Pensacola True Street drag racing champion Chris Escobar is gunning for his 17th championship this weekend, April 10 through April 13, when he takes on the field at the 6th Annual NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Georgia. Escobar captured his first win of the 2014 campaign, claiming his16th championship trophy, his 12th in the True Street class, at the 20th Annual Spring Break Shootout Muscle Car Nationals at south Florida’s Bradenton MotorSports Park on March 9th. He turned the quarter mile track in excess of 170 miles per hour in his 1986 SVO Mustang. The Spring Break Shootout Muscle Car Nationals and this weekend’s All-Star Nationals in Atlanta are part of the six-event NMRA Ford Nationals series that culminates in October with the 16th Annual NMRA All-Ford World Finals at Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In recent years, the True Street class has become one of the most popular drag racing events in the United States. True Street is a unique drag racing class in which cars must have valid registration, insurance and all required DOT compliant components, such as tires and turn signals, to drive on public roads. Each race begins with a 30-mile cruise to test the true street-readiness of competitors and concludes with three consecutive passes down the quarter mile. The winning driver is the one with the lowest three-run-average time.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Drag racing champ poised for 17th title in Atlanta