PRESENTED BY
In what was undoubtedly the greatest example of perseverance at the U. S. Street Nationals presented by M & M Transmission, Cole Pesz went from the doctor’ s office to the winner’ s circle at Bradenton Motorsports Park. Just a few days after crashing the screw-blown‘ 18 Corvette owned by Mark Gobert during pre-race testing, Pesz navigated five grueling rounds in the $ 40,000-to-win True 10.5 class.
What began as a devastating setback early in the week quickly turned into a full-scale thrash, as Pesz and his crew – along with members of other race teams – worked tirelessly to rebuild the car in time for competition. Despite limited runs and lingering physical pain, Pesz ran through a gauntlet of some of the toughest names in small-tire racing to secure the win.
“ This is truly a Cinderella story,” said Pesz.“ It’ s unbelievable, to be honest with you. I’ ve been in a lot worse positions in my life than crashing a race car. It’ s the story of my life. I’ ve always gotten over the peak.”
The victory was especially meaningful for Pesz, who was still dealing with the loss of his grandmother last September – a moment he noted marked the last time he’ d stood in the winner’ s circle prior to Bradenton.
“ We came out here at Snowbirds last month and I thought I was going to get it done, but we hung the throttle and … there’ s always some little thing,” Pesz said.“ Then we get here and it wasn’ t so little – it was a big thing. But when we got back and evaluated the car, it wasn’ t as bad as it looked. The car was built very well. Our whole team came together, looked at each other and
said,‘ We got this.’”
In addition to fixing the car, Pesz also had to be medically cleared in order to compete. While he believed he was OK physically, Pesz was grateful for the concern shown by event officials in putting his health and safety first, and was willing to do whatever was necessary to get back in the driver’ s seat.
“ I don’ t really have a switch that turns off,” Pesz admitted.“ Sometimes that’ s a good thing and sometimes it’ s a really bad thing. I respect Wes [ Buck ] saying,‘ Hey man, you need to go to the ER and make sure you don’ t have a concussion.
RIGHT: JORDAN PITTS AND KIMMELYN PESZ WAIT ON THE STARTING LINE AS COLE PURGES THE NITROUS ON HIS SCREW- BLOWN CORVETTE – IN TRUE 10.5, DUAL POWER ADDERS WERE ALLOWED.
BELOW: BASED ON HOW FLAWLESSLY IT PERFORMED ON RACE DAY, ONE WOULD NEVER GUESS THE’ 18 CORVETTE OWNED BY MARK GOBERT WRECKED EARLIER IN THE WEEK DURING TESTING.
88 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 199