Carl’s 4 Wheel Drive and Performance Center Bracket Series Race 1 Recap

Last Updated on April 15, 2025 by WWTR

By Jeremy Rosenstengel

Racing, Racing, Racing! It is finally here. The snow is gone, the air temperature is over 60, and it is finally warm enough that the race cars on alcohol will actually start. All is great with the world…. 

Bracket race one at WWT Raceway was a make-up from the rain out the week before. WWT Raceway recognized that as race car drivers, we live, breathe and schedule our whole world around going racing, so they were able to rearrange the race schedule to save one of the two races we lost from the week before. Great job guys. They get that we have a need for speed and man do we appreciate the effort. Bracket race one saw a world champion and two-time Million winner show us what a dominant performance looks like. Bracket one saw a four-time champion return to their winning ways. We saw a track favorite mow through some very hard competition, and we saw the high school kids doing some amazing things. We also had a preview of a final in Jr. Dragsters with two heavy hitters that will most likely dominate the rest of the season. The action is building, the fun is just getting started for the 2025 drag race season!

Super Pro racing in the St. Louis area is super highly competitive as everyone knows. Add great weather, a new season and you know we packed the house with Super Pro cars. The final round was sure to be amazing! A 2024 WWT Raceway Pro Champion stepping up and mowing his way through all the Super Pro cars and doing it all off the bottom bulb, a multiple-time NHRA world champion and two-time Million winner blowing into town trying to race a world-class Vega, this has the makings for a very serious race. As Danny Ratulowski and Luke Bogacki pulled to the starting line, everyone was on the edge of their seats. Luke had already had one .000 perfect reaction time and was no worse than a .012 reaction time for the day. Danny was between a .003 and a .023 all day as well. In the final, Danny went .001 red to Luke’s .018, but what a fantastic job it was for both drivers to find their way to the finals. Danny had to get by Nancy Conn. who was terrific all day, in the semifinals and Luke laid down 14 total in the semifinals to get by Cody White. Great job to all the racers and a special shout out to John Tignor and Greg Cullum for putting up perfect .000 lights during earlier rounds of competition. Great job guys. 

Pro Class finals featured a pair of veteran racers Tommy Barbero and Jesse Garcia doing battle. Tommy Barbero in the end used a huge starting line advantage and killed 28 thousandths at the stripe to take out Jesse Garcia who put his yellow Julio Racing Nova dead on with a zero at the stripe in the losing effort. Both drivers did a great job with Jesse beating Craig Powell in the semifinals and Tommy Barbero taking out Ron Beach III in the other half of the semifinals. 

VP Racing Lubricants Sportsman class was a battle of the former champions all the way back to the semifinals. Luke Beach III, Craig Powell and Brad Kaemmerer were all in the semifinals together. Powell is the 3-time Sportsman champion with both Kaemmerer and Beach each having won one championship in Sportsman, with Beach being the most recent winner. Beach was able to get past Kaemmerer in the semifinal using a .023 light on the double breakout win. In the finals, Craig Powell, who also went all the way to the semifinals in the Pro Class, took out Luke Beach III. The final round was a great race. Luke Beach III had the advantage off the starting line with a .010 light compared to Powell’s .026 light. Powell ran 36 thousandths off his dial in comparison to Beach III who ran 57 thousandths off his dial-in to secure the victory for Powell. Both drivers did a great job of tightening it up at the stripe. 

Commercial Safe & Lock Super Pro Bike class found veteran racer Mark Abrams against Darrell Dickerson. In the final round, Mark Abrams was outstanding. Mark was .021 up front and dead on the dial-in with a five to secure the victory. Dickerson was .066 and one over in the losing effort. Dickerson, however, was able to defeat both the Klemme brothers and used a .000 light to do so. The Klemme’s are multiple-time champions who drive all the way down from Iowa to race with us, so Dickerson had an amazing day as well. Great job to both racers!

The Jr. Thunder class saw young second-generation racer Brayden Hearn take the victory over young third-generation Gary Bogacki. Hearn used his .056 light and 8 over-the-dial performance to best Bogacki who was .074 up front and dumped hard at the stripe to be 20 over trying to push Hearn out. Great job by both of these young racers. Hearn defeated Jack Bogacki in the semifinal and Gary Bogacki was able to beat Damon Haberberger in the other half of the semifinal.

Jr. Lightning finals match-up also featured a pair of former champions with Sarah Stewart taking on Cohen Hale. The final round was decided at the starting line as Cohen Hale was able to put down an impressive .017 reaction time and follow that up by going dead on with a nine to secure the victory. Sarah pushed Cohen hard at the stripe, dumped hard and came very close to pushing Cohen out. However, in the end, the victory was taken by Cohen. Sarah was able to defeat Michael Murdo in the semifinal round. Great job kids. 

Ranken Technical College High School Class now being administered by Steve Zeuner after Paul Hagen stepped down had a great final. Cohen Hale, in his second final of the day and season took on Bobby Meyers. Meyers was .021 up front in his Chevy S-10 and ran 47 thousandths over the dial in to beat Cohan Hale in his Camaro as he broke out by eight ten thousandths. It was a good race at the stripe. Hale took advantage of a .019 reaction time in the semifinals to defeat Timothy Hearn.

In Marine Coin Jr. Street, Leah Thomas, driving her F-350, was able to get by Jacob Phillips in the final. Leah took advantage of her .040 reaction time and ran 9.447 on a 9.44 dial-in to push out Jacob Phillips who ran 9.436 on his 9.43 dial-in. Wow, those are Super Pro numbers on the dial-in vs the actual ET. Great job kids.