The 2012 edition of the April Fuels event at the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, CA marked the start of the second season of racing for the Southern California Sand Drag Association. As always, the SCSDA did a great job of providing a great venue and stellar race program for the racers as well as fans to enjoy. Let’s take a look at some of the top performers and stories from this race weekend.
Famous Amos Satterlee & the CANIDAE Top Fuel crew prepare to send Scott Whipple to the Top Fuel win at Soboba. Scott continued his streak of 2.2's with a Best ET of the weekend of 2.27. Scott also topped his MPH record of 169.40 set at Dome Valley in February wtih a 172.61MPH blast.
Dennis Rieck debuted his new Hammer Down Hemi Top Fueler at the Soboba event. The Hammer Down team worked out the bugs throughout the weekend and carded a 2.53 best.
Shane Sanford threw down a solid 2.45 in the first round of Top Fuel competition for his quickest run in the Nitro burner thus far on the way to a runner-up finish.
There are two great stories in this photo. Gary Mink (Near Lane) once again qualified #1, set Low ET, and won the Top Alcohol class. However, things were not easy for the team as they had to replace a broken rear end after the first qualifying pass and had to work through some close races on race day. Jim Hammond (Far Lane) completed his first weekend with his new BAE Hemi powerplant in the April's Dream TAD. Nick Januik helped the team out on their first weekend with the combo as Jim would card his Personal Best ET of 2.57 en route to a close semi-final defeat by Mink.
The Fast Fours class put on a great show as always with these two cars rolling to the final round. Aaron Mamer (Far Lane) in the Sidewinder pulled off a hole shot win over Art Cronin's Meltdown in a tight 3.00 to 2.99 decision.
Todd Kinney & the Under The Influence team took their first Top Eliminator class win with the Blown Alcohol Jeep defeating Paul Graham in the final round.
Carey Mahoney was the class of the field in Pro Mod Unlimited running Low ET with a 2.87 and going on to defeat Bob Gill in the final round.
Christian Payne had an extremely impressive weekend at Soboba taking both the Motorcycle Pro 1 & Motorcycle Sportsman 1 class titles.
Another of the multiple class winners on the weekend was George Amos. Making George's feat even more impressive is that he took the Motorcycle Pro 2 class on his trademark 3-wheeled ATV (pictured) while he won the Pro 2 category in his Chevy-powered Dragster.
Billy Morris ran a perfect 2.950 in TE qualifying, which earned him the Good Vibrations Motorsports #1 Qualifier bonus at this event.
The Otis Simpson-owned/Jim DePasse-driven Blown Alcohol Jeep had a great new look at this Soboba event. The trademark Larry Minor colors were certainly eye catching as Jim shoed the Jeep to a semi-final finish in Pro Mod Unlimited with a Best ET of the 3.02 for the weekend.
Donny Flora put on a great show for the Soboba fans in the Motorcycle Pro 1 class with wheels up charges all weekend long en route to a runner-up finish.
Photos Courtesy: NSDN