The Foley Lewis team headed into the first Triple Crown Event with a little added pressure. The weekend kicked off with an autograph session at Buckeye Lake, which turned out to be a great event. But Friday is when the pressure really started.

With 15 dragsters on the property competing for just an 8-car field, the pressure was on before we even warmed up. The team didn’t come out of the first qualifying session looking very good, sitting in the 10th spot going into the final qualifier. Fortunately, the team dug deep and remembered they were the current IHRA points leaders and weren’t going to let one bad run define them. We were able to put together a solid 3.81 pass, moving us comfortably into the field in the #4 position.

The team worked late into the night to make sure everything was ready for three rounds of racing on Saturday. The day began with a huge turnout in hospitality for our main event sponsor, United Garage Door Company, which only made us more determined to deliver on track for these great partners. So, we poured the Insinger Performance Nitro into the tank and rolled up for round one.

Our first-round matchup was against Spencer Massey, never an easy draw. But with a solid 3.83 run and Spencer smoking the tires, we advanced to the semifinals. In round two, we faced Sean Reed and his team, who compete full-time on the NHRA circuit. It wasn’t going to be easy, but our driver, Gary Pritchett, got the advantage at the starting line and never looked back, defeating Sean on a holeshot and sending us to the final round against Tripp Tatum.

In the final, Gary was slightly ahead off the line, but unfortunately our throttle cable broke around 700 feet, taking the car out of power. Still, it was not a bad weekend for the team. IHRA has held four final rounds this season, and our team has been in every single one of them!

We’ll regroup, make a few improvements, and get ourselves ready for Milan, Michigan, in a few weeks.