that are trying to chase this money. We had people from all over the country there."

The Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund did indeed attract Comp Eliminator drivers from far and wide. And the competition is just heating up. Thanks to numerous sponsors, the bonus money offered in Division 4 is better than ever. As drivers head to Nobile, Okla. this week for the second Division 4 points meet this season, Cashio will be among them. This was a decision made only after he got the Wally in Belle Rose, proof positive that the Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund is doing what it is intended to do - creating a reason for more Comp racers to participate throughout the season and increase car counts in the category. 

In addition to Brogdon's company, RoofTec, here are the other sponsors of the Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund:
* Ashton and Mignon Hudson - AMBE AMPERSAND SOAP Co.
* Nicky Fowler - SCOGGIN DICKEY PARTS CENTER
* Jerry Haas - JERRY HAAS RACE CARS
* Richard Freeman - ELITE MOTORSPORTS LLC.
* John Clegg - CLEGG INDUSTRIES, Inc
* Stan Holt - LUPE TORTILLA'S
* Joe Napoleon - TURNKEY INDUSTRIES
* Jim Whiteley - J & A Services LLC.
* Clint Neff / Harry Clack - ATC TRANSMISSION CENTER
* Dean Carter - QUALITY FLOORS
* Sean Schwartz - CCR MOTORSPORTS INSURANCE
* Ray Skillman - RAY SKILLMAN AUTO GROUP