D'Aprile On The Beach In Opening Round

Milan, Mich. - It what appears to be the beginning of a fun summer for the Knoll Gas - TORCO Race Fuels Pro Modified class, Tommy D'Aprile driver of the Evan Knoll sponsored, "Support Our Troops" 1963 Corvette continued his impressive rookie qualifying effort and makes a trip to the beach in the first round of eliminations.

For the fifth race this season D'Aprile qualified his ride in the top half of the very competitive Pro Modified class. "Tommy has done a great driving job for us," said Quain Stott, team owner. "This is the lowest he has qualified all season and it's still the top half of the field."

D'Aprile would take his number eight qualified car and face Jim Halsey in the first round. D'Aprile made a nice pass, but would be one of three victims that fell in the first round to hole shot losses. Making the loss tougher for D'Aprile was a trip to the sandpit when his parachutes did not fully deploy.

"Maybe I'm taking this desert-camo-theme a little too far," D' Aprile commented after being pulled from the sandpit. D'Aprile would be one of many drivers that found themselves in the sand this weekend and some with 'near misses'. Teams could not offer a clear explanation of why it was happening, some did speculated about cross winds that might have caused the abnormally high parachute malfunctions.

The next stop for the "Support Our Troops" Corvette is the IHRA Canadian Nationals, July 21-23.