Vincent Nobile beats teammate Jason Line at Joliet to earn first NHRA Pro Stock win in nearly a year - MotorSportsTalk

JOLIET, Illinois – When Vincent Nobile moved to Ken Black Racing after last season, the goal was obviously to win races in Pro Stock.

It took him a bit longer to do so than he planned – going 12 starts in 2014 – but the 22-year-old Nobile finally earned his first win of both the season and with his new team, defeating two-time world champion and teammate Jason Line in Sunday’s final round of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.

Nobile crossed the finish line first with a run of 6.655 seconds at 208.01 mph. Line was slightly quicker (6.637 seconds) and faster (209.26 mph), but Nobile won the race with a far quicker reaction time: .004 seconds to Line’s .031 effort.

It was Nobile’s ninth career win and his first since Seattle last summer.

“It’s a great win, kind of a long time coming,” Nobile said. “I know I’m young and I’ve won some races, but when you go a streak like I’ve done and not won one, you kind of forget what it feels like. But today definitely refreshed my memory.”

It was Nobile’s second straight final round appearance. He made a shifting error in last week’s race at Epping, New Hampshire and wound up with a runner-up finish.

He was bound and determined not to make another mistake Sunday.

“I kind of choked a little bit there short-shifting and it cost us the race,” Nobile said. “We would have sealed the deal there, I’m pretty confident about it, but I came back here confident and I think I redeemed myself.

“Nobody’s perfect and I’m the first to admit it. I had the car (last week) and it was just me. Today as a team, we all came together and got it done.”

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Final finishing order (1-16) at the 17th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway:

PRO STOCK:

1. Vincent Nobile; 2. Jason Line; 3. Dave Connolly; 4. Shane Tucker; 5. Allen Johnson; 6. Erica Enders-Stevens; 7. Shane Gray; 8. Jeg Coughlin; 9. V. Gaines; 10. Jonathan Gray; 11. Greg Anderson; 12. Larry Morgan; 13. Mark Martino; 14. Mark Hogan; 15. Dave River; 16. Chris McGaha.

Round-by-round results from the 17th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway:

PRO STOCK:

ROUND ONE — Dave Connolly, Chevy Camaro, 6.618, 209.43 def. Greg Anderson, Camaro, foul; Shane Tucker, Camaro, 6.639, 209.20 def. Chris McGaha, Camaro, broke; Vincent Nobile, Camaro, 6.619, 209.10 def. Jonathan Gray, Camaro, 6.624, 208.81; Shane Gray, Camaro, 12.771, 68.13 def. V. Gaines, Dodge Dart, foul; Jason Line, Camaro, 6.601, 210.24 def. Mark Martino, Pontiac GXP, 6.696, 207.21; Jeg Coughlin, Dart, 6.606, 209.72 def. Larry Morgan, Ford Mustang, 6.680, 207.27; Allen Johnson, Dart, 6.620, 208.71 def. Mark Hogan, GXP, 6.737, 205.35; Erica Enders-Stevens, Camaro, 6.658, 209.36 def. Dave River, Chevy Cobalt, 14.169, 49.29;

QUARTERFINALS — Tucker, 6.658, 208.71 def. Enders-Stevens, 6.647, 208.59; Connolly, 6.635, 209.23 def. Johnson, 6.625, 208.46; Nobile, 6.645, 208.36 def. Coughlin, foul; Line, 6.630, 209.75 def. S. Gray, 6.667, 208.26;

SEMIFINALS — Nobile, 6.638, 208.55 def. Tucker, 6.699, 208.62; Line, 6.628, 208.94 def. Connolly, 6.634, 208.78;

FINAL — Nobile, 6.655, 208.01 def. Line, 6.637, 209.26.

Point standings (top 10) following Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway:

Pro Stock

1. Erica Enders-Stevens, 1,036; 2. Jeg Coughlin, 846; 3. Allen Johnson, 845; 4. Jason Line, 830; 5. Vincent Nobile, 785; 6. Dave Connolly, 782; 7. Shane Gray, 769; 8. V. Gaines, 552; 9. Chris McGaha, 525; 10. Jonathan Gray, 432.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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