Local drag racing team savour huge win at NHRA event
Rough-N-Ready Racing are basking in glory after ending their ten-year drought at the 30th California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, California, last weekend.
The Bermuda-owned team clinched a maiden National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Heritage Series 7.0 Pro Class title with driver Tony Trimp behind the wheel of their 1965 Mustang GT funny car.
“We have been working at trying to win this championship for a long time,” team member and spokeswoman Jacqueline Williams told The Royal Gazette. “It is not an easy class and we only run it two times a year.
“It took us ten years to win this championship. It took us ten years to get here and through that we have so much perseverance, so much positive energy, so much help from everyone and, if it was not for them, we would not have been there.”
The title race remained wide open going into the season-ending event with series points leaders Rough-N-Ready Racing holding a slight advantage over nearest rival Green Barn Whiskey Kitchen.
“We did not go into the California Hot Reunion with the intention of winning the event but we wanted to go out there and give it our best,” Williams added.
“We were first in 7.0 pro and that was the first time ever for us to be that high up in points.
“Our competitors [Green Barn Whiskey Kitchen] who were second on points were actually camped right next to us so we considered them our neighbours.”
As fate would have it, the two teams were pitted against each other in the first round.
Williams’ team bowed out at the first hurdle after suffering defeat but still managed to clinch the overall championship after their rivals were eliminated in the next round.
“If they had won in the second round they would have been tied with us on points,” Williams said. “Then if they had won the third round, they would have won the championship, but since they lost in round two it automatically went to us.”
Last weekend’s NHRA event took place at the Famosa Dragstrip, where Rough-N-Ready Racing captured 7.0 Pro Class honours during the Good Vibrations Motorsports March Meet.
The local team regularly compete in the California Independent Funny Car Association Championship series, which they have won on three occasions.
Their sole victory in this year’s CIFA Championship arrived at the Funny Car Fever in Sacramento in April.
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