Shel­don Bisses­sar, the 'Trinidad Rock­et', won the 2010 In­ter­na­tion­al Hot Rod As­so­ci­a­tion (IHRA) Spring Na­tion­als Ni­tro Jam at Rock­ing­ham Drag­way, North Car­oli­na, for his third straight win this year. Bisses­sar now has three con­sec­u­tive num­ber one qual­i­fy­ing po­si­tions and three IHRA na­tion­al event wins. He is al­so the world record hold­er for IHRA Top Drag­ster, which stands at 5.78 sec­onds quar­ter mile at 242 miles per hour.

Ear­li­er in the year, Bisses­sar's set a new IHRA Top Drag­ster world record when he emerged the cham­pi­on at the IHRA's Palm Beach Ni­tro Jam, Palm Beach In­ter­na­tion­al Race­way Flori­da in Jan­u­ary. He then fol­lowed up that win in March, when he re­set this record (5.78 sec­onds quar­ter mile at 242 miles per hour) to win the Mar­di Gras Ni­tro Jam, in Ba­ton Rouge Louisiana. Last week­end, Bisses­sar was un­fazed at the soar­ing tem­per­a­tures above 130 de­grees F, which cre­at­ed a chal­leng­ing race­track sur­face for dri­vers in the ex­treme­ly high tem­per­a­tures which cause the track to be slip­pery.�

He qual­i­fied for the Elite Eight com­pe­ti­tion by fin­ish­ing first, in the cat­e­go­ry which con­sist­ed of 38 en­trants with the fastest 8 qual­i­fy­ing.�He beat James Leo, who broke down and was un­able to make the call to take the first round, in a time of 5.98 sec­onds per quar­ter mile at 227 miles per hour (5.98/227).

He then got the bet­ter of Bur­well Kendrick in a time of 6.0 sec­onds per quar­ter mile at 226.8 per hour. Bur­well was on­ly able to man­age a 6.5 sec­ond quar­ter mile at 211 miles per hour.�Bisses­sar then fin­ished the fi­nal round, eas­i­ly beat­ing sea­soned vet­er­an, Rob McKin­ley with a 5.9 sec­ond quar­ter mile at 228 miles per hour, to win the com­pe­ti­tion. McKin­ley end­ed in sec­ond place with a chal­leng­ing 6.2 sec­ond quar­ter mile at 217 miles per hour.