Perfect Weekend For Petey!

Bothe Opens 2007 with a double win at Auto Club Dragway

SoCal Pro Gas Association Elapsed Times

Newsletter by Bob Johnson (877) 221­1419 www.bobjohnsonphotography.com March 2007

“Super Weekend” for Pete Bothe—Former Champion Stuns Pro Gas Field at Fontana with Double Win on Super Bowl Sunday! By Bob Johnson Auto Club Dragway at California Speedway February 3­4, 2007 Pete Bothe performed one of the most incredible feats in Southern California Pro Gas

Association history when he won the first two races of the 2007 season at Auto Club Dragway at California Speedway. While much of the nation was tuned in to the NFL’s Super Bowl, Bothe defeated Greg Ventura and Wes Anderson for his “Super Sunday”.

The Russ Harris Memorial Pro Gas Nationals sponsored by Harris Family Motorsports attracted 94 qualifiers, lead by Fred Kondrotas with a 9.900, Jessie Wooton’s Hemi Dart qualified with a 9.900, and Rick Gunther was third with a 9.903.

In the early rounds of eliminations, Bothe defeated 2006 Super

Street Assoc., champion Chris Newman, he used a .001 reaction time to stop Loreen Johnson as she lost with a .011 r.t.; in round three he took out Division 6 racer Devon Hilton in a double breakout race, and in round four he got by Randy Kersey’s too quick roadster.

In the fifth round of eliminations Bothe ran a perfect 9.900 to beat Wayne Newman, Greg Ventura defeated Raul Perez Jr., and Dan Beresford beat Val Torres. In the semifinal, Ventura ran a 9.909 with a .045 reaction time to stop Beresford’s Vega, losing with a 9.957, .007 r.t. Bothe put his 427­Chevy­powered Porsche into the final with a 9.902, .011 r.t. on a bye run.

In the final, Bothe laid down a .001 reaction time and 9.931, 138.90 to stop the ’04 series champ Ventura with a 9.915, 155.58 (.018 r.t.).

Bothe credited Hughes Performance, Hot Rod Performance, Dick Munns, Goodyear, Vellios Machine, Helmet City, Aldan Shocks and Gary & Nancy Mignacca.

Harris Family Motorsports— thank you for sponsoring the 2007 Russ Harris

Memorial Pro Gas Nationals

Bothe completes “Clean Sweep” at Fontana with victory in “Joey Silvia Memorial Race” By Bob Johnson Auto Club Dragway at California Speedway Feb 4, 2007

Pete Bothe completed his “Clean Sweep” of the opening weekend of the 2007 Southern California Pro Gas Assoc. series, and has taken a huge early season lead in the points standings by doubling up for his

second win of the weekend. The Joey Silvia Memorial Pro Gas Bash was dedicated to Joe Silvia, who died late last year at the age of 28 in an auto accident. Joey was a 9.90/10.90 racer and the son of drag racer Wayne Silvia. Newman Family Racing, Silvia Construction, and Mike’s Transmission sponsored the event.

Bothe began eliminations with a

9.901 win over Glenn Wagner, in the second round he defeated Loreen Johnson 9.905 to a losing 9.907, and Gary Cooke’s Corvette lost in the third round to the Porsche.

Bothe continued his memorable weekend with a fourth round win over Tom Grueser, Tony Fuller beat Rick Davis, Rick Gunther got a bye, and Wes Anderson defeated Ray Cordeiro. In the semi, Bothe pulled off a huge win by stopping Fuller’s Valvoline­sponsored Corvette, 9.903 with a .008 r.t. to a losing 9.896 and a .006 reaction time. Anderson went to the final with a 9.892 (.024 r.t.) as top qualifier Gunther lost with a 9.885 (.017 r.t.).

In the final, Bothe made it a perfect weekend with his thirteenth straight winning round when he left the line with a .003 reaction time and 9.875, 140.09 winning time as Anderson, driving Ronnie Marcum’s flawless ’66 Nova finished runner­up with a 8.870, 150.55 after a .008 reaction time.

The Marcum/Anderson entry was sponsored by Lindy’s Concrete Service and Julie & Jessica Paige, with special thanks to Mom, Ernie, and Buzzy Riggs.

Bothe will take a 513 point lead into the third & Fourth race of the season, scheduled for April 7 & 8 at Las Vegas. Bothe currently has 1925 points, followed by Greg Ventura at 1412, Wes Anderson has 1218, and Dan Beresford is fourth with 1203.

Pete Bothe celebrates his second win over the weekend when he won the Joey Silvia Memorial Race.

Bothe had a tough customer in Tony Fuller in the Semifinal, but got the win at 9.903 (.008 r.t.) to a losing 9.896 (.006 r.t.).

Gary’s Garnish….by Gary Cooke • Congratulations to Pete Bothe for taking home both purses from the first 2 So Cal Pro Gas races at Autoclub Dragway in Fontana; the Russ Harris Memorial Pro Gas Nationals which was sponsored by Harris Family Racing and the Joey Silvia Memorial Pro Gas Bash sponsored by Silvia Construction, Wayne and Dave’s Automotive and Mike’s Transmissions. • Pete went 13 straight undefeated rounds, 12 of those on Sunday; combining seven .40 reaction times with six 9.90 ETs to demolish a whole bunch Super Gas’s best racers. Great job Pete, Gary and Nancy! • It sure is great to have such great people as the Harris’s, the Silvia’s, the Newman’s and Mike Stewart supporting our association. They are the ones that make it possible for us to run for such great prize money. Please be sure to thank these folks every chance you get. • We took in $370 in the 50/50 raffle over the weekend. $185 of that is being donated to Lupus International in Joey Silvia’s name. The 2 winners of the other half of the pot were Chris Newman and Rick Gunther. Much thanks to all that contributed! • I would like to thank Rick Webb and Val Torres for being straight up gentleman about their 1 st round race. The 1 st round pairing of these two racers ended up with a discrepancy caused by the track timing system and then the re­run became a very scary situation when darkness fell as they were staging up for the re­run. After running down a very dark track, both of these gentleman agreed that a second re­run would only be fair. Both of these guys earned my total respect and have set precedence for future sportsmanship. • Now let’s talk about the Winternationals! It is often said that So Cal Pro Gas is not only the toughest association in the nation, but consistently produces winners in NHRA competition. This is no more evident than the great showing we had at the Winternationals in Pomona last weekend. Many of our So Cal Pro Gas racers made it through many rounds of competition in the 110 car Super Gas field. In fact, in round 4, 64% of the cars left were So Cal Pro Gas. Round 5, 71%. Round 6, 75%. And of course, round 7, 100%. • Congratulations to Randy Fabbro for his second National Event win, the first coming 25 years ago. Also congratulations to Fred Kondrotas for his runner up finish to Fab. Fab drove Ronnie Marcum’s Nova thatWes Anderson also drove to the Runner Up finish the week before in So Cal Pro

Gas. This was a special victory because Ronnie, Randy and Wes teamed up to make this victory happen with a car that Ronnie got back from the Robles family after Andy’s passing last year. That coupled with loosing Randy Marcum a little over a year ago just made this victory a once in a life time experience for all of us. We are positive that Andy and Randy had a big part in this win! • Other So Cal racers in the final rounds of the Winternationals included Dave Coapstick, Mike Blodgett Jr., Tim Daniel, Robert Momjian, Randy Kersey and new comer to our association, Devon Hilton. • That’s all for now. Hope to see you in Las Vegas at our next So Cal Pro Gas race the first weekend in April sponsored by K&N Engineering.

Cookester

­­Thank You­­ Harris Family Motorsports

For sponsoring the 2007 Russ Harris Memorial Pro Gas

Nationals

­­Thank You— Silvia Construction, Wayne & Dave’s Automotive &

Mike’s Transmission

For sponsoring the Joey Silvia

Memorial Race

SoCal Pro Gas Points Standings

POS DRIVER R­1 R­2 Tot 1 BOTHE, PETE 1005 920 1925 2 VENTURA, GREG 904 508 1412 3 ANDERSON, WES 400 818 1218 4 BERESFORD, DANIEL 803 400 1203 5 GUNTHER, RICK 414 719 1133 6 CORDEIRO, RAY 500 606 1106 7 FULLER, TONY 400 703 1103 8 NEWMAN, WAYNE 702 400 1102 9 SILVIA, J WAYNE 601 501 1102 10 BONER, MIKE 505 513 1018 11 GRUESER, TOM 400 602 1002 12 COMSTOCK, KAREN 509 408 917 13 CROSS, JOHN 400 512 912 14 DAVIS, RICK 300 608 908 15 CHAFFEE, PAUL 601 300 901 16 COOKE, GARY 400 501 901 17 KERSEY, RANDY 601 300 901 18 HILTON, DEVON 500 400 900 19 MATASSA, JOHN 403 413 816 20 PARSONS, STEVE 510 300 810 21 PHILLIPSON, GREG 506 300 806 22 PEREZ, RAUL 400 405 805 23 BOLDEN, MIKE 400 402 802 24 JOHNSON, LOREEN 400 401 801 25 AGUIAR, AL 300 501 801 26 NABOR, ROBERT 500 300 800 27 FABBRO, RANDY 400 400 800 28 THARP, STEVE 400 400 800 29 PIERCE, BRAD 313 400 713 30 GALATI, ANTHONY 300 410 710 31 PEREZ, RAUL JR. 702 0 702 32 TORRES, VAL 702 0 702 33 ISRAEL, JIM 401 300 701 34 BALOUGH, TRAVIS 308 300 608 35 COLLEASURE, HOLLIS 307 300 607 36 TORRES, VAL JR. 601 0 601 37 MARTIN, GREG 601 0 601 38 MARCUM, RONNIE 601 0 601

Socalprogas.com

Pro Gas Shootout Points

Pos DRIVER R­1 R­2 TOT

1 GUNTHER, RICK 14 16 30

2 COMSTOCK, KAREN 9 8 17

3 BONER, MIKE 5 12 17

4 KONDROTAS, FRED 16 0 16

5 MATASSA, JOHN 3 13 16

6 WOOTON, JESSIE 15 0 15

7 BOTHE, PETE 0 15 15

8 ANDERSON, WES 0 14 14

9 PIERCE, BRAD 13 0 13

10 HEREM, RYAN 12 0 12

11 OKERMAN, RICH 11 0 11

12 CROSS, JOHN 0 11 11

13 PARSONS, STEVE 10 0 10

14 GALATI, ANTHONY 0 10 10

15 ZEWE, DAVE 0 9 9

16 BALOUGH, TRAVIS 8 0 8

A note from Pete Bothe—

Race #1 I’d like to thank Harris Family Racing for sponsoring our first SoCal Pro Gas race of ’07. It was great to win the memorial race for Russ. ­I’ll start with congratulations to Greg Ventura for his runner­up finish. Great race “Rizzo”. Cooke­Great job on the first race even through the rough spots. Thanks to the California Speedway personnel for all your hard work. Thanks to my sponsors: Hughes Performance, Hot Rod Performance, Dick Munns Co., Vellios Machine, Aldan Shocks, and to Goodyear Tires a huge thank you. Thanks to the Newmans for all the laughs and the extra five bucks from “Wayner”. Glen, it was all in the new hood scoop! To Gary my crew chief and Nancy, thanks for all of your help & support. I love being your son.

Race #2 Wow, what a weekend. I still can’t believe it. It was special winning this race in honor of Joey Silvia. Thank you to Silvia Construction, Wayne & Dave’s Automotive, and Mike’s Transmission for sponsoring this special weekend race. ­Thanks toWesley for being the runner­up, and to all my pals, it’s so much fun hangin. And to Bob Johnson for making us look good. And to Nancy, your help will probably cost me, but Thanks.

Petey

Pro Gas Scoreboard Race Date Location Winner Runner­up #1 Qualifier Event Sponsor

1 Feb 3 Fontana Pete Bothe Greg Ventura Fred Kondrotas Harris Family Motorsports

2 Feb 4 Fontana Pete Bothe Wes Anderson Rick Gunther Wayne & Dave’s Automotive/Silvia Construction/Mike’s Transmission

3 Apr 6 Las Vegas K & N Filters 4 Apr 7 Las Vegas 5 June 9 Bakersfield Chuck’s Automotive 6 June 10 Bakersfield Team Smooth/Adopt­a­Church 7 July 14 Fontana

8 July 15 Fontana

9 Aug 18 Fontana

10 Aug 19 Fontana

Special Award Sponsors Date Winner Trophy #1 Qualifier #2 Qualifier #3 Qualifier #5 Qualifier #10 Qualifier Feb 3 Blodgett Family Extreme Compaction Pizazz Racing Bonaco Line Brown’s Trans. B&B Electric Feb 4 Blodgett Family Jim Sowards B & B Electric Bonaco Line Brown’s Trans. B&B Electric

Mike Judson Race Track Support Team 43455 Business Park

Temecula, CA 92590 USA Phone: (909) 587­0101 ext 155

Fax (909) 587­0190 www.mickeythompsontires.com

“The Best Kept Secret in Motorsports”

M MA AN NT TO ON N P PU US SH HR RO OD DS S T Te er rr ry y M Ma an nt to on n

P P..O O. . B Bo ox x 2 24 45 5 L La ak ke e E Ells siin no or re e, , C CA A 9 92 25 53 31 1 ( (9 95 51 1) ) 2 24 45 5­ ­6 65 56 65 5

CONTINENTAL TORQUE CONVERTERS For Street Rod, Performance and Racing Vehicles Blueprinted Converters to your Specifications

KRIS ABRAHAMSON (310) 674­1072 730 Centinela Ave

Inglewood, CA 90302

Los Angeles County Raceway

Palmdale, CA www.lacr.net 661­553­2224 661­553­2225

Fax 661­533­2226

Silva Construction, Inc

9007 Center Avenue Rancho Cugamonga, CA 91730

FAX 909­481­8122 FAX 909­481­8123

SoCal Pro Gas Association Gary Cooke 19432 Shadow Oak Drive Portola, CA 92679

Pete Bothe 2007 Pro Gas Points Leader

Next Race: K&N Filters Pro Gas Nationals­­April 6­7, 2007 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway