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QUALIFYING SESSIONS RECAPS

PRO STOCK Q1 (1:50 p.m.): The KB Racing duo of Greg Anderson and Jason Line picked up right where they left off in Pomona, pacing the opening round of qualifying at the NHRA Arizona Nationals. Anderson finished No. 1 with a 6.529 that was .002-second quicker than Line. Tanner Gray finished third with a 6.538 at 211.79 mph, both career-best numbers for the rookie competitor. Gray’s 211.79 is also top speed of the event thus far.

FUNNY CAR Q1 (2:40 p.m.): Less than a month ago at testing here, Courtney Force made the quickest unofficial pass in NHRA history. Today, she made the official quickest pass ever at this track, wheeling her Advance Auto Parts entry to a 3.838, the fifth-quickest time in history, to nab the provisional top spot in the order. Force’s speed on the run was 332.67 mph, also a track record. Next to Force, Pomona champ Matt Hagan clocked a 3.839 to finish No. 2., followed by Jack Beckman with a 3.873. One highlight of the first session was Gary Densham, who bettered his career-best e.t. by nearly a tenth and his best speed by about 9 mph. Densham powered to a 3.938 at 320.36 mph and finished the session in the quick eight.

TOP FUEL Q1 (2 p.m.): Tony Schumacher, the winningest Top Fuel driver in event history with five titles, led the opening qualifying session with a track-record 3.703 from his U.S. Army dragster, just a few ticks ahead of his teammate, Winternationals and defending NHRA Arizona Nationals champ Leah Pritchett, who posted a 3.705 in the Papa John’s machine. Rookie Troy Coughlin Jr. grabbed the other bonus point with a 3732 in the SealMaster dragster.

PRO STOCK Q2 (4:30 p.m.): The KB Racing team was again tops in the second session, but they swapped position. Reigning world champ and defending event winner Jason Line moved around Greg Anderson for the No. 1 spot on the sheets, running a 6.509 at a top speed of 212.19 mph. Anderson also improved on his second attempt but still fell a spot with a 6.522. Vincent Nobile had the third-best time of the session at 6.540, but it wasn’t enough to move him around Tanner Gray, who remained third despite a troubled second attempt.

FUNNY CAR Q2 (5:05 p.m.): Matt Hagan had the best time of the second round of qualifying, during which no one was able to better Courtney Force’s 3.838 from earlier today. Hagan posted a 3.841 and remained No. 2 in the order thanks to his 3.839 from Q1. Tim Wilkerson had the second-best time of the session with a career-best 3.852. Tommy Johnson Jr. was the final racer to earn a bonus point, clocking a 3.877 to better his 3.899 from earlier in the day.

TOP FUEL Q2 (4 p.m.): Just three weeks after setting the unofficial quickest pass in Top Fuel history with a 3.654, defending event champ Leah Pritchett made it official with a national-record-setting 3.658 in her Todd Okuhara-tuned Papa John’s dragster. Right beside her on the pass was Tony Schumacher, who made the third-quickest pass, a 3.667. World champ Antron Brown rebounded from an aborted first pass and finished third with a 3.689 while rookie Troy Coughlin Jr. set a career best with his first 3.6-second pass, a 3.696, for the No. 4 spot.

FEATURES

After a sterling outing in Pomona, where he recorded a career-best elapsed time of 3.815 to solidly qualify for the field, Shawn Reed couldn’t wait to get to Phoenix with Hughes Oilfield Transportation dragster, which is owned and tuned by Barry and Todd Paton, and he’s looking forward to the 10-race season ahead.

“It’s going good; we have some good parts and some good people,” he said. “We have a brand new motor in the car this morning that’s never even been fired and two more ready to go under the bench and five brand new cranks.

“Pomona was a great start for us, running 3.81 like that. We think we can run it in the upper .70s, but I’m not sure how much we’ll twist on this weekend. Just because we went A to B in Pomona doesn’t mean we can go crazy here. We want to keep learning how to do that and, as a driver, I want to keep learning.”

Reed, a multi-time drag boat racing champion from Lake Tapps, Wash., still has less than 50 runs under his Top Fuel belts, and gains valuable experience each pass.

“In the first round in Pomona [against Troy Coughlin Jr.], I Treed him pretty good and didn’t see him until 600 feet,” he said. “When I saw his nose, my eyes went over there and the next thing I knew it was out of the groove and started spinning the tire. You’ve got to keep your concentration. Driving these cars, it’s hard to get your brain working as fast as the car is running. It’s slowing down a little, but it’s still fast as hell.”

The team will run Gainesville, skip the Las Vegas event, then return for the Houston event, a homestate race for his primary sponsor. He hopes that running five of the year’s first six events will give him the driving continuity to accelerate the learning process and maybe lead to what would be his first career round win. It’s all part of the plan.

“We’re getting there; we have to crawl before we walk,” he said. “If we can run .85 in qualifying and keep all of the parts in it, then Sunday maybe run a .78 or .79 and keep them honest, we’ll be happy.”

The entire Kalitta Motorsports team is celebrating today the 79th birthday of team patriarch Connie Kalitta and they hope to give him at least one victory this weekend. His nephew, Doug, would be the most likely to succeed in that, coming off a Winternationals outing in which his Jim Oberhofer-tuned Mac Tools dragster recorded six 3.6-second passes before being felled by tire smoke in the Top Fuel final.

Kalitta’s string of 3.60s was unprecedented as no driver had previously recorded more than two in an event -- Steve Torrence ran a pair of 3.60s twice last year (Sonoma and Seattle), Tony Schumacher pulled off the same feat in Brainerd, and Leah Pritchett had a pair of 3.60s at this year’s Winternationals -- but Kalitta tripled that number with six in Pomona.

Interestingly, after that flurry of 3.60s and the final-round tire smoker in Pomona, the Kalitta mount also smoked the tires in Q1 here, but for an interesting reason. Oberhofer and Kalitta didn’t arrive at the track until just before the first qualifying session after making a long, headwind-affected trip from Nashville, where Oberhofer had given the keynote speech to distributors at the Mac Tools Fair in the morning before hopping aboard Kalitta’s jet. The team prepped the car for the run without him but Oberhofer didn’t have the time that he normally would have to fine-tune the combination, which didn’t have enough horsepower, causing the car to shake its way into tire smoke. The team rectified that on their second try with a strong 3.709.

It wasn’t necessarily “the big one that got away,” but there was still plenty for The Great Clips/Parts Plus team to ponder after Clay Millican’s opening lap was cut short by a broken blower belt, yet still recorded a 3.786 at just 283 mph. To 330 feet, his run was better than Leah Pritchett’s 3.705 before it began to tail off.

“We put a brand-new belt on it before every run, and it’s the first belt we’ve broken in two and a half years and probably 320 runs,” said assistant crew chief Lance Larsen. “There was no damage to the engine – not a ring, not a bearing … nothing – so I guess the law of averages just caught up to us. If I had been trying to run a belt with 12 runs on it I’d be kicking myself in the butt.

“It wasn’t going to be low [e.t.], maybe a 3.72 or 3.73, but we’d have loved to have had it.”

Veteran racer Steve Faria, now competing in his ninth season in Top Fuel, is beginning this year as he does every year, by competing at the first two races of the season. He qualified his System 1 Filtration dragster at the season-opening Circle K NHRA Winternationals and with just 15 cars entered here, is assured another starting spot this Sunday. He’s not happy about making the field that way, but understands the economics of the class right now, and does his best to work with what he has.

“We’re making progress,” said Faria, who confines his racing to the far west, making three to five events (an assortment of Pomonas, Phoenix, Sonoma, and Las Vegas) each year. “We know we could run quicker than we do, but I don’t want to risk oiling the track. We don’t run enough to get the laps you need to keep up with everyone else.”

There’s no shortage of people eager to help the dedicated racer, best known to fans as the first Alcohol Dragster driver to run in the five-second zone back in May 1989. “These guys are the best,” he says of his racing brothers. “Todd Okuhara [of Don Schumacher Racing] has helped me for a long time, Dom Lagana … a lot of these guys. 

“I have good parts. It’s set up to run 3.80s without hurting it, so that’s that we’re working on. Let’s be realistic: I have the parts if I want to lean on them that hard, but it would take everything I’ve got, and I don’t want to do that. I just want to come out and have a good time. I know I’m at the end of my driving career sometime down the road -- not yet because I still like doing it – but somewhere down the road, so I just want to enjoy racing while I’m still doing it.”

Tommy Johnson Jr. enters this weekend with an added boost of confidence after getting his primary chassis back. That chassis was bent when Johnson made a big wheelstand during NHRA Nitro Spring Training here at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in early February. That forced Johnson to revert to a back-up chassis for the season-opening event in Pomona, and there was a noticeable difference between that car and the one Johnson had been wheeling.

“It got out here Tuesday. The guys got out here Wednesday, started putting it together, finished it up yesterday, and it’s ready to go,” said Johnson. “I’m going into Q1 a lot more comfortable than I would have with the other car. Not that the other car was bad; we’ve just made a lot of different changes since that chassis was built. After this race, that [back-up] car is going back home and getting a different front half because it definitely a difference in the way they drive. We’ve talked all along about the headers and how much harder they are to drive, and we’ve worked at it, and we’ve made changes. I didn’t realize how much better this car was until I went back to what we used to do, and I went, ‘Oh my God, you can’t drive this car.’ I think that not only myself but the whole team is more confident.”

With his old, reliable chassis under him, Johnson is confident he can be among the quickest cars, and based on weather conditions, which call for cool, low- to mid-60s for highs, he, along with many others, believes it will take some very quick times to qualify in the top half.

“I think we’re going to see runs quicker than what we saw in Pomona, and that was tying the record,” said Johnson. “We ran really well here before we did the wheelstand. We ran 3.89, shutting it off a little early, and we weren’t really leaning on it. We saw lots of low-3.8s, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the top half, to get lane choice you’re going to have to run 3.86 or better. It will be quick.”

Johnson’s first effort was a strong one. He became the first driver to officially record a 3.8-second pass at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, posting a 3.899 on his first attempt. That was good enough for the fourth spot after Q1. Johnson then improved to a 3.877 but slipped to No. 5 due to others stepping up.

Gary Densham was one of the stars of the first round of qualifying, running career-best numbers on a single to start out the session. Densham powered to a 3.938 at 320.26 mph in Q1; his previous bests were 4.036 and 311.41 mph. The great pass did come at a cost, however, because his engine let go as he crossed the finish line.

“Learning to go fast is always pricey. You’ve got to try and work through it,” said Densham. “I don’t know if we can or not, but we’ve been trying to run fast for the last half a year. We’ve just had little problems here and there. That’s the first run that we’ve made it to the lights in six months basically. That sounds terrible, but when you figure part-time crew, that’s like seven runs. My crew does a great job, and we’ll figure this out, and we’ll fix it or run out of money, on or the other.”

In Pomona, Tim Wilkerson reset both ends of his career bests, but the e.t. part of that equation only lasted about two weeks. During the second round of qualifying here, Wilkerson reset his personal best for e.t., clocking a 3.852 that was the second-best time of Q2 and moved Wilkerson up to the No. 3 slot at the end of the opening day. The run wasn’t 100 percent clean, however. There was fire under the body when it was lifted after the pass.

“It looks like it’s hurt,” said Wilkerson. “That’s not worth a darn. We’ll see. We’ll get down here and look at it. We just missed it last run. I’m trying to work on this thing and make it better.”

Another driver who made a nice move in the second session was Del Worsham, who powered his family’s entry to a 3.896 that placed him sixth on the sheets. It was the first 3.8-second pass for the Worsham family car.

“Great run, smooth,” said Worsham, who also noted the run wasn’t without troubles. “Right there before the end, all of a sudden, my face mask was covered in nitro, and I could smell nitro, so it must have blown a fuel line off.”

Worsham also noted how proud he is of the entire team and the work they have put in on his entry to get it ready in a short period of time, work that will continue as they attempt to get everything exactly where they want it.

“We spent the time between Phoenix and Pomona mounting a new Toyota body to our Lucas Oil Funny Car. We’re just getting geared up. We’re a new team, so we’re still getting parts in. We’ll be getting delivery of our first ’18 Toyota Camry soon, so we’ll be spending time getting ready for Gainesville with that new Funny Car body,” said Worsham. “Even though we didn’t win Pomona, we definitely were successful. I think we came out and did well. We found those places that were lacking, and we’ve been able to work on those areas and just improve for Phoenix, and then for Gainesville coming up.”

Drew Skillman certainly did not get his season started off the way he had hoped, qualifying in the bottom half and bowing out in the first round in Pomona, but he and his team have been hard at work in the two weeks since that first race and is hopeful they can turn their fortunes here.

“We’ve gone back to what we know,” said Skillman, who noted most of the changes on the car have come in the suspension, where they feel they got a little off. “We ran decent while we were out here in testing, so we’re going to kind of set up for that, move forward, and see what happens.”

Skillman’s team started the season with the same Camaro with which they wrapped up 2016, but they are eagerly awaiting a new car they feel can be even more competitive.

“The new car should possibly be ready by Gainesville,” said Skillman. “It was supposed to be in Pomona, so we’re getting closer. It’s in the body shop right now getting painted. It’s about a week away from that, and then just a couple of days of final fitting, then go testing for two days, and we should be Thursday back in Gainesville.”

Unfortunately for Skillman, the first run did not yield improved results. He shook the tires immediately and coasted to a 19.651 that placed him 15th after one session.

From the outside, it may appear that Shane and Tanner Gray are wheeling the same cars with which they competed in Pomona, but the reality is they both are in a different mount this weekend. The father-son team has swapped cars for the NHRA Arizona Nationals.

“Dave [Connolly, crew chief] feels like he has a better handle on the car Dad drove in Pomona, and even though the guys were spending most of their time on the car I was driving, Dad qualified better and had a slightly quicker car every round,” said Tanner, who is running a full season vs. the part-time effort of his father this year. “They made the call to switch cars, so I’ll be in that one this weekend, and we'll see how it goes from there.”

Added Shane, “I’ve made no secret of the fact we are all totally behind Tanner’s racing, and if this car is quicker than the other one, even if it’s only by a little bit, it’s worth making the change. He’ll be in the car I finished last year with and we ended up winning the Vegas race in the fall, so we know that car can find the winner’s circle right away.

“Tanner did pretty good in Pomona. He handled his nerves, drove the car well, and was sharp on the Tree. I was proud of him. He should only get better from here.”

The car swap appeared to achieve the goal of getting Tanner runs quicker than his dad. In the first session, Tanner reset both ends of his career best with a 6.538 at 211.79 mph. The e.t. placed Tanner third on the sheets after Q1, and his speed was top speed following the first session.

Jeg Coughlin Jr., who is again pulling double duty this weekend, running Super Gas in addition to Pro Stock, and his Elite Performance team are continuing to pick away at the tune-up on his JEGS-adorned Camaro. After a bit of an off run in Q1, Coughlin made a move in the right direction on his second attempt, posting a 6.56 that placed him in the top eight at the end of day one.

“We came down here and fixed some things that were ailing us in testing before we went to Pomona, and it kind of reared its head back up today,” said Coughlin. “That second run was much, much better. I let the clutch out, and that thing was frying the tire and on the high-side limiter quicker than I could grab the 1-2 shift and darn near the same with the 2-3. I think we just fixed it. The speed’s been great out of our Elite Performance hot rod, and now we’ll have to fine tune on the e.t. and get the thing to accelerate efficiently.”

A new feature at NHRA Mello Yello national events is the First-Round Follow-up, where NHRA announcers visit the pit area of one racer to talk to them about their opening pass. Today, Brian Lohnes caught up with Clay Millican, who talked about his aborted first qualifying pass, a broken-blower-belt 3.78.

The pits at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park were jammed with fans today, taking advantage of NHRA’s world-famous open-pit policy that allows fans to get up close and personal with the drivers. Teams, and racecars.

Former Top Fuel racer Rachelle Splatt, a member of the Slick 500 300-mph Club when she competed in the Luxor dragster in 1994, visited with old friend and former world championship-winning crew chief Lance Larsen, who is currently the assistant crew chief for Clay Millican.

Jet cars are going to be a big part of the NHRA experience this year, closing out the show at numerous events. Tony Franco Sr. and the Lucas Oil jet got the honors Friday.
 

PREVIEW

Welcome to the NHRA Arizona Nationals event notebook, brought to you by the expert staff of NHRA's National Dragster magazine. We'll keep you updated throughout each day with news, notes, photos, and analysis as we kick off qualifying at the second race of the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season. Mello Yello qualifying begins at 1:30 p.m. Mountain time (3:30 p.m. Eastern).

After a wild testing session here three weekends ago, teams have come to Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park literally licking their lips in anticipation of putting some record-breaking numbers on the scoreboard. During Nitro Spring Training here, Leah Pritchett made the unofficial quickest pass in Top Fuel history (3.654) and Courtney Force the quickest unofficial pass in Funny Car history (3.804).

Temperatures this weekend are going to be prime for putting those numbers or better officially into the books as temperatures all three days are forecast to be in the low- to mid-60-degree range. Combine those cool temperatures with the track’s renowned bite, and it’s a recipe for some scorching runs.

Here’s where the current national records stand:

Top Fuel
3.671 sec. by Steve Torrence, July ’16, Sonoma, Calif.; 
332.75 mph by Spencer Massey, Aug. ’15, Brainerd, Minn.

Funny Car
3.822 by Matt Hagan, Aug. ’16, Brainerd, Minn.; 
335.57 mph by Hagan, May ’16, Topeka, Kan.

Pro Stock
6.455 sec. by Jason Line, March ’15, Charlotte, N.C.;  
215.55 mph by Erica Enders, May ’14, Englishtown N.J.

EVENT FACT SHEET

2016 EVENT WINNERS
Leah Pritchett, Top Fuel; Tim Wilkerson, Funny Car; Jason Line, Pro Stock

MOST VICTORIES
John Force, FC- 8; Bob Glidden, PS- 5; Tony Schumacher, TF- 5; Jack Beckman, FC- 3; Kenny Bernstein, TF-FC- 3; Antron Brown, TF-3; Ron Capps, FC-3; Larry Dixon, TF- 3; Cory McClenathan, TF- 3; Darrell Alderman, PS- 3; Kurt Johnson, PS- 3; Warren Johnson, PS- 3.

TRACK RECORDS
Top Fuel
3.716 seconds by Doug Kalitta Feb. '16; 
329.91 mph by Tony Schumacher, Feb. '13.

Funny Car
3.905 seconds by Robert Hight, Feb. '16; 
327.11 mph by Hight, Feb. '16.

Pro Stock 
6.498 seconds by Mike Edwards, Feb. '13; 
213.77 mph by Mike Edwards, Feb. '13.