Rockingham Dragway has a well-deserved reputation as a fast track and racers at the National Guard ADRL’s Flowmaster Dragstock VI reinforced that reputation Friday night with some of the quickest and fastest fields in series history.

Pro Extreme qualifying climaxed with a stellar 3.71-seconds pass at 205.10 miles per hour over the Rockingham eighth mile by Jason Hamstra in his supercharged ’68 Camaro, representing the quickest and fastest pass ever by a torque converter-equipped car. It marks the first time Hamstra has ever officially led a National Guard ADRL qualifying round.

“We stepped it up a little bit at night, but it was far from a perfect pass,” the 21-year-old driver from Demotte, Indiana, said. “It moved around quite a bit out there. Our computer shows it pulled 2Gs lateral movement at one point. My teammates pointed out I missed my shift point a little and I told them that was because I was kind of busy driving!”

ROCKINGHAM REPUATION REINFORCED BY RECORD-SETTING FIELDS FOR FLOWMASTER DRAGSTOCK VI

Rockingham Dragway has a well-deserved reputation as a fast track and racers at the National Guard ADRL’s Flowmaster Dragstock VI reinforced that reputation Friday night with some of the quickest and fastest fields in series history.

Pro Extreme qualifying climaxed with a stellar 3.71-seconds pass at 205.10 miles per hour over the Rockingham eighth mile by Jason Hamstra in his supercharged ’68 Camaro, representing the quickest and fastest pass ever by a torque converter-equipped car. It marks the first time Hamstra has ever officially led a National Guard ADRL qualifying round.

“We stepped it up a little bit at night, but it was far from a perfect pass,” the 21-year-old driver from Demotte, Indiana, said. “It moved around quite a bit out there. Our computer shows it pulled 2Gs lateral movement at one point. My teammates pointed out I missed my shift point a little and I told them that was because I was kind of busy driving!”

Dwayne Watkins currently holds the 16th and final qualifying position with a 3.91 at 193.63 lap, just nine-thousandths of a second off making it the quickest Pro Extreme field ever, and a record nine cars of the 35 entries have already topped the 200-mph mark. With one more qualifying session left for Saturday and several highly ranked drivers and cars still seeking inclusion, both records seem likely to change.

Pro Extreme qualifying also was interrupted by two significant engine explosions and fires, but fortunately, Frankie Taylor and Tommy D’Aprile escaped unharmed in both cases.

Mike Castellana of Westbury, NY, leads a similar situation with his 1970 Camaro in Pro Nitrous, which already has set a record as quickest field in National Guard ADRL history, bookended by Castellana’s record-setting 3.86 at 185.23 and Ted Smith’s 4.01 at 182.72 mph in the 16th position.

“The car drove toward the wall, out of the groove about 500 feet out. I felt the car drift and knew I was taking a chance being that close to the wall, but luckily we didn’t crash,” Castellana said.

Only two cars separate Pro Nitrous from featuring its first all-three-second field, and again, several non-qualified contenders from the 38 entries may well step up and help create history in Saturday’s lone qualifying session.

Qualifying for the Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 class is presently led by New Market, Alabama’s Gary White with a 4.00-seconds pass at 181.45 mph in the turbocharged, six-cylinder Titan Motorsports ’07 Scion. Close behind White at 4.02 seconds is Chuck Ulsch, who went an incredible 204.01 mph on the relatively narrow 10.5-inch-wide rear rubber on his supercharged ’68 Camaro.

Like Pro Nitrous, just two cars separate the Flowmaster Extreme 10.5 class from producing its quickest field ever, with R.B. Smith currently on the bump spot with a 4.62 time.

Thirty-nine riders entered Pro Extreme Motorcycle at Rockingham and after two qualifying rounds Ronald Procopio from Wake Forest, North Carolina, is on top with a 4.22 at 169.13 mph aboard his ’07 Suzuki. After the opening session, the National Guard ADRL’s two-wheeled warriors had already established the fifth-quickest field in series history, but after two shots at the track they made up the quickest field ever, locked in with a 4.33 by Derrick Holloway.

Holdenville, Oklahoma’s Dean Goforth came through with a 4.08 at 176.77 mph on Friday night to become the provisional Extreme Pro Stock pole sitter. Goforth’s elapsed time is less than three hundredths off the official class record and his speed falls short of the official mark by less than one mile per hour.

As the National Guard ADRL’s only non-heads-up class, the Pro Jr. Dragster division for drivers aged 8-17 qualifies based on quickest reaction times and Taylor Weatherford currently holds the lead over the 16-car field with a .007 light after two hits at the tree.

Flowmaster Dragstock VI resumes Saturday, Sep. 12, with a third and final round of qualifying for all classes beginning at noon, with elimination rounds to follow.
 

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