Talk about starting the season the right way.
From the moment the PDRA’s Pro Boost entries hit the track on Thursday, Melanie Salemi established her dominance. She recorded a 3.615-second pass at 206.29 mph in the screw-blown “Purple Reign” ’68 Firebird to top the list of 28 WS Construction Pro Boost at the PDRA East Coast Nationals, the first of eight races on the 2025 Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series schedule.
The leaderboard remained unchanged through Friday’s qualifying as
Tim Paap (Pro Nitrous) and Chris Powers (Pro Stock) claimed No. 1 qualifying positions in their respective divisions.
Salemi, a two-time winner of the East Coast Nationals, drives Eddie Whelan’s screw-blown Al-Lee Installations “Purple Reign” ’68 Firebird tuned by husband Jon Salemi and brother-in-law Jim Salemi with power from Mike Stawicki Racing.
“It never ever fails – you qualify No. 1; you have to work your butt off to win a race. You qualify No. 16, you have to work your butt off to win a race,” Salemi said. “It doesn’t really matter where you qualify, especially in a field of all these extraordinary cars. We have a lot of competition in PDRA and that’s what drives us to come here. To be able to win a race, you kind of have to throw all your testing and qualifying aside and take each run as you’re given because track conditions change and atmospheric conditions change. We’ll continue to adapt, and hopefully, that will bring us to another win here at GALOT.”
Defending Pro Boost world champion Jason Harris was second with a
3.623 at 206.80, while Johnny Camp – qualified third with a 3.631 at 205.44.
Paap appears to be seamlessly switching from Top Sportsman to Pro Nitrous with his nitrous-assisted Paap Auto Body ’16 Corvette. Paap converted his Elite Top Sportsman entry to Pro Nitrous trim over the offseason to step up to the heads-up, nitrous-only category.
Paap led Thursday’s lone qualifying session, then improved in the second session on Friday. His 3.676 at 204.45 held up as the No. 1 spot through the third session.
“We came here just trying to get into the field and just to win,” Paap said. “I can’t believe we did it, to be quite honest. I wouldn’t put it past us with Barker behind the keyboard and the team that we’ve got. Anything is possible. What people didn’t see was a struggle before we got here. Everyone thought we came here as the season opener and got to where we’re at, but it did not work out that way.”
The father-daughter duo of Tommy Franklin and Amber Denton were second and third, respectively, as Franklin they came just thousandths of a second from taking the top spot with his 3.679 at 204.54 in the final session. Denton also improved in the final session with a 3.686 at 205.34.
Pro Stock champion Powers, just like Salemi, charged to the No. 1 spot on Thursday evening and kept the position through two more sessions on Friday. He improved with a 4.100 in Friday’s second session and stepped up to a 4.099 at 176.26 in the final session. Powers is a three-time East Coast Nationals champion.
“This is the result of a lot of hard work,” Powers said. “We’ve wrenched on that car all winter trying to find a little more power out of it. The track’s been pretty good, and we’ve just figured it out. We’ve done really well here over the years. We’ve been on the pole here a couple other times, so we’re really happy. Tyler [Crossnoe] and everybody at PDRA’s doing a good job, and we’ll just keep plugging away at it. We want to go back-to-back for a championship, so we’re here to throw down. We’re going to do everything we can to win this race.”
Jeremy Huffman qualified second with a 4.100 at 175.37 while Alan Drinkwater was third with a 4.103 at 175.75.
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In PDRA’s other heads-up categories, Blake Denton topped Pro Street qualifying, Lexi Tanner topped Pro 632, and Austin Vincent led Super Street.
The PDRA’s sportsman categories also completed two more qualifying sessions on Friday, with No. 1 qualifier awards going to Glenn Butcher in Elite Top Sportsman, Jody Stroud in Elite Top Dragster, Vonnie Mills in Top Sportsman 48, and Danielle Gonzalez in Top Dragster.
After two of three qualifying sessions in the Jr. Dragster classes, the provisional No. 1 qualifiers are Emma Crane in Pro Jr. Dragster and Kylie Varnier in Classic Graphix Top Jr. Dragster. Crane was .001 seconds off the Pro Jr. Dragster 7.90 index with a 7.901 in her Dunkirk, Maryland-based ’19 Halfscale dragster, and Varnier had the best reaction time out of 18 Top Jr. Dragster racers in her Hampton, Virginia-based ’17 ECP dragster with a .005 light.
The PDRA East Coast Nationals at GALOT Motorsports Park will conclude Saturday, beginning with Jr. Dragster final qualifying at 9 a.m. Sportsman eliminations will kick off, followed by professional class eliminations at noon.
