Kevin Bealko on fast track at ADRL Summer Drags
(7-16-2012) MARTIN, MI – Patience and perseverance were the theme of the weekend at Summer Drags VIII at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich. Friday's first session of qualifying saw the Black Diamond Motorsports 2011 GXP driven by Kevin Bealko sitting in the number one position with a 4.072 seconds elapsed time (ET) at 175.45 miles per hour (MPH).
Six hours later after several rain showers in the second round of qualifying with the humidity at the extreme end of the gauge, Kevin aborted the run when the GXP headed for the wall but his previous qualifying run held up enough for third position as the rain returned again canceling the rest of qualifying. Saturday would be the final qualifying session in which the Black Diamond Motorsports crew hoped to improve in.
Saturday's qualifying session did not see any improvement in the ET but no other competitor was able to improve their ET's either allowing the GXP to remain in the third position and would have to face the Lone Mopar driven by Larry O'Brien in the first round of eliminations.
Kevin Bealko in his Sonny Racing powered Jerry Haas Race Cars 2011 GXP performed his burn out and was lining up to stage when one of the Black Diamond Motorsports Crew noticed that a pressure gauge on the parachute bottle was reading zero from an air line that had broken on the burn out forcing Kevin to shut off the GXP for safety allowing O'Brien took make a single pass for the win.
All was for naught as the Black Diamond Motosports 2012 Camaro driven by John Deflorian was able to take up the gauntlet and win his first Extreme Pro Stock Title.
The seventh stop on the 10-race 2012 ADRL Tour takes place Aug. 3-4 at the state-of-the-art zMAX Dragway in Charlotte for ADRL Dragstock IX.
Photo by Roger Richards
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