NHRA FLOPPERS EARN BOWLING BRAGGING RIGHTS HOLESHOTS AND ELIMINATORS AT USBC OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS The trio of NHRA teams who participated in the USBC Open Championships Thursday at the Cashman Center may not have challenged for the top score among all of the 17,200 teams that will compete in the m
LAS VEGAS – The trio of NHRA teams who participated in the USBC Open Championships Thursday at the Cashman Center may not have challenged for the top score among all of the 17,200 teams that will compete in the marathon five-month tournament, however, for bragging rights in the pit area, there was an exciting battle, and as is typical in NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing, there was a close finish.
The NHRA Floppers, led by the tandem of Auto Club Ford Mustang driver Robert Hight and Al-Anabi Racing Toyota Solara driver Del Worsham, squeezed out the victory among the three NHRA teams, posting a team total of 2,180. The NHRA Holeshots posted a late third game rally behind the smooth-rolling Jeg Coughlin, but came up a few pins short with an overall total of 2,154. Shawn Langdon paced the third-place NHRA Eliminators (1,979), and notched an overall high score of 528 among the 15 drivers who participated.
The drivers took time out of their busy schedules to participate in one of the world’s oldest major competitions. The drivers will hit the track tomorrow for the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Tickets are still available for the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event by calling (800) 644-4444. The race will be televised on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD.
“Bowling is a lot like a race car when you consider you have to make a lot of minor adjustments as you go and the lanes change just like a track will change,” said Hight, who posted game scores of 165, 178 and 182 to lead his team. “It was a fun experience. The other NHRA teams were really good too. It went right down to the tenth frame of the last game.”
JEGS.com Chevy driver Coughlin, who was a late addition to the Holeshots team after Tom Hammonds had to cancel due to a day full of travel delays, led a third game rally of 724 for the Pro Stock team with five strikes. Allen Johnson, a former Tennessee junior state champion and driver of the J&J Racing Team Mopar Dodge Stratus and current Pro Stock points leader Jason Line, driver of the Summit Racing Pontiac GXP, both chipped in with two strikes and scores of 145 in the third.
“I got progressively better each game,” Coughlin said. “I’ve never bowled on a professional setup like this and it is very different and takes some time to get used to, but we had a blast. It is amazing what the USBC has put together here, it is such a tremendous undertaking. We really appreciate the opportunity to do this.”
However Hight’s third game total of 182 with three strikes and six spares was enough to give the Floppers the edge in the final tally.
“Just to tie this USBC Open Championships in with our drag race is cool,” Hight said. “There were a lot of people in this tournament that said they came here for this
