don’ t get a time slip to see what they ran). With a little encouragement from his dad, Scarlata flew back to Florida for the U. S. Street Nationals and wound up meeting Steph Mallais in the final. Mallais, who races with Scarlata up in Canada, got the win there. With that race worth points and a half, Mallais moved into the points lead over Snowbirds winner Tommy Hoskinson and Scarlata jumped to third going into WSOPM, where double points were up for grabs to decide the champion.
Humid conditions troubled Scarlata in testing, but he found his spot for eliminations and marched through the field to meet Hoskinson in the semifinals. Scarlata turned on the win light.“ Tommy’ s been killing it,” Scarlata says.“ The kid’ s doing very well and he’ s been very good. Honestly, to win [ WSOPM ] was great, but to get through Tommy at that point was a win for me because I’ ve got a lot of respect for those guys and he’ s a killer racer.”
That sent Scarlata into a unique final-round situation. He had to win the race to secure the series championship. If he lost, he’ d need to run a tiebreaker against Hoskinson. Standing
“ I went into it just like every other race and knew I had to do my job and got through.”
in his way was teammate Breanna Edwards in her’ 84 Buick Regal. Again, Scarlata’ s win light came on, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief, though it came at the expense of someone he considers family.
“ Randy Jewell, Breanna’ s stepdad, is like my second dad. She lives five minutes from my house. We pit together. We race as a family together,” Scarlata says.“ So to race her in the final was awesome, but it was tough. You never want to race anybody from home. That’ s a hard deal, especially being 24 hours away from home. But I went into it just like every other race and knew
I had to do my job and got through.”
Scarlata pocketed the $ 20,000 WSOPM check, the $ 10,000 championship prize, as well as a sponsorship package from Melling Performance.
“ I can’ t say enough about the Melling and Strange guys,” says Scarlata, who also thanked his parents, Grammy Joy, wife Erin, children Jonathan and Jules, in-laws Randy and Tammy, and supporters including RJ Profab, Darrin’ s Automotive, RLJ Race Engines, Prosystems Carbs, CB Real Estate, Long Pond Auto Parts, and Finishline Motorsports.
“ We talked a lot with Jake [ Malek ] at Strange, and he’ s been helping us on a new project,” Scarlata continues.“ Brendan [ Melling ] and Cale [ Risinger ] from Melling with that whole parts sponsorship is phenomenal. We’ re putting together an LS deal, so that obviously helped us huge. FuelTech came through. We’ re supposed to get a new FT600 for the new car. Then Wes [ Buck ] and the guys at Drag Illustrated and Jimmy Dale and Michael Poland gave a platform for a weekend warrior bracket racer to race on a cool stage, and that was pretty awesome DI.”
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May / June 2026 DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 111