Sometimes, it is just your day.
Such was the case for 18-year-old John Tolisano III during the IHRA Summit Racing Equipment World Finals as the young man from Jupiter, Florida overcame a tricky racetrack and ever-increasing odds to win the Summit SuperSeries Junior Dragster World Championship at the IHRA season finale at Memphis International Raceway.
And he did it all in his final race ever in a Junior Dragster.
“It still doesn’t seem real. To win my last race ever in a Junior Dragster and for it to be for the World Championship, it is just amazing,” Tolisano said. “It is still so hard to believe, but I am sure it will sink in one of these days.”
Under cloudy skies and on a racetrack that had seen off and on rain showers throughout the weekend, Tolisano entered the final day of the Summit World Finals looking to make magic happen in one of the trickiest classes to tune, with single-cylindered, single-digit horsepower machines providing a true challenge.
And it was that difficulty in finding a happy medium for his dragster that left Tolisano and his family searching for just the right numbers in an afternoon that produced plenty of upsets across more than a dozen classes competing in the sportsman championships that weekend.
“We started the weekend off well, but toward the end of the weekend we were really all over the place,” Tolisano said. “The weather conditions really played with us a bunch, but in the end we were able to figure it out and it ended up well for us.”
That ending included three red-light starts by Tolisano’s first three opponents and an epic showdown in the final between Tolisano and championship runner-up Michael Wayne Turman. With the Summit SuperSeries Junior Dragster championship on the line, Tolisano got the jump on the line with a .021 reaction time to Turman’s .039, followed by a 7.992-second pass on a 7.96 dial at 79.84 mph to take the win. Turman had a 7.915 on a 7.90 at 81.46 mph in the runner-up effort.
“The afternoon had been so up and down for us, we really didn’t know what to expect in the final,” Tolisano said. “But we were able to put together a good run and run the numbers and that led to me standing here in the winner’s circle.”
“We started the weekend off well, but toward the end of the weekend we were really all over the place,” Tolisano said. “The weather conditions really played with us a bunch, but in the end we were able to figure it out and it ended up well for us.”
That ending included three red-light starts by Tolisano’s first three opponents and an epic showdown in the final between Tolisano and championship runner-up Michael Wayne Turman. With the Summit SuperSeries Junior Dragster championship on the line, Tolisano got the jump on the line with a .021 reaction time to Turman’s .039, followed by a 7.992-second pass on a 7.96 dial at 79.84 mph to take the win. Turman had a 7.915 on a 7.90 at 81.46 mph in the runner-up effort.
“The afternoon had been so up and down for us, we really didn’t know what to expect in the final,” Tolisano said. “But we were able to put together a good run and run the numbers and that led to me standing here in the winner’s circle.”
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.
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