WCOPMA wraps up season at Sacramento Raceway’s Governors Cup event
The West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association’s final event was held this weekend at Sacramento Raceway Park during their Governors Cup event. 15 of the best pro mod racers from west coast rolled through the gates on Friday to compete for a spot in the tough 8-car field on Saturday’s eliminations.
There were 5 hours to test on Friday before the first round of qualifying and Randy Kay took full advantage of the opportunity. After the previous event in Medford, Oregon where Kay kicked the rods out through the lights he was unsure if he was going to make the season ending event at Sacramento Raceway. Eventually he got everything back together just in time to make the race and on the first hit he ran an outstanding 6.28 at a whopping 240.05 mph which made Kay the first, and only, converter-driven pro mod car to run in the 240 mph range, thanks to Lonnie Houde for tuning and Spec Rite Converters for the awesome torque converter. Lots of other racers made test passes to get as much data as they could for qualifying, knowing it was going to be a hard field to make.
The first round of qualifying was held Friday night and almost everyone underestimated the remarkable racing surface that the Sacramento Raceway track crew had prepped. The nighttime session was full of tire shake but Kay, Diedrich and Leonard made it down effortlessly. Kay ran a blistering 6.21 @ 240 to put him in the top spot, which would hold as the #1 spot through the second session as well.
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/4/7/friday10.jpg" alt="friday10" align="right"borders="0"/>The second round of qualifying was much better as 3 guys improved on their times and made it into the show including Rod Burbage, Scott Bailey and Jack Holsey. Bob Bunker Jr. and Sean Renteria improved on their first qualifying round times as well moving them higher into the field.
The final qualifying order looked like this:
1. Randy Kay* - 6.21 @ 240
2. Bob Bunker Jr.* - 6.48 @ 225
3. Rod Burbage* - 6.665@ 216
4. Scott Bailey* - 6.667 @ 213
5. Jay Diedrech* - 6.67 @ 219
6. Mike Leonard* - 6.69 @ 205
7. Jack Holsey* - 6.74 @ 207
8. Sean Renteria* - 6.77 @ 206
* = Blown Entry’s
DNQ:
Doug Reed*
Monty Berney*
Doug Ballance
Rod Pearce
Tim Stefan*
Aaron Wardell*
Perry Brown
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/4/7/saturday30.jpg" alt="saturday30" align="left"borders="0"/> First round placed Kay vs. Renteria, Bunker Jr. vs. Holsey, Bailey vs. Diedrich and Burbage vs. Leonard. The first pair down the track was Bailey and Diedrich. Bailey’s car got loose toward the middle of the track letting Diedrich power on by for the win and a career best et to go with it. Next up were Bunker Jr. and Holsey and the race was decided before Bunker Jr. could even pull into the stage beam. Holsey left before the tree was activated then Bunker Jr. took the green light and made a personal career best run at 6.29 @ 230 mph and needless to say the whole crew and family was ecstatic to see those numbers pop up on the board! Then Kay faced up with Renteria and Renteria was shut off after his burnout giving Kay a single, but he still made yet another blistering 240+ mph pass. The last pair down the track was Burbage and Leonard and Burbage thundered down while Leonard started dancing around and clicked it off early.
By the time the semi final round was up the sun had gone down and the track was getting cold. Bunker Jr. and Burbage were the first pair out and Burbage knew he had a challenge on his hands running Bunker Jr. and being in the left lane that they just couldn’t seem to get a handle of. Bunker Jr. went off to run a 6.39 and take the win to Burbage’s aborted run of 7.99. Kay faced Diedrich in the semis and he ran a 6.22 to Diedrich’s loosing 6.56.
The final round never got to be ran because the two finalist (Bunker Jr. and Kay) decided that the track was too cold and the racing conditions weren’t safe plus the race track had a curfew and they were already 30 minutes past that time so they didn’t run the final round and decided to split the winners circle and winnings.
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/4/7/saturday36.jpg" alt="saturday36" align="right"borders="0"/> Still, HUGE congratulations go out to Bob Bunker Jr. for having an amazing race weekend and Randy Kay as well for raising his previous mph record from 236 to 240 making his 1963 Corvette the fastest converter-driven pro mod car and the first, and only, guy to run 240+ with a converter in a pro mod car!
The West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association would like to thank Dave Smith and his entire Sacramento Raceway Park crew for an awesome facility to race at and a great racetrack to run on! Records were broke and career best et’s were ran during the Governors Cup event.
For more information on the West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association feel free to email us at [email protected]. Information for our upcoming 2009 season will be posted throughout the winter months.
Story and pictures by Steven Bunker / Quarter Mile Designs
