Rough-N-Ready Racing overcame a major stumbling block to capture their second title of the season at the weekend.

The funny car drag racing syndicate, owned by Bermudian Harvey Williams Jr, claimed class honours competing at the California Independent Funny Car Association Nostalgia Nite of Fire held at Sacramento Raceway Park.

Driver Tony Trimp beat rival James Maher, the CIFCA champion, in the finals held on Saturday night.

Trimp cut a .037 reaction at 157mph behind the wheel of his team’s 1986 Corvette body funny car “Happy Hour” to Maher’s .097 light.

“I slammed on the brakes hard at 900ft,” Trimp said.

“I don’t know how I end up doing this. It’s by luck.”

Trimp also clocked a top speed of 180.36mph during the qualifiers, which were held on Friday night.

However, his team’s road to the winner’s circle was anything but a smooth one as they were confronted by mechanical problems which threatened to derail their title hopes.

“We feared we wouldn’t make it past the first round due to breaking our transmission,” Jacqueline Williams, the team crew member, said. “Luckily we had a good friend, Louis Pharms, who let us borrow his so we could go more rounds.

“Along with transmission being out of commission we also had starter issues that played a huge part in us winning first round. Overall, we had to fight the good fight and overcame our mechanical issues.

“It’s been the talk of the town that whenever we break something we usually end up winning. As a team we thrash night and day just so we can make this dream happen. It’s never easy and we are not a team to go down without a fight.”

Last weekend’s triumph solidified Rough-N-Ready Racing’s lead in the overall CIFCA championship standings and kept them on course for a third CIFCA title.

“As it stands right now we are siting No 1 in points and we couldn’t be any happier,” Williams added. “We have four races to go and we look forward to going all out and putting our best foot forward.”

Rough-N-Ready Racing’s other win to date arrived in April’s CIFCA championship season opener at the same racetrack, a title they have now captured four years on the trot.