NHRA: Jeter, S10 Win Pro Stock Truck in Dallas
25 October 1999
CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES O'REILLY FALL NATIONALS NHRA WINSTON DRAG RACING SERIES TEXAS MOTORPLEX ENNIS, TEXAS SUNDAY, OCT. 24, 1999 PRO STOCK TRUCK -- CHEVY S-10 -- ELIMINATIONS BRAD JETER WINS TWO IN A ROW, TAKES CHAMPIONSHIP CHASE TO FINAL RACE BRAD JETER, JETER RACING CHEVY S-10, won his third title of the year and his second straight when he defeated "newcomer" VINNY BARONE, VINNY BARONE RACING CHEVY S-10, in the final round. Both drivers registered awesome reaction times: Jeter with a .409 and Barone with a .401 (.400 is perfect). Both had "Grumpy" (Bill Jenkins) Chevy V8 power under the hoods of their Chevy S-10s, but it was Jeter with the edge at the finish line with his 7.522-second pass at 178.64 mph to Barone's 7.593/177.65. Jeter's win puts MARK OSBORNE back in the running for the Winston Championship. BOB PANELLA JR., eliminated in the semifinal by Jeter, holds on to the lead. Fifty-six points behind is Jeter, while Osborne is 107 points behind. Maximum points achievable in one weekend is 138. JETER: "We knew coming into this race that we wanted to win this championship. It was a matter of winning the race. We did everything we could do. If we could do the best that we could do and I could drive the best I could do we could come home a winner. It was the most pressure in the semifinal. Going into that round I was saying if I could win this round I'd still have a chance at the championship. If I lose it it's 'Katie bar the door.' I had him on the tree, the Chevy S-10 pulled away down there and saved us." ON THE OUTSTANDING REACTION TIMES FOR BOTH IN THE FINAL: "I worked hard on the tree, that's one of my things. I can't stand to get beaten on the tree. All the bracket racing I do helps me a great deal. I got left in the final. I'm not happy about that, even though we won this race. We have to make up for that. We will take the Chevy S-10 to Pomona and try to win this championship. It's not going to be easy. Mathematically I've got a shot and I'll go in there with my guns loaded. I said in the first of the year if we were in five finals, we could win the championship. We've now been in six and we're still not leading the championship." BARONE: "It's my first race in this new Chevy S-10 that Jerry Haas built. The last time I raced was in Englishtown with my old S-10. It was a lot of problems, so we got rid of it. Jerry ran this new on in Memphis, and qualified No. 11 and we took it from Jerry and we qualified fourth here. We have a Bill Jenkins motor, the whole deal. In four rounds of eliminations we did pretty good with it as far as the lights are concerned: .440, .470, .440 and .401. So it's a comfortable truck to drive. This is my last race of the year. I'm going to go to probably Pomona in February next year. I've got to go back home and go to work and get some money together if I'm going to run this thing next year." ON THE FINAL ROUND: "You have to be on your game with Brad. Brad is a very good racer, very good tree man and you can't leave him anything in the table and I just paid attention real hard and did what I had to do. He was right there with me. He was right on my door. I had him until the 1/8 mile and he started inching away from me. We were better on the tree, but not enough. We wheelstood quite a bit and had too much clutch. Once we wheelstood we unloaded the back tires which caused us to be aggressive on the clutch, and that cost us e.t." BARONE BACKGROUND: Barone is 47 years old, lives in Dix Hills, N.Y. He's been racing 20 years in Sportsman competition. He has two World Champions in Competition Eliminator, driving a Pontiac Firebird and a street roadster. He's a used car salesman. Barone's competed in only four races this year and qualified in two. At the other race in which he qualified, the Winternationals in Pomona, he was defeated by Brad Jeter.