NHRA Division 2 Top Sportsman Season Opening WIN

Ronnie "the King" Davis is carrying on his tradition of winning races and living up to his nickname by taking the NHRA Division 2 championship at the season opener at Gainesville (Florida) Raceway over the Feb. 25-26 weekend. Not only that, but Davis' '63 Corvette captured the Top Sportsman No. 1 qualifying spot with a 6.663/209.75 mph blast AND taking the CSR No. 1 Qualifier bonus and the $300 that goes with it.

What's more, Davis won his own race - his Davis In-Motion/Trac Star Systems companies are a major sponsor of the NHRA Division 2 Top Sportsman series. He beat Jeffery Barker's 2002 Camaro in the final, and that too is an irony because Jeffery's father, Jerry Barker of the Jerry Barker Chevrolet-Hummer dealership in Warner Robins, Georgia is one of Davis's sponsors.

"I basically beat my own teammate," he said.

His Vette ran a dead-on 6.985 at 189 mph in the final.Power for the Corvette, built by Alan Pittman Race Cars of Spartanburg, South Carolina, comes from a 706-inch Fulton engine with SpeedTech/Shannon Jenkins nitrous backed by TCI equipment.And here is a final irony in Davis's win: his other "teammate," Pro Stock racer Warren Johnson, won his class at the NHRA national race in Phoenix, Arizona on the same day.

"We call ourselves - Warren, Kirk and myself - the 'Sugar Hill boys' because my shop is only a half-mile from theirs, in Sugar Hill (Georgia)," Davis said. "So the 'Sugar Hill boys' did pretty good on Sunday."

Davis is a past NHRA and IHRA national and divisional winner who earned his nickname "The King" for a string of straight wins at the defunct Atlanta Speed Shop Drag Strip in the 1980s and '90s.

Story courtesy of CompetitionPlus.com.
Photo courtesy of Jason Sharp