Bruce Biegler – November 9, 2009.
An invading Pro Mod team from Canada rudely scored one of the most prestigious independent event wins of the season yesterday.
Owned by Rob Sporring and driven by Tony Pontieri, the Quality Plus Compressors Chevy Camaro stopped all challengers within the marquee Pro Outlaw Blown category during the 7th Annual Shakedown at E-Town event held in New Jersey. That race, which was this season presented by Al-Anabi, is advertised and now widely regarded as the sport’s premier “Outlaw” racing event.
Pontieri’s victory was a truly impressive one — the team was simply dominating.
They qualified #1 over 22 other competitors with a 5.906 secs and then rattled off both low ET (5.895 secs) and top speed (246.39 mph) during Sunday’s final eliminations. They recorded the quickest ET during each and every round of competition, reeling off consecutive laps of 5.938 secs, 5.922 secs, 5.895 secs and 5.914 secs to defeat (in order) Kevin Vanderback, Benny Alfonso, Larry Plummer and then finally Kevin McCurdy.
Pontieri (who is from Bolton) and his team, who have been only sporadic with their event appearances this season after completing construction of their new car, picked up a lucrative payment of $20,000 for their very solid weekend effort.
The Shakedown event also included a strong finish for another Canadian driver, John Carinci (from Woodbridge). Carinci placed runner-up in the event’s Outlaw Heavy Street class driving his nitrous-injected ’70 Barracuda. Carinci had a boundary violation in the final round which gave the automatic win to opponent Mitch George. George’s victory was however very bittersweet as he went for a very nasty spill past the finish line which destroyed his car.
(Photos by: “Diamond Dave” DeAngelis)
