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Gilbertson dominates IHRA World Finals at Rockingham
One thing that has eluded Bob Gilbertson in his 30 plus years of racing Funny Cars has been a victory at his home track, Rockingham Dragway, which is just 80 miles from his Charlotte, N.C. home base.
That all changed this past weekend at the season-ending IHRA World Finals as Gilbertson and his Trick Tank team, lead by crew chief Tommy Delago, won the Funny Car title in dominating fashion literally overpowering the field to give him his third career IHRA win.
Gilbertson has had a tough IHRA season so far in 2007 but finished the year on a high note by qualifying No. 1, setting Low ET and Top Speed and posted the quickest elapsed time in every round of racing. Gilbertson took out two-time series champion Dale Creasy Jr. in the first round and Mitch King in the semi-finals then recorded the quickest elapsed time for the class (4.877 seconds at 314.53 mph) to beat journeyman driver Cory Lee in the finals.
"Winning at Rockingham is something I've always wanted to do," Gilbertson said. "I had my family, friends and a lot of my employees there to cheer me on and to win in front of all of them was really cool. I've set track records and qualified No. 1 but this is the first time we ever won at The Rock and it means a lot to me and my team. I just wish that this was the first race of the season instead of the last."
"I've got to give a lot of credit to my crew chief Tommy Delago, he made the right decisions today," Gilbertson added. "He and the guys were perfect today, everything went as it should have, nothing fell off, we didn't catch on fire, it was big. If I was my own crew chief I'd be in the burn center right now because I'd go crazy with the tune-up but they gave me a car that I could win with and the driver did a pretty good job so I've got another Iron Man trophy to take home."
Gilbertson will spend a few days at home savoring his win before he leaves Thursday for an 11-day road trip for the last two races on the NHRA schedule at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif. with a stop in-between at the SEMA/AAPEX Shows in Las Vegas where he'll be appearing at the Honeywell Consumer Products booth # 5700 on Wednesday, Oct. 31st from 10 AM - 12 PM.
Television coverage of the World Finals will be on SPEED TV on a date to be announced.
One thing that has eluded Bob Gilbertson in his 30 plus years of racing Funny Cars has been a victory at his home track, Rockingham Dragway, which is just 80 miles from his Charlotte, N.C. home base.
That all changed this past weekend at the season-ending IHRA World Finals as Gilbertson and his Trick Tank team, lead by crew chief Tommy Delago, won the Funny Car title in dominating fashion literally overpowering the field to give him his third career IHRA win.
Gilbertson has had a tough IHRA season so far in 2007 but finished the year on a high note by qualifying No. 1, setting Low ET and Top Speed and posted the quickest elapsed time in every round of racing. Gilbertson took out two-time series champion Dale Creasy Jr. in the first round and Mitch King in the semi-finals then recorded the quickest elapsed time for the class (4.877 seconds at 314.53 mph) to beat journeyman driver Cory Lee in the finals.
"Winning at Rockingham is something I've always wanted to do," Gilbertson said. "I had my family, friends and a lot of my employees there to cheer me on and to win in front of all of them was really cool. I've set track records and qualified No. 1 but this is the first time we ever won at The Rock and it means a lot to me and my team. I just wish that this was the first race of the season instead of the last."
"I've got to give a lot of credit to my crew chief Tommy Delago, he made the right decisions today," Gilbertson added. "He and the guys were perfect today, everything went as it should have, nothing fell off, we didn't catch on fire, it was big. If I was my own crew chief I'd be in the burn center right now because I'd go crazy with the tune-up but they gave me a car that I could win with and the driver did a pretty good job so I've got another Iron Man trophy to take home."
Gilbertson will spend a few days at home savoring his win before he leaves Thursday for an 11-day road trip for the last two races on the NHRA schedule at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif. with a stop in-between at the SEMA/AAPEX Shows in Las Vegas where he'll be appearing at the Honeywell Consumer Products booth # 5700 on Wednesday, Oct. 31st from 10 AM - 12 PM.
Television coverage of the World Finals will be on SPEED TV on a date to be announced.
