As the NHRA circuit's annual stop roared into Thunder Valley in Eastern Tennessee, GoFDR player Allen Smith of Cleveland, OH weathered the storm just long enough to take top honors. Smith also won the SummitRacing.com Nationals back in Las Vegas, making this his second victory of 2002 and our first repeat winner.

In a bizarre set of circumstances, 9 out of the top-10 finishers secured the 50-point PreQualifying Bonus by selecting their teams prior to the first round of qualifying. You can credit this to the top-4 qualifiers in each class (known as a "hunting ground" for those who carefully monitor qualifying before choosing their teams) suffering a great deal of attrition on Sunday.

The first round of losses of Tony Pedregon(qualified #1) Jim Yates(#2), John Force(#3) and Ron Capps(#4) delivered the first lightning strike to most post-qualifying team selections. The second round losses of Troy Coughlin(#1), Kenny Bernstein(#2), Doug Kalitta(#3) and Greg Anderson(#4) pretty much left them sweeping up the ashes.

Our winner, Allen Smith, escaped the storms merciless onslaught by pre-selecting a team that he knew would qualify instead of loading up with the high dollar, big name racers.

The competition was tough despite the unpredictable elimination races on Sunday. Smith was closely pursued by Denise Crenshaw, Rob Ingles, and Bryan Clinton, all of whom were within 1 round of taking the top spot. Only 16 points separated the top four finishers while Sam Eldred secured fifth place at 44 points behind our winner.

With many new players competing this season, we sometimes like to take a close look at how our rookies are doing against the veterans. It was a virtual tie this week with five of each accounting for our top-10. We have to give the nod to the veterans though, after capturing three of the top-5 spots including Smith's victory.

We would like to congratulate Allen on his second victory of the season. While some of the veterans are getting a good hold on our game, the rookies are making a fine showing as well. We encourage everyone to play again this week when the NHRA tour visits Atlanta for the Southern Nationals on May 2nd through the 5th.

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