Participating in the National Hot Rod Association’s inaugural NHRA Unleashed event at Atlanta Dragway, Suwanee, Georgia’s Ronnie Davis qualified his 1963 Corvette in first-place for the highly competitive Dixie Pro Mod class.

Davis followed up with a dominating win in the opening round of eliminations, but his day ended prematurely when something in his nitrous-injected, 822 cubic-inch engine broke during preparations for a semi-final race against Robert Mathis.

“It just started vibrating really hard in the middle of the burnout, so I just shut it off,” Davis explained. “I thought at first the timing belt had failed, but it’s something else; I’ll have to take it apart and figure it out when I get home.”

Participating in the National Hot Rod Association’s inaugural NHRA Unleashed event at Atlanta Dragway, Suwanee, Georgia’s Ronnie Davis qualified his 1963 Corvette in first-place for the highly competitive Dixie Pro Mod class.

Davis followed up with a dominating win in the opening round of eliminations, but his day ended prematurely when something in his nitrous-injected, 822 cubic-inch engine broke during preparations for a semi-final race against Robert Mathis.

“It just started vibrating really hard in the middle of the burnout, so I just shut it off,” Davis explained. “I thought at first the timing belt had failed, but it’s something else; I’ll have to take it apart and figure it out when I get home.”

Davis was hoping to repeat his performance from last month at Rockingham (NC) Dragway, where he won the International Hot Rod Association’s (IHRA’s) Spring Nitro Jam Elite 8 race for Top Sportsman entries.

He had a great start at NHRA Unleashed with a 4.13-seconds pass at more than 181 miles per hour over the eighth mile at Atlanta Dragway to place third after the first qualifying session, then took over the top spot for good with a 4.11-seconds run at 180.38 mph in the second round.

In Sunday’s first round of competition, Davis ran 4.12 at 181.06 mph in a solo pass after the ’96 Camaro of Jasper, Georgia’s Brian Russell was unable to take the starting signal.

“I was pretty happy with that (performance) considering the heat,” Davis said of temperatures in the high 90s and track surface temperatures exceeding 130 degrees. “We could’ve gone a little quicker, but we were testing to see what the track would take.”

Mathis went on to defeat Keith Baker in the Dixie Pro Mod final.

Davis will return to Pro Modified action June 26, in Atlanta Dragway’s annual Night of Fire event, then will resume NHRA Top Sportsman competition July 23-25, at National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio. Davis and teammate Billy Thigpen currently occupy the top two spots in the NHRA Div. 2 Jeg’s All Stars Top Sportsman point standings.