Last leg of quartermile a success

The sounds of supercharged engines roared and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air as the last race of the 2001 season of Shell-Prospeed’s Quartermile championship drag racing drew to a conclusion last weekend.

A total of 55 cars from different race teams fought aggressively for championship points. Pushing the cars to the extremes were MSF Autoworks, ATI Racing, San Jacinto Racing, Redline Racing, Team R-Mode and Gaspeed.

Despite losing precious points in the Pro Class category, points leader MSF Autoworks is reportedly a shoo-in for the overall team championship.

"They have been racing religiously at Prospeed and have been accumulating points since the start of this year’s series. With their strong showing in the Fun Class category, MSF may be this year’s team champion," relates Rey "Velocity Girls" Academia of Prospeed.

Biting at the coattails of MSF is powerhouse team ATI Racing. With its strong presence during the Sangley Point race in Cavite, ATI Racing has the best chance of clinching the runner-up trophy this season.

"Last Saturday, our Honda Type R lost via breakout, the "sleeper" Toyota Corolla of Dino suffered a broken engine support and the Mivec powered Lancer’s axle broke. We raced with only two cars during the last leg," said Butch Inducil of ATI Racing.

The rest of the afternoon saw the modified Lancer of Arnold Cortez taking up the cudgels of ATI Racing to win championship points.

In the Quick 8 category, the Just Two Honda hatchback of Mato Tan of Matonitics trounced the Mitsubishi Celeste of San Jacinto Racing. It was a close race down the stretch, but the raw power of Mato’s Honda engine proved to be too much for the 4G63-powered Celeste.

The last leg of the season proved to be a setback for Redline Racing as two of their high profile race cars retired early due to mechanical trouble. The Nissan Skyline suffered from a broken transmission during qualifying and the Lancer Evo V’s engine blew due to over revving. "Its just not our day," says Dondi Montecillo of Redline Racing.

The surprise lost of the day fell on the shoulders of Ace Vergel, whose Mercedes Benz SLK Kompressor lost to the race-tuned "jeep" of San Jacinto. Vergel suffered the same fate when he lost to a Honda Civic while driving his Mitsubishi 300 GT race car. "The car was not properly tuned for the race," said Rolly Francisco of MSF Autoworks.

In the Pro Class D category, Adeline Yuboco of Team R-Mode garnered back-to-back wins which proved that automatic transmissions can be a threat on the track.

The Quartermile championship is sponsored by Shell, Shell Velocity, Shell Citibank Mastercard, Eibach, ZF, ATI Diesel, Sherwin William Paint, Goma King, Karcher, Nodalo’s, Drag Racing Pinoy, Auto Industriya, 89.9 TM, 99.5RT, and 103.5 K Lite.