Rain Delays Rockingham Recordfest

A weekend of dynamite MiRock Superbike series drag racing action was cut short when Sunday rains thoroughly soaked Steve Earwood’s record setting Rockingham Dragway. Eliminations for the Schnitz Summer Sizzler will be completed when the series returns to The Rock in November.

Former Orient Express Pro Sportbike champ Anthony Navarro led the assault with a blistering 7.634 on his Velocity Racing Suzuki Hayabusa. The bad deal for Navarro is that he failed to back the record up in the evening sessions, and MiRock rules insist that records be backed up on the same weekend.

Defending Pro Sportbike champ Vinnie Demito qualified second with an-also-record-surpassing 7.673, also on a Velocity ‘Busa. Series interloper Lil’ Nick Mazeika brought his AMA Dragbike Super Street legal, Playthings Racing, Exoticycles GSXR1000 out to play and qualified third with a 7.885. Navarro has the bye when the rain-delayed race resumes in November, while Demito will line up against Brian Bozarth and Mazeika has the nitrous GSXR of Andy Smallwood.

HTP Performance True Street is shaping up to be Keith Thompson’s playground. The Upper Marlboro, Maryland veteran racer qualified number one with a record setting 8.177 on his HTP-prepped GSXR1000, hitting a record top speed of 173.96 mph. Early round leader Norman Jackson qualified second with an 8.223 on his similarly prepared HTP GSXR. Rickey Grayson was third, also on a GSXR1000. Thompson faces Brian Forte come round 1 in November, while Jackson has Killa Minx Traci Lewis and Grayson draws Frank Halmon.

Given time, Schnitz Racing Outlaw Pro Street champion Dave Norris might have laid down a record lap, but then came that whole rain thing. As it was, Norris qualified number one with a 6.983 at 194.18. Ronnie Procopio became the second rider to pilot a no-bar nitrous bike into the sixes when he laid down a 6.995 at 196.39. Ralph Medrano Jr. came back from an almost two year absence to qualify third with a 7.124. All three ride Suzukis prepared by Dan Wagner of DTM Racing.

Procopio was on somewhat of a tear, qualifying number one in FBR Shop Quick 32 and beating his wife Robin in Saturday night’s NX/Fast by Gast Pro ET race, one of two races completed on the weekend. Randolph “Boo” Brown Jr. beat fellow Virginian Clay Davies in an epic, drive-around Street ET battle. And Jim Shifflett qualified his Hillbilly Hustler number one in Honda/Suzuki of Sanford 5.60 with a not-far-from-perfect 5.601.

But despite all the records and tight bracket action, the hottest place to be at The Rock was Saturday night’s Afterdark Underground grudge racing. 120 bikes came in from the hills to try their luck and “real” races were poppin’. All kinds of combinations joined in the mix before a fairly serious wreck shut the night down around 12:15.

The MiRock Superbike series continues with the Fast by Gast Superbike Finals?at Maryland International Raceway?in Budd’s Creek, Maryland on October 4-5, 2008.