New Sovereign-Star Racing teammates Scotty Pollacheck and Michael Ray faced each other in round one eliminations leading to Pollacheck's first ever semifinals appearance at the Pro Stock Motorcycle season opener in Gainesville, Fla.

AMERICUS, Ga. - Sovereign-Star Racing's Scotty Pollacheck celebrated the first semifinal round appearance of his NHRA career as he drove to the No. 4 spot in the Pro Stock Motorcycle points standings this past weekend at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

"It was a huge deal for me to make it to the semis, because I hadn't done that before. It was an awesome feeling just because we've been working so hard to do that, so to finally win second round and make it to the semis we knew it wasn't some fluke thing that we made it that far," Pollacheck said.

In the quickest field ever for Pro Stock Motorcycle, Pollacheck and new teammate Michael Ray qualified No. 8 and 9, respectively, resulting in an all Star Racing matchup during round one eliminations Sunday. The tight field with barely more than a tenth difference between the No. 1 and No. 16 qualifiers made for a very interesting weekend as the teams watched to see how the new rule changes would affect overall performance in the class.

"The competition was fantastic! I was so happy to see an .80, .82 and .83 out of the three different engine combinations, which totally shocked me," Star Racing owner George Bryce said.

"It felt good just getting into the show," Ray said. "There were a lot of really, really fast bikes that did not make the show. It sucked racing Scotty first round, but when you look at the season as a marathon not a sprint it's good to come out of the first race better than I did last year."

The round one Sovereign-Star Racing teammate matchup resulted in Ray going red against Pollacheck's 6.896 ET at 193 mph.

"As soon as I let the clutch lever out, I knew that I had redlit. I was just jazzed up, excited to be there first round and excited to be racing Scotty. It was more of a self-induced wound than a lack of focus," Ray admitted.

Pollacheck advanced to round two where he faced No. 16 qualifier Chip Ellis on the Savoie White Alligator Racing Buell. Although Ellis got the jump at the line, Pollacheck caught up with him past the 1000-ft. mark to take the win with a 6.894 against Ellis' 6.947.