It’s only fitting that an iconic doorslammer drag racer rebounds at an iconic track known for its doorslammer history.
Friday, at the legendary drag strip in Norwalk, Ohio, two-time Pro Boost champion Todd Tutterow found his groove again, laying down the quickest run of any car on the property, a 3.627-second pass at 208.04 MPH in the third and final qualifying session during the third stop on the 2024 Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series tour.
Tutterow was joined atop the leaderboard by Jm Halsey (Pro Nitrous) and Johnny Pluchino (Extreme Pro Stock).
Tutterow secured the No. 1 spot by just two-thousandths of a second during qualifying at the American Doorslammer Challenge.
“That just shows how close the racing is here, right?” said Tutterow. “We didn’t get but two qualifying runs [at Virginia] and we got three here. That makes a difference because I try to pick my car up each round and I didn’t get that opportunity [at Virginia]. It is what it is, but we made a really nice lap tonight.”
Tutterow wasn’t the only one in a groove as Halsey drove to his third consecutive Pro Nitrous low qualifying effort. He hit the top mark in the opening session.
“We’re really starting to figure it out, so hopefully we can continue the trend,” said Halsey, who set a new E.T. national record at the season opener and won the last race in Virginia. “The car made a beautiful run – a perfect run. We hit it all. It’s all thanks to the crew. They work hard for it, so they deserve way more credit than I do.”
Pluchino made it two in a row as he took top honors in Pro Stock.
“It starts with the people,” Pluchino said. “We have all the right people behind us and we have some really good equipment here. It’s coming together. We didn’t do too well the first couple of qualifying runs [in the heat], which we have to get that figured out for tomorrow because tonight is definitely a different deal than what tomorrow is going to be. We definitely have to work on that for tomorrow, but we have a bad fast race car right now. As always, I feel good in the car, and we feel like we’re the ones to beat.”
Other top qualifiers in the PDRA’s professional classes included Walter Lannigan Jr. (Pro 632), Brayden Davis (Pro Extreme Motorcycle), Brian Weddle (Pro Street) and Gage Llamas (Super Street).
The PDRA’s sportsman categories also completed three qualifying sessions. The No. 1 qualifiers are Tim Paap in Top Sportsman, Craig Addis in Top Dragster, Gary Grahner in Top Sportsman 32, and Patrick Forster in Laris Motorsports Insurance Top Dragster 32.
