{"id":6072,"date":"2024-05-28T22:39:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T22:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=6072"},"modified":"2024-05-28T22:55:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T22:55:46","slug":"serious-career-ignitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=6072","title":{"rendered":"Serious Career Ignitor!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Aspiring and talented Canadian nitro nostalgia funny car driver Nathan Sitko earned his most impressive career win yet recently when he prevailed during one of drag racing&#8217;s most tradition rich events &#8212; the Napa Auto Parts Ignitor Nitro Open held at Idaho&#8217;s Firebird Raceway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Driving the highly formidable Hodgson Racing\/Pacemaker Firebird (based from Edmonton AB) Sitko won the 53rd edition of that prestigious NHRA regional race which throughout most of it&#8217;s history has included and showcased the nitro Nostalgia Funny Car class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Screen-Shot-2024-05-29-at-8.42.26-am.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Screen-Shot-2024-05-29-at-8.42.26-am.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6077\" width=\"520\" height=\"313\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Screen-Shot-2024-05-29-at-8.42.26-am.png 584w, https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Screen-Shot-2024-05-29-at-8.42.26-am-259x156.png 259w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/436568328_1479059459397048_6739034967245685929_n-e1716934044820.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/436568328_1479059459397048_6739034967245685929_n-e1716934035261-1024x572.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6069\" width=\"521\" height=\"291\"\/><\/a><figcaption><em>The extremely potent Hodgson Racing\/Pacemaker Firebird &#8212; from Alberta &#8212; was dominating while winning the NHRA&#8217;s Napa Auto Parts Ignitor National Open event in Idaho.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/441990084_1133456331243022_3600716490971300875_n-e1716934018281.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/441990084_1133456331243022_3600716490971300875_n-e1716934011952-1024x532.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6070\" width=\"510\" height=\"264\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Sitko&#8217;s win (on May 20th) was both a speedy and convincing one indeed and came in just his 4th event start driving for the team after being named as the replacement driver for Ryan Hodgson, last December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact Nathan and his talented group were credited with the <em>quickest run ever recorded <\/em>within the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series\/Legends Nitro series &#8212; for funny cars. Together they clocked an astounding 5.510 secs which came up on the scoreboard during a round one win over fellow Canadian Jeff Arend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sitko then topped two more of the most prominent machines within North America&#8217;s NFC circuit &#8212; the Kris Krabil (Bartone &amp; Lebor) and Bobby Cottrell (Bucky&#8217;s Bardahl) cars &#8211; to take the event title, carding consecutive passes of 5.608 secs and 5.554 secs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It still hasn\u2019t completely sunk in what we accomplished that weekend,&#8221; Nathan reflected on his FB page. &#8220;The event was an absolute TON of hard work by everyone involved. I&#8217;m so grateful to work with all these stellar people and to get to drive their Hot Rod.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;And hats off to the whole staff and the New family at Firebird Raceway &#8212; who did a fantastic job all weekend giving us a great track and put on such a wonderful event!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DSC7994-2-Edit-Edit-copy-scaled-e1716933888282.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/DSC7994-2-Edit-Edit-copy-scaled-e1716933879751-1024x750.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6066\" width=\"447\" height=\"327\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Canadian native <strong>Jeff Arend<\/strong> was also entered in competition at the Boise event.  Jeff was driving the Ganus Boy&#8217;s &#8220;Problem Child&#8221; Camaro.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Posted by Bruce Biegler<br>Photos courtesy of Carl Bredl<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/LMLC_logo_white.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"325\" height=\"130\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/LMLC_logo_white.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5877\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/LMLC_logo_white.png 325w, https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/LMLC_logo_white-259x104.png 259w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 325px) 100vw, 325px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aspiring and talented Canadian nitro nostalgia funny car driver Nathan Sitko earned his most impressive career win yet recently when he prevailed during one of drag racing&#8217;s most tradition rich events &#8212; the Napa Auto Parts Ignitor Nitro Open held at Idaho&#8217;s Firebird Raceway. Driving the highly formidable Hodgson Racing\/Pacemaker Firebird (based from Edmonton AB) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[181,165,62,86,75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6072"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6090,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions\/6090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}