AMERICUS, Ga. - Sovereign-Star Racing's Scotty Pollacheck has consistently shown his skills as a 27-year veteran racer during his 2012 rookie season in the NHRA's Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Pro Stock Motorcycle class.

Pollacheck plans to continue this focused, unfailing effort as he moves to reclaim his No. 5 position in the Countdown to the Championship.

After entering the Countdown at No. 5, Pollacheck fell to the No. 7 position following Michael Ray's win at the AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals in Dallas two weeks ago.

"Our goal is to make up some of that ground that we lost in Dallas. This past weekend in St. Louis, we made up some of the points between us and Michael Ray. Karen and I stayed about the same, though. It would definitely be better to gain on those two a little more in Reading. It would be nice to get back up to that fifth spot where we were before," Pollacheck said.

As the No. 8 qualifier at the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals with his 6.886-second run, Pollacheck faced the previous Dallas winner Michael Ray in Round 1 eliminations on Sunday. Pollacheck's .016-second reaction time and 6.895/191 run gave him the win against Ray.

As the No. 16 qualifier, Pollacheck's teammate John Hall faced No. 1 qualifier Hector Arana Jr. in Round 1 eliminations. Hall left the line only .003 seconds too early to turn on the red light and give the win to Arana Jr., who went on to race Hall's teammate in the next round.

"I didn't feel like I was pushing the tree; I just wanted to make a good light and a good lap. We were definitely close to taking out the No. 1 qualifier with that run. It's always worse when you redlight and don't see the person in front of you at the end. You know that you could've beaten them if it weren't for that," Hall said.

In Round 2 eliminations, Pollacheck's near-perfect .002-second reaction time wasn't enough to turn on the win light against Arana's 6.882/195 run event though Pollacheck held him off until the 900-ft. marker.

"We had several things working against us on Scotty's bike during qualifying; but by Sunday, I had all my ducks in a row and the tuning done," Star Racing owner George Bryce said. "We learned so much on Scotty's that we knew exactly what to do to John's bike to save a stroke, and his actually ended up going faster than Scotty's on Sunday."

Overall for the weekend, Pollacheck was able to gain nearly 20 points on Michael Ray to close the gap between himself and the top half of the Countdown. Pollacheck and Hall will be looking to take points away from the other competitors this weekend with consistent laps as the team competes at the Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals in Reading, Penn.