AMERICUS, Ga. - Sovereign-Star Racing teammates Scotty Pollacheck and Michael Ray kicked off the NHRA Mello Yello Series Countdown to the Championship with a competitive performance this past weekend Sept. 13-15 at the Carlyle Tools NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, N.C.

Following this first race of the Countdown, Pollacheck moved up one place in the Pro Stock Motorcycle points standings to No. 5, while Ray moved to the No. 4 position. Ray is now less than three rounds out of first place behind points leader Hector Arana Jr., and Pollacheck is only four rounds below Arana Jr. This very competitive field became even tighter after the win by Harley-Davidson Screamin' Eagle Vance & Hines driver Andrew Hines, who is not in the Countdown.

"I think our team really delivered on their promise to show up for the Countdown with machines that were 100 percent prepared. It's like George (Bryce) said, 'When we need to be fast we will be; just wait.' I couldn't be more excited or confident. With the freight train of momentum that we have, I'm ready for next weekend at Dallas," Ray said.

"I think we're in a pretty good spot. If we go to the next five races and move up one spot every time like we did this weekend, then we've won the Championship," Pollacheck said.

Ray claimed the second quickest elapsed time (ET) for each of the four rounds of qualifying on Friday and Saturday, earning an additional eight bonus points toward his Countdown position.

In the final qualifying session, Pollacheck jumped from the bottom half of ladder to the No. 4 spot with his quickest pass of the weekend at 6.891 seconds.

Ray continued to improve during round one eliminations on Sunday when he posted the quickest pass of the day for Pro Stock Motorcycle and his quickest pass of the weekend with a 6.864 ET at 193 mph against Jerry Savoie's 6.955/192, advancing Ray to round two.

Also in round one, Pollacheck posted a nearly perfect .001-second reaction time and a 6.919 ET to take the win against Shawn Gann's 6.970 ET.

However, this quick reaction time got the better of Pollacheck in round two when his -.002 red light forfeited the win to LE Tonglet.

"I just didn't stage as well as I should of; I rolled in about an inch deeper than I usually do. I'm looking forward to us getting a little more consistency with my motorcycle so that we can have some good data from our qualifying runs to do well on Sunday. We could always use some of those bonus points from qualifying to get that momentum going early," Pollacheck said.