With a win last weekend in Sonoma, Maggio now leads the WCOPMA point’s standings

Courtesy of WCOPMA

Sonoma, CA – The West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association is now at the half way point this 2012 season. With four of the eight scheduled races completed there’s a championship battle shaping up nicely between Rod Burbage and Mike Maggio. Burbage led the points through the first three events while gathering up one event win but Maggio has come on strong and won the last two WCOPMA events; Mission and most recently in Sonoma to jump ahead of Burbage and grab the top spot by a mere 6-points.

The Maggio Motorsports team came into Sonoma with a couple goals in mind: back up their 260 MPH runs in Mission at a different race track, re-set the WCOPMA ET record for a supercharged car and take home the Wally on Sunday. They accomplished all three goals when it was all said and done.

The event in Sonoma started out with two scheduled test session for all racers. During those test runs Maggio would lay down a 260.21 MPH pass to check the first thing off his list.

There were three scheduled qualifying passes for the weekend, one on Friday and two on Saturday. 15 racers were trying to make the 8-car field and once it was all done Maggio led the pack with a 5.870/238.72. Sean Renteria was sitting second with a 5.964/249.12, Burbage was third with a 6.029/240.25, Joe Lepone Jr. landed fourth with a 6.071/235.23, Scott Bailey in fifth with a 6.136/243.77, Monty Berney sixth at 6.164/234.61, Tory Ferry with 6.213/237.63 to land seventh and Blake Housley driving for the Ballance Racing family on the bump with a 6.223/228.96.

Unfortunately Ferry would not be able to make Sunday’s eliminations so Scott Oksas, who was qualified ninth with a 6.262/236.67, would take his place on the ladder. Dan Myers, Rob Cacioppo, Marc Meadors, Justin Wake, Rich Roberts and Rob Moore did not qualify.

When Sunday rolled around there would be five screw-blown cars, two nitrous cars and one turbo entry racing for the Wally. In the first round of eliminations Maggio would get the first win when he beat Housley with a 5.926/251.44 to a Ballance Racing career best 6.188/227.34. Burbage got past Berney easily when Berney left before the tree was activated; Burbage still went on to run a 6.131/233.20. Bailey got the best of Lepone Jr. with a career best 6.054/242.28 to a losing 6.306/225.37. Renteria moved on to round two with a career best pass of 5.956/250.64 to beat Oksas’ 6.272/238.38.

In round two Burbage would square off against Renteria and Maggio would face Bailey.  Burbage ran his best pass of eliminations, 6.058/243.28, to beat Renteria’s tire smoking 10.972/120.68. Bailey handed the win to Maggio with a red-light but still ran a 6.123/239.70, Maggio ran a 5.812/256.26 which would be backed up by his 5.870 qualifying time to reset the WCOPMA ET record for a supercharged car.

The final round was Maggio versus Burbage. When the tree dropped Burbage was off with an .015 reaction time to Maggio’s .057. Maggio ran into problems as the car wasn’t making the 1-2 shift which allowed Burbage to pull away. At about half track Burbage was getting closer to the center line and at 1000’ he had to throw the parachutes to straighten out the car. Maggio got his car to shift finally and legged it out to get past Burbage in the lights and pick up the win by 13 feet. Maggio’s 6.480/239.02 would better Burbage’s 6.578/155.47 and place him in the winners circle, it wasn’t a pretty one but a win is a win.

Next up for the West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association is Firebird Raceway’s Nightfire Nationals event in Boise, Idaho on August 10-12. Visit www.FirebirdOnline.com for more information.