![\"Nobile](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nobile-Gainesville-action-min.jpg\")
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Although he didn\u2019t race the final events of 2017, Pro Stock standout and former Auto Club Rod to the Future winner Vincent Nobile earned the tenth spot in NHRA\u2019s Countdown to the Championship. His team stated the rationale for holding Nobile out of the five final races of last year\u2019s competition was a notable lack of competitiveness.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t Nobile or his father John, a former Pro Stock racer, who made that decision to forego the final five events; rather, it was team owner Nick Mitsos who gave Elite Motorsports an ultimatum to get the car competitive by Charlotte, first race in the 2017 six-event Countdown playoffs, or he\u2019d pull the team. Mitsos sold the car back to Elite owner Richard Freeman, who ran the car through to the close of the year with crew chief Brian \u201cLump\u201d Self in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
Now, after three races in the 2018 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, Vincent Nobile sits ninth in the standings, lagging Alex Laughlin by five points and leading two-time champion Erica Enders-Stevens by four points. His new Jerry Haas-built Chevrolet Camaro is still powered and prepped by Elite Motorsports. The series heads to Las Vegas this weekend for the NHRA DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals on the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
Nobile is ready for the extra challenge this weekend, especially with the knowledge that fans voted him the final combatant in the K&N Horsepower Challenge for Pro Stock racers, beating out worthy competitors like Phoenix winner Chris McGaha, Laughlin, Deric Kramer, Matt Hartford, part-timers Shane and Johnny Gray, Self and many more for that coveted spot. This Saturday race-within-a-race K&N Horsepower Challenge is the first contested in a four-wide format; it traditionally occurs at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
![\"Nobile](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Vincent-Nobile-mug-min.jpg\")
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The K&N Horsepower Challenge within the DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals makes for an intriguing contest for Nobile, as the weekend marks the first four-wide race at this venue; it\u2019s just one of two four-across events for NHRA\u2019s professional categories. The tour goes to Houston before heading to zMax Dragway next to Charlotte Motor Speedway in late April for the second four-wide event; zMax was first to construct two added lanes to their drag strip. Both Charlotte and Las Vegas are owned by Speedway Motorsports.<\/p>\n
Nobile thanked his many supporters, his fans and, of course, his family for the opportunity to compete for the K&N prize. \u201cWow, I can\u2019t thank my family, friends and fans enough. Too cool, thanks to everyone who took the time to vote and for all the support.\u201d The K&N race winner earns $50,000 with the runner-up gaining $10,000. Two semifinals take home $3,000 and the four first-round finishers each earn $2,500.<\/p>\n
Nobile meets reigning champ Bo Butner of KB Racing in the first round, while defending K&N champ Greg Anderson (also with KB) is up against Enders-Stevens, KB\u2019s Jason Line meets Elite Motorsport\u2019s Jeg Coughlin and it\u2019s Gray Motorsports teammates Drew Skillman and Tanner Gray battling in the first K&N Horsepower Challenge round.<\/p>\n
Vincent Nobile, one of the young guns in Pro Stock competition, is hoping to add to his 10 career national event wins in 21 final rounds. The 26-year-old has been very fast so far this year and took the No. 1 qualifier at Pomona in February; he\u2019s ready to hit the Winner\u2019s Circle not once, but twice in Las Vegas, and take home an extra $25,000 bonus for the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although he didn\u2019t race the final events of 2017, Pro Stock standout and former Auto Club Rod to the Future winner Vincent Nobile earned the tenth spot in NHRA\u2019s Countdown to the Championship.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":50396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5614,1259,41,7,1632,1022],"class_list":["post-50395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-countdown-to-the-championship","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing","tag-vincent-nobile"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nobile-Gainesville-action-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-d6P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50398,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395\/revisions\/50398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}