This past weekend Bongiovanni Racing headed to Numidia Dragway in Pennsylvania for yet another double race event in the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series (LODRS). As the name implies, double events allow racers to pack two races into one weekend with the chance to earn valuable points and prizes.
Anthony Bongiovanni competed in both Stock and Super Stock along with teammate Nick Scardelli, who drives a Micro Strategies-backed Mustang in Stock Eliminator and a Mercury Capri in Super Stock. Numidia Dragway is located roughly three hours west of the Micro Strategies home base in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Both Anthony and Nick regularly race in the tough NHRA Division 1 (of 7 divisions). NHRA divisions divide North America into regions; this allows racers to compete relatively locally in the LODRS, while also earning points for the national titles.
Nick and Anthony lost during the second round of the first race; however, Anthony was able to score a third-round finish in Super Stock during the second race. He red lighted by the small margin of -.001 of a second! Thankfully, many of Anthony’s rivals lost early, which helped him maintain a solid position in the points standings and on a positive note, Anthony defeated a few of the Division’s heavy hitters.
Following the weekend, Anthony is ranked third in Super Stock out of 108 drivers in Division 1 and he’s currently third in the Stock Eliminator standings out of 156 racers.
“This was a challenging weekend,” said Anthony Bongiovanni. “We look forward to our annual trip to Numidia because it’s a scenic and fun track located close to home. Our Micro Strategies Cobra Jet Mustangs were running extremely well, delivering consistent 8-second, quarter mile runs at over 155 mph. Our engine builder Jimmy Ronzello has homed in on a great combination and we have the cars tuned very well. In fact, we qualified has high as second with the Micro Stocker and 4th with the Super Stocker. We were running 8.70s at over 155 mph, which is quick for Numidia in summertime.”
He continued, “Drag racing is fickle, though. You can perform well and win or lose each race by thousands of a second. With our type of racing, vehicle performance and driver skill are everything and you have to outperform the other drivers and crews. The competition is tight, so you’re always looking to get a better reaction time and run spot on your dial in, which is our predicted elapsed time. That’s the goal and this weekend we were close but got edged out a few times.” The next scheduled Lucas Oil Divisional race, which is another double event, will take place September 4-7 at Virginia Motorsports Park in Richmond, Virginia.
