By Evan Smith
Seeking warm weather and high speeds, the Bongiovanni Racing team rolled down I-95 to Gainesville, Florida for back-to-back races in the NHRA’s Division 2. Anthony Bongiovanni, along with team drivers Dan and Tim Fletcher, combined for an attack on the Stock and Super Stock categories.
Anthony handled duties in his familiar Micro Strategies Cobra Jet Mustangs, while the Fletcher’s competed in a pair of Micro Strategies Camaros. Tim drove his reliable ’69 model Stocker, while Dan drove his ’69 Camaro Super Stocker, which is the winningest car in NHRA drag racing history.
Racing kicked off at the NHRA “Baby Gators,” a Lucas Oil Drag Racing divisional event that serves as a warm-up to the Gatornationals national event. The team combined for 10 round wins, with Tim producing a quarter-final finish and Anthony making it three rounds in Super Stock.
A week later, the trio returned for the Gatornationals, unfortunately, tricky conditions threw a curveball at the team causing early round loses. “The weather changed quite a bit between Thursday qualifying and Friday eliminations and being the second race of the year, we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be,” said Anthony Bongiovanni. “Drag racing in Stock and Super Stock requires calculated adjustments, and precision driving and we just weren’t up to speed.”
“We missed by a small margin, but that’s all it takes, as winning and losing comes down to thousandths of a second,” Bongiovanni added. “It was still exciting to get back behind the wheel of our Micro Strategies machines after a long, cold winter. The thrill of acceleration and speed is hard to match, so it’s fun regardless of the outcome. And it’s great to connect with friends and business partners who we see at the races. It’s a long season, so we’ll move on and use the data to improve at the next race,” he added.
And that next race is coming up quickly—the team is already in Belle Rose, Louisiana and ready to compete at No Problem Raceway.
