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Sections News
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Schonberger, Jewell, Harrington, Muller, Smulligan, and Garbinski win at Atco 4/14/03 ATCO, N.J. - Familiar faces highlighted the winners circle on April 13th from the Meissner Chevrolet NHRA National Open held at Atco Raceway. Even having been rained out on Friday, and an early poor forecast, plenty of racers showed up for the first completed race of the four race Division 1 National Open Series. Despite the hopes of some racers, the new LED lights were not in use at the Open. The reason: they simply just aren’t ready yet. The plan was to have the bulbs in use for this race, but they haven’t been delivered yet. The .000 reaction time scale was in use, however, and it was like the racers had always been using it.
When the finals rolled around, the two cars left standing were the I/SM 1990 Pontiac Firebird of Richard Schonberger and the F/A 1992 Ford Probe of Erich Bollman. Both cars left pretty even, Bollman with just a small .003 advantage. On the big end, it was Schonberger’s Philadelphia Racing Engines entry with enough power to hold off the Ford, running a -.513 9.247 to Bollman’s -.466 8.384.
Picking up the number one qualifying position in Super Stock was Vito Savino in his new look GT/HA ’95 Grand Am with a (pre-tech) record setting run of 10.196 at 130.20 MPH. Joe Mendillo also set the GT/G record at 10.098 (pre-tech). The Stock Eliminator final showcased a battle of the braking Camaros. Atco Resident (well if he’s not, he should be!) “Happy Harry” aka Jim Harrington was able to successfully avoid the breakout in his F/FIA ’91 Camaro running .017 over his 12.30 dial at just 99.91 MPH to defeat the G/SA ’68 Camaro of Stan Giermanski.
Atco regular Dave Muller picked up the Super Comp win in his ’99 Racetech dragster when Jim Morrison went -.003 red in the Fun Family Cruiser Ed Quay dragster. Both drivers were a little fast on the other end, but it didn’t matter as the race was over before it began.
Don Garbinski, the 2002 Open Series Champion started the year off well by taking care of Matt Schurman in the Super Street final. Garbinski had a near-perfect .004 reaction time in his ’71 Dodge Challenger and committed the lesser of the two breakouts on the top end at 10.873. Schurman wasn’t too far off with an .019 reaction time in his small block powered ’68 Camaro, but was well under the 10.90 standard with a 10.844.
The next event on the NHRA Division 1 schedule is the National Open at Lebanon Valley Dragway, May 2-4, 2003.
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