2nd Time – 1st Time Winners in Virginia

Timothy Fletcher | June 16, 2018

The 11th stop on the Mellow Yellow tour brought us to the newly renovated Virginia Motorsports Park for the “replacement” race for E-town, but this is not the 1st time Virginia has been a stop for the NHRA. VMP was removed from the schedule about 10 or so years ago and everything kind of fell into place for them under the new ownership and when a spot opened up they did not hesitate, doing everything they could to make there comeback one of the best. The VMP divisional in April was a great starter for the track and its racers even with a few week old brand new concrete surface, and with more improvements to come, all the hard work seemed to pay off with a wildly successful 1st year, having a sell out crowd on Saturday.

Randy Parker

With only 4 sportsman categories the weekend was a no brainer 3 day event, hosting time trials on Friday with 4 rounds on Saturday before noon. Besides the hot lapping between the rounds and lack of track prep towards the end, the weekend went along as it should, finishing on Sunday.

Stock Eliminator final round had Randy Parker getting his redemption after a runner-up finish at the divisional with a .034 reaction time to the .059 of Eugene Monahan. Once Monahan swapped feet his car stopped in its tracks which gave Parker a free ride to victory lane with an 11.39 painted on the window of his I/SA Mirada. While Super Stock also had a D2 vs D1 match up, it was yet again D2 prevailing as Joe Tysinger took out Joe Lisa. Tysinger was about as good as you could be all weekend with his worst light being .013, rolling up to the final dialed in at 10.59 he missed the tree a tad with a .034 bulb but made up for it by running dead on 0 to his 10.59 dial. Lisa missed the tree a bit more at .065 and then ran under his predicted et at 10.335 for a double negative and sent him packing, giving Tysinger his 2nd ever Wally.

The final of the 9.90 category had 2 Northeast heavy hitters in Mike Sawyer and Charlie Kenopic with Kenopic coming out on top with a .004 light. Both of these drivers ran identical 9.893’s with Sawyer having about 15 mph more but once these drivers crossed the stripe, Kenopic was ahead by .008 because of that .004 and gave him the win. Now 78 time National event winner Jeg Coughlin was the last man standing in 8.90 as he now also makes it 2 in a row in 2 totally different categories. Fresh off his Pro Stock win last weekend Coughlin was looking for only his 3rd ever SC trophy and got it when Rich Dorr clicked it -.029 red, turning the beacon on in Coughlin’s lane with a great .010 light.