BARTONE VICTORIOUS IN BAYTOWN!
Courtesy of Rick Jackson Racing
Baytown, TX – Tony Bartone, and the Rick Jackson Racing Centre Pointe Collision Center Top Alcohol Funny Car team captured their third consecutive National Hot Rod Association National Event victory and extended their 
National Points lead with an event victory at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals contested this weekend at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas. The victory was also the second straight win in Texas for the Centre Pointe team after capturing the Lucas Oil Divisional Series Event a few weeks earlier at the Texas Motor-Plex in Ennis.
Heading into final eliminations at RHP, Bartone entered the field in the final qualifying position (number 13) after problems plagued the Santa Clarita, Calif. team in qualifying. Bartone lined up against second generation driver John Lombardo Jr., who qualified solidly in the number two position. In his 20 plus years of racing, Bartone had captured victories in 79 percent of his round one races, but based on the qualifying problems and an even 1-1 record against Lombardo Jr. in previous match-ups, this was anybody’s race.
The two-time world champion tag team of Bartone and crew chief Steve Boggs showed their muscle, as the driver took a 0.044 second starting line advantage and the tuner fixed the problems in qualifying and recorded a solid 5.611 elapsed time, to give Bartone his 13th career hole-shot victory. Lombardo laid down an event low 5.584 elapsed time in a losing effort. Bartone then advanced to the semi-finals courtesy of a round two bye run.
In the semi’s, Bartone lined up against the number two car in the world last season; the hard charging Monte Carlo of Mickey Ferro. Ferro was on his game with the starting line advantage, had violent tire shake and drove out of the groove over by the wall. When he reeled it back into his lane, the car was up on the two left wheels. Bartone returned to form, running hot, straight and normal to a 5.607 ET, placing him to his third consecutive NHRA National Event final round of the 2011 season.
The final pitted Bartone against first time finalist Corpus Christi, Texas resident Steve Burck, who in the semi-finals had a parachute failure place his Chevrolet Camaro TAFC in the sand trap. The Burck team thrashed hard to prepare their car for the money round race. At the flash of the green, both cars left the starting line virtually side-by-side, however the Centre Pointe Collision Center Mustang charged hard down track and saved their best effort for last, a 5.587 ET at 262 miles per hour.
“We earned this victory this weekend,” noted Bartone who last year at this event lost in the final round against Mickey Ferro and collected his 34th NHRA National Event Wally in the winning effort today. “We had so many problems getting the car down track in qualifying and yet, when push came to shove, Steve Boggs, and the boys on the crew did their job and got this car running good again in eliminations. We take our hats off to Burck and his team for working hard to give us a good race in the finals.”
To learn more about Tony Bartone and the Rick Jackson Racing team, please visit their website at http://www.rickjacksonracing.com. You can also follow the team on Facebook @Rickjacksonracing.
