Points Leaders Gingles, Williams Take Earlville

Points Leaders Gingles, Williams Take Earlville

by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association

At all-concrete Tri State Raceway in Earlville, Iowa, Gord Gingles stomped the Top Alcohol Dragster field to strengthen his hold on the Central Region points lead, and Kirk Williams won Top Alcohol Funny Car to tie Kris Hool for the top spot in the region.

In the Top Alcohol Dragster final, Gingles left within a hundredth of Chase Copeland, .080 to .089, and made his strongest run of the weekend, 5.48, for his second regional victory in his last three outings. He also scored at Cordova. Copeland, who usually does his best at the end of the season, dropped cylinders a few hundred feet off the starting line and slowed to a 7.43 at 126 mph.

Gingles ran back-to-back 5.57s in the early rounds to eliminate past national event champions John Finke and Randy Meyer. Finke, racing far from his upstate New York base on back-to-back weekends in an attempt to win the East Region championship, got off the mark first with a .048 reaction time but lost with a 5.66 in the first round. Meyer, who surprisingly is winless this season, fell to Gingles in the semi's with a tire-smoking, backpedaling 5.77.

Copeland topped Christine Chambless in the first round with a 5.44 and newcomer Dean Dubbin in the semi's with a 5.48, leaving first both times. Back-to-back runner-ups, including one at the Brainerd national event three weeks ago, have him

back to 10th in the national standings, where he's finished in each of the past two seasons.

In the Top Alcohol Funny Car final, Williams beat Cordova runner-up Dale Brand on a holeshot, 5.79 to 5.75. Williams had his best reaction time of the race, .041, against Brand's .090 to hold off the faster car by 11-thousandths of a second.

"Dale was running a couple hundredths quicker than us, so I figured I'd better get after it on the Tree because there was nothing to lose," said Williams, who's won countless races on holeshots during his career. "I knew was going to have to short-shift because the right lane here can be really tricky to get down, and I hit the button at 8,500."

Brand, who has two-runner-ups and a semifinal showing in his only three starts this season, won the first round with a solid 5.76 after Wayne Butler red-lighted. Williams defeated Mike Bell in that round with a 5.750, which, at the time, was low e.t.

Brand reclaimed low e.t. for good in the semifinals with a 5.73 against Lance Van Hauen, who ended the weekend with a pair of semifinals finishes, including one from the rescheduled Topeka event that was completed at Earlville. Williams survived that round with a 5.79 win over No. 1 qualifier Scott McVey.

"This whole weekend was chaotic," Williams said. "On the first qualifying run, the car just died and rolled down the track. The next morning, it wouldn't start. We borrowed a mag from Dean Dubbin, who didn't even know me, and a main cap from Lance Van Hauen, who had to take his spare motor out from under the bench to get one we could use. If it wasn't for those guys, we never would have made it."

Williams' victory ties him with Hool tied atop the Central standings. Both have 266 points. For Williams, who won five races and the Division 5 championship in 2010, and Hool, who's parking his car at the end of this season, it all comes down to the penultimate regional event of the season this weekend in Noble, Okla.