Division 1 – Maple Grove Recap, Super Classes

Mike Bodnar | June 1, 2017

A recap of the winners of the .90 Classes here at the second stop of NHRA Division One’s schedule, taking place at Maple Grove Raceway. The race featured on Friday, a “Quick” 8 Race for the top 8 qualifiers of each class and 28 Super Street cars, 28 Super Gas cars, and 31 Super Comp cars filled the field up for the event. Car count was similar to last year even with the iffy weather forecast for the weekend.

Starting off with Friday’s highlights of the Quick 8 races, we start off with Super Street. Friday’s winner of Super Street was John Maggiulli over Kevin Tiedemann. Maggiulli was 10.912 on the 10.90 index being .039 on the tree to Tiedemann’s .031 on the tree, but Tiedemann could not run the number running a 10.994. Moving on to Super Gas, Frank Volpe took the win on Friday over Charlie Kenopic. Volpe .011 and 9.934 to K

Shawn Fricke

enopic’s .013 and 9.968. Volpe being killer on the tree in the three rounds of the Quick 8 race, cutting a .011, .012, and another .011 in the final. Lastly, we move on to Super Comp. Kathy Smulligan defeats David Long. Smulligan .086 on the tree and lifting to a 9.001 on the 8.90 Index. Long have some sort of issue running a 10.145.

With final eliminations taking place on Sunday, we will hop right into Super Street. In the final round of Super Street, Shawn Fricke snags the Wally having a very good start to defending his division championship from last year, he defeated William Phillips. Williams letting go of the button a tad too soon going -.007 red on the tree giving Fricke the easy win. Fricke was .070 on the tree and 10.952 letting out of it early. Williams was 10.894 and as stated above -.007 on the tree. Shawn Fricke was on his game this weekend in his beautiful Firebird, only being off by a few thousandths of the .90 each of his rounds. This win is a big confidence boost for the next two weekends of national events.

For Super Gas, the race has not been completed yet. The final round is set between Tom Stalba and Joe Eckel. The race will be held at Atco Dragway in August, the race is set to take place during the third time run, as stated on Wheelz Up Radio.

A super busy weekend for the Aragona family ended up with them in the winner circle in Super Comp. Frank Aragona landed his Super Comp dragster in the winner’s circle with a stellar package. Aragona was a perfect .000 on the tree and 8.902 on the top end, giving him a package for the final round of two-thousandths. His competitor was Chase Fahnestock, Fahnestock with a close -.002 red light ending the race early. Aragona stating that, “he’s been waiting almost 10 years for another divisional super comp win.” He was also exceptional on the tree, four of six rounds with lights better than a .008. Unfortunately, during the third round of eliminations in Super Comp racer, Frank Genovesi went for a wild ride at the start of the shut-down area. Crossing lanes and hitting the wall and rolling a couple of times. Genovesi was uninjured from the crash and we hope to see him back out racing soon, wishing the best to the Genovesi family.