Thompson Makes it to the Semifinal Round at Seattle Divisional Event

Thompson Makes it to the Semifinal Round at Seattle Divisional Event

Kent WA - Clint Thompson had a rough but good weekend in Seattle as he went to the semifinals at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing series event held at Pacific Raceways, August 18-19. Thompson had a rough time in round one when his engine exploded around half track. Oil covered the slicks and smoke filled the cockpit as the veteran driver fought to bring the car to a safe stop.

"The team had changed engines yesterday as the one we were running in testing cracked a crankshaft. We only carry one spare engine as we usually don't have these type of failures, the motor we installed was fresh with all new internal parts I just ran it too lean I guess. We borrowed a crank from Steve Gasparelli and put it in the other motor, we had it done for the last session but I chose to sit it out as I knew we couldn't be bumped from the field" said Thompson.

Thompson ended up qualified 7th with a 6.46 which set up a first round showdown with Canada’s John Evanchuk, who qualified second.

At the start, Thompson was out of the gate first with a .052 to Evanchuk’s .075. It was a close side-by-side race all the way down the track with Thompson taking the win light delivering his best performance of the weekend, a 5.74 at 254 MPH to Evanchuk ‘s close 5.76 at 251 MPH.

Clint said "The car shook a little but I was able to drive through it. It's always a good race when John and I line up and there wasn't much room to spare at the finish line."

In the semi final round, the Thompson Racing Team took on Southern California’s Keeter Ray. At the line, Thompson was again out of the gate first with an .054 to Ray’s .070. At the finish line it was Ray taking the win with a 5.78 at 252 MPH. Thompson slowed down to a 6.03 at 245 MPH. "Keeter ran a '.71 in the first round just like he had twice in qualifying so I figured we had to try and step it up," said Thompson, "so I stepped on it a little bit and it was just more than the track would take, the car shook hard and I had to pedal it to hook it up and he got out on me at that point. Their team did a good job, ran consistent and well and earned the win".

In the final it was Keeter Ray against Division Six point leader Steve Gasparelli. Ray ended up winning the race with a 5.76 to Gasparelli's centerline crossing 6.58 which prevented Gasparelli from further extending his lead over Thompson in the standings. "Steve is my friend, but I guess you could say I was a pretty big Keeter fan for that round", Thompson said laughing, adding " Keeter earned that one and Steve and I will be battling again next month in Woodburn. We're gonna give it everything we've got to win the title".

The next stop for Team Thompson is the Lucas Oil series race in White City, Oregon on September 10th and 11th, then back to Woodburn the following Friday for the re run of the rained out July event. From there the team will travel to Dallas, and then on to Reading, Pennsylvania for NHRA national events.