For Immediate Release: Peoria, AZ.

The Wild West was well know for its gunfights and battles but none of them had anything on the prolonged duel carried on in the Pacific Street Car Association Hughes Performance Pro Street class this season. Three time and current reigning Champion Ed Thornton and the Extreme Speed twin turbo ’57 Chevy came into the year having taken the winner’s laurels for the past three years. Rookie Pro Street racer Steve Paulauskis entered the season with only one season of drag racing behind him. The former championship winning karter had moved over to drag racing in 2005 and had shoed Kelly Bluebaugh’s ‘World’s Fastest Citation’ in his debut season. He won one event and was ready for more in his sophomore year. For 2006 Paulauskis came out with both barrels blazing, over the winter he had acquired an ex IHRA Pro Stock Cavalier built by Larson Race Cars, Bluebaugh hooked him up with old friend Charles Carpenter who provided an ex Pro Mod nitrous equipped powerplant and the team took it to Thornton with a vengeance. Paulauskis’ WFO Motorsport team almost monopolized the pole positions during the year, only a catastrophic engine failure at the last Las Vegas race preventing any chance of a clean sweep. Wins were shared back and fore between Thornton and the WFO team, with David Dedrickson being only other racer managing to take home a win in the regular season. The Vegas race was make or break for Paulauskis as the engine failure could have ended his season. “I made a commitment to my sponsors to be in Orlando and try and win the PSCA series, I have to honor that” commented Paulauskis after the event. To that end he and Bluebaugh got in touch with Carpenter again and negotiated the purchase of the 728 cubic inch motor that Carpenter ran 6.22 with at the IHRA event in Milan, MI.
Both racers made the long haul to Orlando for the World Street Nationals and Paulauskis was reasonably satisfied at his quarter final finish with the now Dyno-Flo supported Cavalier. “I got to take home a jacket for qualifying in the top ten” an excited West Coast racer exclaimed as he sat waiting for a flight back to Phoenix, AZ before having to head out again for the PSCA Edelbrock World Finals in Fontana, CA the following weekend. As he drove to Fontana, Paulauskis had this to say “I know what I have to do, Ed and Shane are bad fast and this deal is not over yet! Kelly and I have talked and are keeping to our game plan. We intend to take the title home to Arizona” And that is exactly what he did. He sat on pole again, with Thornton only managing eighth, by Steve’s calculation, enough to take the championship but he had to make sure of it. The bye in the first round pretty well took care of it but the match up with Thornton in the second round was just another example of the two best racers in the series going at it hammer and tongs. The resultant win finally made Paulauskis realize he had done it, won the series Championship in his first year, now he could concentrate on winning the race. It was going to be tough as his opponent was none other than many-time West Coast Pro Mod Champion John Scialpi. Scialpi hopped it up for the final but it was the starting line that made the difference and Paulauskis had the holeshot victory over the blown ’57, 6.463 @ 218.27mph to a loosing 6.437 @ 219.29mph. When interviewed on the Monday morning after the event a tired Paulauskis said “This has been a long haul for us, when we blew the motor is was Dyno-Flo and SI Valves and many others that stepped up and allowed us to go to Orlando, now coming back here and winning the race and the title is amazing. I am dedicating this championship to all my sponsors, my awesome team and my supportive family; I could not have done it without any of them”

Paulauskis and the WFO Motorsport team would like to thank WFO Racing & Machine, Larson Race Cars, Details Landscape, SI Valves, Airea5150 Inc.