Summit Racing

Line Scores a Productive but Disappointing Runner-Up Finish in Norwalk

Line Scores a Productive but Disappointing Runner-Up Finish in Norwalk  

Event:  Sixth annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals

Location: Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park, Norwalk, Ohio

Day/Date: Sunday, July 8, 2012

Summit Racing Camaro driver Jason Line had a bittersweet performance on Sunday, scoring a runner-up finish at his sponsor’s race, the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio.  Starting from the second position, Line defeated Rodger Brogdon, Jeg Coughlin and Shane Gray in the early rounds to advance to this fourth final round of the 2012 Full Throttle Drag Racing season, where he would face Vincent Nobile in a repeat of the K&N Horsepower Challenge final held 24 hours earlier.

Racing without lane choice, Line knew he would need every advantage to score his second win of the season, and used a lightning-quick .010 reaction time to gain the edge on Nobile, who is noted as one of the best ‘leavers” in the category.  Unfortunately, soon after his launch, his car headed directly for the outside wall, with the corrective actions necessary to bring the car back towards the groove scrubbing off valuable speed, resulting in a 6.705-second, 207.88 mph run, which fell shy of holding off his opponent’s 6.661-second, 208.01 mph charge, depriving the reigning Pro Stock champion of a coveted win.

“For some reason, we had some problems doing burnouts today, and it happened again before the final, which didn’t make for a good run, and it cost us,” said Line.  “Vincent’s a good kid and a good competitor, but we came here to win, so we’re not satisfied with anything else. It’s just disappointing because we really wanted to win for all the Summit employees on hand, as well as Ken and Judy (team owners Black.)

“We are still very early in the learning process with this Summit Racing Camaro, but we know it is already capable of winning races – we just need to do a better job of figuring out what it needs and adapting it to the different conditions.  This weekend’s results were somewhat unfortunate, but they also could have been much worse, so we will take what we learned from Norwalk and move on, making sure we have a better showing at the next race.”