Bobby Lagana Jr.:“We Always Expect to Qualify Every Race We Enter”
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Tulsa, Oklahoma
Jun 02, 2007
As a critical showdown with T. J. Zizzo looms, Bobby Lagana Jr. and his Twilight Zone top fuel team will head to Hartland Park Topeka in Kansas’ capital city to compete in the NHRA O’Reilly Summer Nationals. Lagana put the Skull Shine dragster seventh on the qualifying sheet at the Sooner Nationals in Tulsa before rain delayed the event. Instead of towing back to the team’s headquarters in Dinwiddie, Virginia Lagana and his crew decided to make the five-hour trip to Topeka for the NHRA event. The Sooner Nationals will resume June 26th.
“We want to get more exposure for Skull Shine and our sponsors,” Lagana said. “Plus, we have an absolutely huge round coming up against T. J. in Tulsa and we wanted to get ready for it in a competitive situation. T.J. is the points leader on the IHRA side and we are fourth; if we want to be a player in the championship points race we have to do everything we can to knock him off in the first round. He got us in the final at Rockingham so we can’t afford to fall too many rounds behind him.”
Lagana is heading back into NHRA competition for the first time this season and is looking forward to catching up with some old friends.
“Clay Millican and his crew chief Mike Kloeber and the entire Knoll Gas Team have always been great friends to our entire team,” Lagana said. “We haven’t seen as much of them this season as they are running on the NHRA side full-time, so it will be great to spend some time with them and catch up a little bit.”
Lagana has modest goals for the Twilight Zone team in Topeka .
“We always expect to qualify every race we enter,” he said. “But the important thing for this team is to keep building on the momentum we gained by advancing to the finals in Rockingham. Our primary goal is running for a top three spot in the final IHRA standings, so the points in Topeka really will not mean a whole lot to this team. Sure we want to qualify well and are going to throw everything at the track, but we have our goals set and everything we do is with these goals in mind.”
About Bobby Lagana Racing Bobby Lagana Jr. is in his ninth year of competition as a professional Top Fuel driver. Following in the footsteps of his father, noted Funny Car pilot Bob Lagana, he began driving professionally at the age of 19 and enjoyed his most successful season last year. In 2006 he won two of the 11 IHRA national events, in Grand Bend, Ontario and Epping, New Hampshire, eventually finishing third in world championship points standings. Following the season he was awarded IHRA’s most prestigious award, the IHRA Sportsman of the Year, at the season-ending champion’s banquet in Greensboro, N.C. His Crew Chief, Jay Lewis, also was honored at the champion’s banquet, being selected as IHRA Professional Crew Chief of the Year. Lagana’s primary sponsors are Torco Racing Fuels, Pelham Lumber and Skull Shine, an industrial-strength cleaning product that is part of Michigan-based fuel magnate Evan Knoll’s line of racing and automobile-related products. For more information about Skull Shine or Torco Racing Fuels, visit the company’s website at www.torco.com. Lagana also has associate sponsorship from Tom Stephens racing, Eric “Lippy,” Bryant Neville Racing, Lichenstein Motorsports, RMI Titanium, innovative Machine and Powertech Generators.
