Drag

Von Smith Rockingham Finals report

ROCKINGHAM, NC-- Defending Pro Alcohol Funny Car champion Von Smith earned his sponsorship money and then some at the IHRA Holley Spring Nationals in Rockingham, N.C. The Big Daddys BBQ Sauces & Spices-sponsored, Pontiac finished as the winner in ...

Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

ROCKINGHAM, NC-- Defending Pro Alcohol Funny Car champion Von Smith earned his sponsorship money and then some at the IHRA Holley Spring Nationals in Rockingham, N.C. The Big Daddys BBQ Sauces & Spices-sponsored, Pontiac finished as the winner in the second consecutive final for the Oak Ridge, Tn.,-based driver. The veteran driver made a clean sweep of the event by claiming the class crown, pole-position, low elapsed time and top speed.

Smith made his intentions known from the first session of qualifying as he ran a 6.030/229.53, placing him in 2nd. Smith did not run in the following session, feeling his run earlier was sufficent, which maintained the second position. During the 3rd session of qualifying, Smith smoked the tires and rattled tremendously, thus failing to improve and falling to the 5th spot. But, in the final session of eliminations, Smith blew the competiton away with an outstanding 5.896/239.74, the fastest and quickest run of the entire event. In the first round of eliminations, Smith was to run against Ryan Atchison. Smith dominated his opponent with an incredible run of 5.985/232.73. Smith then bested Bogolo with a 5.992/234.25. The next to feel the wrath of Von was Scott Weney. Smith dominated from the starting line, winning with a 5.917/238.72. The final round had the Oak Ridge, TN - based Von Smith set to face Mark Thomas. It was Smith who left the line first, with a margin of .18. It was a close all the way to the end, but it was Smith who found that finish line first, with a 5.923/237.96 defeating Thomas' 5.938/234.47. A margin of only .06 would determine the championship at the Holley Spring Nationals.

Smith plans to continue on his trek to winning another championship with his Big Daddy’s-backed 1999 Pontiac Firebird at the rescheduled IHRA Prolong Winter Nationals in Darlington, S.C., on May 8. Smith, along with each Pro Alcohol Funny Car contestants, will be afforded one time trial run during the course of the day and eliminations will begin later in the afternoon. This event will be televised on ESPN2 with the dates and times TBA in an upcoming issue of the IHRA’s Drag Review magazine.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article CHAMPCAR/CART: Motegi 1998 Winner Repeats

Next article NA-F2000: F2000 Hall of Fame Nominees

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

8 h

Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors

Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

8 h

Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss

IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 9 h

IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing

Noah Gragson apologizes to Daniel Suarez for spinning him at Homestead

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

9 h

Noah Gragson apologizes to Daniel Suarez for spinning him at Homestead

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts