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ELIMINATION ROUND RECAPS

TOP FUEL ROUND 1 (12:29 p.m.): Wayne Newby came through with the first upset of the Countdown to the Championship by taking down Leah Pritchett. Newby made a clean pass, while Pritchett’s car went silent at about 300 feet. Pritchett pedaled the car back to life, but it wasn’t enough to get past the Australian, taking her out of action early. That helped everyone else chasing a championship, especially Steve Torrence and Antron Brown, who both picked up victories in the first round. Clay Millican ran low elapsed time of the round with a 3.725-second pass.

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Tony Schumacher vs. Doug Kalitta; Clay Millican vs. Antron Brown; Richie Crampton vs. Steve Torrence; Brittany Force vs. Wayne Newby

FUNNY CAR ROUND 1 (1:09 p.m.): Jim Campbell came through with a big-time upset against Jack Beckman despite a .423 reaction time. Beckman ran into trouble at half-track, and Campbell whizzed by him at the finish line. Robert Hight got the best of a huge Countdown matchup against Matt Hagan and will get a chance to knock out another Don Schumacher Racing flopper in the second round: Tommy Johnson Jr.  Only six racers chasing a Funny Car championship advanced to the next round, and no more than three will get into the semi’s as Campbell will take on Alexis DeJoria. 

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Courtney Force vs. John Force; Alexis DeJoria vs. Jim Campbell; J.R. Todd vs. Ron Capps; Robert Hight vs. Tommy Johnson Jr. 

PRO STOCK ROUND 1 (1:15 p.m.): Seven of the 10 playoff contenders advanced past the first round, including low qualifier Tanner Gray, who made the quickest run of the round with a 6.538, 201.05 in his win over Val Smeland, and points leader Bo Butner, who stopped Shane Tucker with a 6.587, 208.55. Contenders Jason Line, Greg Anderson, Erica Enders, and Jeg Coughlin Jr. also advanced The round featured a big upset when NHRA Four-Wide Nationals winner Chris McGaha red-lighted in his battle against Kenny Delco.

Second-round pairings  (lane choice first): Tanner Gray vs. Erica Enders; Jason Line vs. Kenny Delco; Bo Butner vs. Jeg Coughlin Jr.; Greg Anderson vs. Drew Skillman

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE ROUND 1 (1:40 p.m.): Eddie Krawiec was far and away the performance leader in the first round of Pro Stock Motorcycle with a 6.838, 195.82 in his win over Mark Paquette. Krawiec will be joined in the second round by fellow Countdown contenders Andrew Hines, LE Tonglet, Jerry Savoie, Matt Smith, Scotty Pollacheck, and Hector Arana Jr., as well as Chip Ellis, who is the defending event winner. Pollacheck made the second-best run of the round with a 6.864 in his win over Steve Johnson, and Arana was also strong with a 6.866 on his Lucas Oil Buell.

Second round pairings (lane choice first): Andrew Hines vs. Chip Ellis; Eddie Krawiec vs. Matt Smith; Jerry Savoie vs. LE Tonglet; Scotty Pollacheck vs. Hector Arana Jr.

TOP FUEL ROUND 2 (2:50 p.m.): The top two players in the points went down in the second round. Richie Crampton beat points leader Steve Torrence with a 3.768-second pass as he continues to play spoiler as a non-Countdown runner. He beat Scott Palmer in the first round. Clay Millican got by Antron Brown to set up a big semifinal matchup against Doug Kalitta, who’s chasing his first win of the season to start off the Countdown. Brittany Force ended Wayne Newby’s day with the best elapsed time of the round (3.751), and she’ll take on Crampton in the semi’s. 

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Clay Millican vs. Doug Kalitta; Brittany Force vs. Richie Crampton

FUNNY CAR ROUND 2 (3 p.m.): Courtney Force laid down the low elapsed time of the second round (3.934) to beat her dad, John Force, which sets up one of two John Force Racing vs. Kalitta Motorsports semifinals. Courtney will race Alexis DeJoria, while Robert Hight will take on J.R. Todd, who has a chance to take home his second Wally in a row. Those Kalitta Funny Cars are on a roll: They’ve taken home the last two victories and three of the last four. Meanwhile, Don Schumacher Racing has been shut out of the semifinals at the NHRA Carolina Nationals.

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Courtney Force vs. Alexis DeJoria; Robert Hight vs. J.R. Todd

PRO STOCK ROUND 2 (3:02 p.m.):  The KB Racing team will occupy three of the four available spots in the semifinals after drivers Greg Anderson, Jason Line, and Bo Butner all advanced. Anderson topped Drew Skillman in a rematch of the Indy final two weeks ago. Line posted a 6.606, 209.52 in his win against Kenny Delco, and Butner advanced with a narrow four-thousandths win against Jeg Coughlin Jr. They will be joined by Tanner Gray, who made the best run of the round with a 6.586, 201.47 in his win over two-time champ Erica Enders.

Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Greg Anderson vs. Bo Butner; Tanner Gray vs. Jason Line

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE ROUND 2 (3:16 p.m.): Eddie Krawiec once again set the pace with a 6.826, 197.74 in his win over Matt Smith. Krawiec is being joined in the semifinals by low qualifier Andrew Hines, who stopped defending event winner Chip Ellis. Jerry Savoie also reached the semifinals following a win against teammate LE Tonglet, and Hector Arana Jr. advanced following a 6.861 win over Scotty Pollacheck’s Suzuki

Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Eddie Kraweic vs. Jerry Savoie; Andrew Hines vs. Hector Arana Jr.

TOP FUEL SEMIFINALS (4:01 p.m.): Doug Kalitta will race in a final round for the 90th time in his career, and he’s chasing his 43rd win. He ran a 3.784 to beat Clay Millican’s 3.804 and will race Richie Crampton, who is racing for just the second time this season. That’s an all-Kalitta Motorsports final for the first time this season. Crampton, who took over for Troy Coughlin Jr. starting in Indy, edged Brittany Force. If he had any rust after taking most of the season off of racing, he hasn’t shown it. Both drivers are looking for their first win of the season, and Kalitta will have lane choice.

FUNNY CAR SEMIFINALS (4:06 p.m.): Courtney Force will get a chance to race for her first Wally of the season after beating Alexis DeJoria with the quickest pass of the session (3.957). To get it, she has to beat teammate Robert Hight, who beat DeJoria’s teammate, J.R. Todd. Hight ran a 3.985 pass to end Todd’s round-win streak at six. While Force is looking for her first win of the season, Hight is trying to grab win No. 3. Both are looking to make up ground on points leader Ron Capps, who bowed out in the second round. 

PRO STOCK SEMIFINALS (4:09 p.m.): The points chase in Pro Stock tightened after Greg Anderson bounced his teammate and points leader, Bo Butner, in the semifinals. Anderson used a starting-line holeshot to claim the win, 6.616 to 6.597, in a battle decided by .007-second at the finish line. The other semifinal was even closer with Tanner Gray stopping Jason Line on another holeshot, 6.610 to 6.603, in a race that was just .006-second at the stripe.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE SEMIFINALS (4:17 p.m.): The first race of the Countdown to the Championship will feature an all-Harley final between the Street Rods of Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines. Krawiec won with a 6.845 after reigning champ Jerry Savoie fouled by .017-second at the start. Hines advanced after a narrow 6.862 to 6.867 win over Hector Arana’s Lucas Oil Buell. Hines is appearing in his 79th final, while Krawiec now has 68 finals on his resumé.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE FINAL (5:10 p.m.): Eddie Krawiec kicked off the Countdown to the Championship with a convincing victory over Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson teammate Andrew Hines. After an even start, Krawiec rode to his 40th national event title with a 6.850, 196.81 to Hines’ 6.911, 195.11. Krawiec, the winner in Indy two weeks ago, bagged his third win at zMAX Dragway. Coming from the No. 2 qualifying spot, Krawiec’s path to the final included wins against Mark Paquette, Matt Smith, and reigning world champ Jerry Savoie. Krawiec took over the points lead from LE Tonglet after the semifinals and extended it with his final-round win over his Vance & Hines teammate.

PRO STOCK FINAL (5:13 p.m.): Eighteen-year-old phenom Tanner Gray completed an impressive sweep when he drove his Gray Motorsports Camaro to a final-round win over four-time champion Greg Anderson. Gray got off the starting line first and drove to a 6.614 to 6.638 victory. Gray, the low qualifier, has now won five times in his rookie season. Gray had a tough road to the final, including wins against Val Smeland, two-time champion Erica Enders, and Jason Line. Gray, who entered the race as the No. 2 seed in the Countdown, took over the top spot after his semifinal win over Line and extended his lead in the final. 

FUNNY CAR FINAL (5:20 p.m.): Robert Hight brought home the 40th win in his career by taking out teammate Courtney Force with a 3.943-second pass. He also absolutely murdered the Tree with a .019 reaction time. Force slowed to a 3.98 pass after running a 3.957 in the semifinals. The win gives Hight the points lead for the first time since he won the Funny Car championship back in 2009. 

TOP FUEL FINAL (5:25 p.m.): After getting so close so many times, Doug Kalitta finally broke through for his first win of the season. Teammate Richie Crampton had a cylinder out, but it might not have made much of a difference based on the stellar 3.775-second pass Kalitta was on. His last win came at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at the end of 2016, where he also beat the SealMaster Toyota; at the time, it was driven by J.R. Todd.

J&A SERVICE PRO MOD FINAL: Jonathan Gray held on for his first win of the season in the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series final. Gray, driving Rickie Smith’s nitrous-boosted Camaro, stopped “Stevie Fast” Jackson’s Bahrain1 Camaro, 5.809 to 5.818. The final round was highlighted by a lengthy starting-line duel between the two drivers. Gray, the uncle of Pro Stock rookie Tanner, is just the third driver to win in both Pro Stock and Pro Mod, joining his team owner Smith and Troy Coughlin. Gray is also the ninth different winner in 10 events.

“To be honest, my leg was getting tired up there,” said Gray of the starting line burndown. “I finally decided, well I guess one of us has to go, so I went ahead and staged. He got me a little [off the starting line], but our Pat Musi horsepower came through.”

LUCAS OIL SPORTSMAN FINALS: After sweeping the Super Comp and Super Gas titles at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway last April, John Labbous Jr. returned to the NHRA Carolina Nationals for an encore performance and nearly duplicated that feat. Labbous, a championship contender in both categories, won the Super Comp title, then finished as a runner-up to Dean Mathauser in Super Gas. All told, Labbous has compiled a 23-1 record in elimination rounds at zMAX Dragway this season. Todd “Bones” Ewing also appeared in a pair of final rounds in Charlotte, and like Labbous, he emerged with a split, scoring a victory in Top Dragster presented by Racing RVs and a runner-up finish to Jerry Albert in Top Sportsman presented by Racing RVs. The following is a complete list of Lucas Oil Series winners from zMAX Dragway.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER: Shawn Cowie def. Corey Michalek
TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR: Andy Bohl def. John Lombardo Jr.
COMPETITION: Frank Aragona Jr. def. David Rampy
SUPER STOCK: Nick Chiles def. Byron Worner
STOCK: Kenneth Stott def. Mickey Whaley
SUPER COMP: John Labbous Jr. def. Amanda Boicesco
SUPER GAS: Dean Mathauser def. John Labbous Jr.
TOP DRAGSTER: Todd Ewing def. Barry Brown
TOP SPORTSMAN: Jerry Albert def. Todd Ewing

FEATURES

The last time a nitro winner earned both an Indy win and a world championship was in 2013 when Shawn Langdon captured his first title. That’s something Steve Torrence hopes to emulate after leaving the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals with his first Indy victory, the points lead, and all the momentum in the world. 

Torrence sputtered out of the gate at the start of the 2016 Countdown but found his groove in the fall Las Vegas event. This time around, the Capco Contractors team seems to have a better handle on its dragster. The results speak for themselves: The seven wins this season are just one shy of the number Torrence had in his career entering 2017. He’s 7-2 in final rounds and 44-11 in eliminations. 

He's doing it with an incredible combination of killer reaction times (he leads the class with an average RT of .059, not including the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals) and a consistent dragster. Co-crew chiefs Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana have done a masterful job in a variety of conditions this season; that includes picking up win No. 1 at zMAX Dragway.

“You enjoy going back to the tracks where you’ve got good info and have had success,” Torrence said. “So, after winning last spring and after a couple of No. 1 qualifiers, I’m excited about Charlotte.  We just want to keep the ball rolling.”

Only Antron Brown had more round-wins (18 to 15) than Torrence in the six races preceding the Countdown. What’s the difference between this year and previous years? Torrence has the confidence he can beat Brown in the playoffs. The Texan holds a 4-3 head-to-head record against his friend this year and a 3-1 advantage against him in final rounds. That’s not a guarantee of what’s to come, but it’s a big improvement on past performance.

Dom Lagana wears a lot of hats when he’s out at a racetrack. Two weeks ago, at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, he played the role of crew chief for Top Fuel rookie Ashley Sanford as she took her first national event passes in his Nitro Ninja dragster. This week, he’s back in the seat of that same dragster.

“When you drive the car, whether you own it, tune it, or work on it, and then you go drive it, you’ve got to be able to block everything out when you drive it,” said Lagana. “I’m just now really learning how, after all these years, just 100 percent be able to drive it. You know, we own this car and don’t want to hurt any parts. I’ve found that if you drive trying to not hurt anything, you end up making a mistake that hurts parts.”

This is Lagana’s fifth appearance on the NHRA tour this year, with his last coming in Norwalk. He’s got one round-win, which also came in Charlotte, but the Nitro Ninja dragster always runs incredibly well when it’s on the track. That, paired with Lagana’s usual excellent on the Tree, makes him a threat to go rounds on Sunday. 

“We’re out here to have fun, and maybe, hopefully, we can help the Capco championship chase somehow by mixing it up with some of the other guys,” said Lagana, whose brother, Bobby, tunes Steve Torrence’s dragster.  

He did a solid job qualifying on that front. Lagana ended up No. 12 and, more importantly, on the opposite side of the bracket from Torrence. That means he can play the role of spoiler on Sunday against the rest of the field. If Lagana can beat Clay Millican in the first round, he might face Antron Brown in the second round, and do his buddy a big favor as the Countdown kicks off.

It’s only his second race with Kalitta Motorsports, but Richie Crampton is already finding his comfort zone with his new team. He qualified in the No. 6 position and will face Pat Dakin in the first round Sunday after making a solid 3.749-second pass on Friday evening. Beyond that effort, Crampton feels like he’s already getting comfortable with his new crew. 

“It’s just been great working with these guys,” said Crampton. “I already knew J.R. [Todd] and Shawn [Langdon] and a lot of the crew guys, which helped. It’s really a small world.”

Crampton has kept busy between joining Kalitta at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals and the NHRA Carolina Nationals this weekend. He also took part in Hot Rod Drag Week, which you can read more about here, with a little help from Jonnie Lindberg. After following that event for a long time as a fan, he was thrilled to finally get a chance to drive in it himself, even if he didn’t get to do the full pull. 

“It was such an awesome experience, and we’re already talking about what we want to do next year,” said Crampton. 

For now, Crampton is planning to take out some dragsters for Doug Kalitta and Shawn Langdon on Sunday. 

Defending Funny Car champ Ron Capps gets a 20-point lead entering the Countdown to the Championship, 10 points fewer than a year ago. That, in addition to points-and-a-half in Pomona at the end of the year, is one of the biggest changes for the racer this year. 

"Our lead going into the Countdown is a little smaller this time,” said Capps. “I know how important 10 points can be because I've lost championships by two points (2012) and eight points (2000).

"That's why qualifying points are so important," he said of earning three points as the quickest in a session with second-quick getting two and third-best getting one. "We want to take away every single point we can on every qualifying run. We need to focus on that before we get to eliminations on Sundays."

When Capps won in Chicago, he did so after taking just a two-race hiatus from the winner’s circle. There he was again, we all said. Right back in form with his sixth Wally of the season, and the unstoppable duo of Capps and crew chief Rahn Tobler seemed destined to embark on the Western Swing to bring more gold statues home to Don Schumacher Racing. 

Five races later, the NAPA Auto Parts flopper has been in one final round – the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. Tobler and Capps left Chicago with what proved to be an insurmountable point lead. The proof is in the results: Capps won just five rounds in five races and held onto pole position entering the Countdown. 

The struggles of the NAPA team following its Chicago win may have partially been the result of testing and a backup car pulled out during the Western Swing. The team went back to a newly front-halved version of the car with which it won the championship a season ago in Indy, and the results were (obviously) quite good. 

That puts Capps right back in front as one of the favorites to take home the Funny Car championship this season. Even while the team “struggled” during the final five races before the Countdown, the car got down the track. Poor qualifying lined Capps up with racers like Tommy Johnson Jr. in early rounds, but Tobler continued to get the flopper down the track quicker than four seconds more often than anyone else in the sport. 

Capps makes it down the track quicker than four seconds on 63.5 percent of his elimination runs, and quicker than 4.2 seconds on 90.4 percent of his passes. That second number is mind-blowing. The next closest racer in the Countdown is Tommy Johnson Jr., who posts a very consistent 78.3 percent mark, but that’s hardly on the same planet as what Tobler and Capps are cooking up. 

Even with a slightly smaller lead than what he started with in 2016, Capps has everything he needs to win again in 2017.

Jonnie Lindberg fell short of making the Countdown to the Championship in his rookie season, but the ever-busy Swede hasn’t let that keep him from his usual workman-like behavior. This weekend is unusually light for Lindberg, who is “only” driving Jim Head’s Funny Car and tuning Jay Payne’s Top Alcohol Funny Car after spending the past two events also tuning his own Alcohol Funny Car for his brother, Johan. 

Not to worry, he did spend the past week helping his friend, and fellow racer, Richie Crampton during Hot Rod Drag Week. 

“It’s a really cool event,” said Lindberg. “Everybody driving race cars on the street that are street legal, it’s a challenge. It’d be fun to build something. Me and Richie are already talking about building something for next year.”

Just another thing to add to the plate of Lindberg, who will race Alexis DeJoria in the first round Sunday. Both failed to get into the Countdown by a slim margin after missing a combined seven races this season, and will be chasing Wallys while playing spoiler to championship contenders.  

It’s not very often you can get away with a .423 reaction time. Jim Campbell managed to squeak by Jack Beckman, who ran into trouble halfway down the track in the first round, despite being a day late at the Tree. 

“I got in there and had a little bit of sweat in my eye,” said Campbell. “There aren’t any excuses, but you know I had trouble seeing the Tree, but I got by him.”

That makes him a friend for everyone chasing Beckman in the Countdown to the Championship. Only six of the 10 drivers in the Countdown chase made it to the second round of action. That’s good news for points leader Ron Capps and a non-issue for Campbell, who’s chasing his first career win. He’ll face Alexis DeJoria, another racer who’s not in the Countdown hunt, in the second round. 

For the first time since the 2016 Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals, there is not a Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car in the semifinals. Matt Hagan and Jack Beckman both lost in the first round of competition, and Ron Capps and Tommy Johnson Jr. followed suit in the second round. 

That 29-race streak of at least one of the four floppers reaching the semifinals is remarkable. After a stretch where DSR Funny Cars had won 12 of 13 Wallys to start the season, the Brownsburg, Ind., shop has been shut out of the flopper winner’s circle for the last six races. Capps is the last DSR Funny Car driver to get a win, and that came back in Chicago. 

That drought will stretch to seven, as either Kalitta Motorsports or John Force Racing will add another Wally to their collections. It’s not the start to the Countdown to the Championship DSR was looking for, but the team has a chance to start a new streak in Reading in a week. 

The fact that Summit driver Jason Line is winless since the Pomona season-opener is irrelevant. The reigning world champ is focused solely on the start of the Countdown to the Championship, and to that end, he figures to be in a strong position to end a long win drought. Line is the defending NHRA Carolina Nationals champion, and he’s been rock-solid during qualifying with four competitive passes in the 6.5s in his Summit Camaro. On Saturday, Line made the two quickest runs at 6.584 and 6.585 to bank six valuable bonus points.

“Timing is everything,” Line said. “I'm super happy, my Summit Racing Chevy is much better today, and we have a great race car. I'm certainly optimistic. All I have to do is a good job of driving it, and we have a chance to win for sure. It's been too long, and it would be a big deal to win. I need to. We've been in a slump, the longest slump I've ever been in, and I'm ready to get out of it.”

Line entered the Countdown as the No. 5 seed, which means that he started the weekend 50 points behind his teammate Bo Butner. Line earned six qualifying bonus points on Friday and Saturday, but Butner collected five, and Butner picked up an additional point because he qualified one spot higher than Line.

As his 27-year career as a full-time Pro Stock racer begins to wind down, Allen Johnson is planning to savor every opportunity he has left to win races. Even though he is qualified in the No. 10 spot in Charlotte, he feels like his Marathon Petroleum Dodge is quick enough to do some damage on race day.

“All weekend we’ve been right there with the fastest in the pack,” said Johnson. “Luckily, it was hot [on Saturday], and that gives us a good idea of what setup we can run [in eliminations]. You’ve got to respect the track in this heat and run it a little different. In Q4 [final qualifying session], we ran one-hundredth of a second off the fastest car that session – we’ll take it. I still think we’re leaving one- or two-[hundredths] on the table. We’re going to keep digging because we have a shot.”

Like many NHRA Pros and officials, Johnson attended Saturday evening’s B.R.A.K.E.S. dinner hosted by former Top Fuel racer Doug Herbert. At the event, Johnson and his wife, Pam, pledged to continue their long-standing support of the charity, which helps teach advanced driving techniques to teenage drivers.

As the winner of the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway earlier this year, Chris McGaha figures he’s got all the data he needs to win a few rounds at the NHRA Carolina Nationals. McGaha qualified his Harlow Sammons Camaro in the No. 5 spot with a 6.582, just a couple of hundredths off the quickest run of the weekend, a 6.559 set by Tanner Gray.

“I’ve still got my notebook from the spring, and thankfully, the weather conditions are very similar, so I’m using a tune-up that is almost identical to what we ran in April,” said McGaha. “It worked pretty well for me back then. Hopefully, it’s still good.”

Two weeks ago, McGaha felt that he had a good shot to win the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals for the second straight year, but what he described as a poor tuning call cost him the win in the quarterfinals against Drew Skillman.

“I got really conservative, and that cost me,” McGaha admitted. “I should have let it all hang out and I didn’t. I let one get away, but I learned from it. This is the first race of the Countdown, and I told myself I’d be more aggressive. I never expected to be here in the first place, so I should make the best of it.”

McGaha skipped five races this season but still made it into the Countdown to the Championship. Starting the playoffs as the No. 10 seed, he realizes that he’s got a lot of work to do in order to contend for a Mello Yello Pro Stock title.

“The way I have it figured, you need to go to the semi’s here at the very least,” he said. “Of course, I’m not assuming anything. You’ve still got to win the first round. The deal at Pomona [points and a half at the Auto Club NHRA Finals] will be helpful, but you’d still need to be in the top five by Las Vegas to have a realistic shot at it. First things first, I need to get past Kenny Delco in the first round, and my record against him isn’t great. He beat me once when I broke a motor, and he beat me another time when I was late.”

A year ago, Bo Butner was the Pro Stock driver who could run fast, qualify well, but couldn’t finish the job on race day. The former Comp champ went to seven final rounds before he finally scored his first win in Atlanta this season. Butner’s driving has improved dramatically this season, and he was able to hold off his KB Racing teammates, Jason Line and Greg Anderson, to earn the top spot in the regular season. For all the good things that have happened, Butner admits that the 2017 season won’t be a success unless he makes a deep run into the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

“I’m feeling very comfortable,” he said. “I have a fast car capable of winning, and that's all you can ask for, especially in the Countdown. We managed to get at least one bonus point every session, and I think that will end up being huge over these six races. Our guys are pretty smart; they pay attention. I can't stress enough how smart our guys are and the data they have. It's going to be a good race tomorrow. We're all going to have to be on our game, but we definitely have the right team behind us.”

Butner started the day off with a solid 6.597 in his win against Shane Tucker’s Hot Wheels Camaro. He went on to defeat Jeg Coughlin Jr. in the second round to reach the semifinals. In that battle, Butner won by a 6.629 to 6.640 count in a race decided by just four-thousandths at the stripe.
 
“That was a good old bracket race,” said Butner. “I looked over at Jeggie, and he looked over at me. Four-thousandths is a good Super Comp race.”

As a rookie on the NHRA Mello Yello tour, Joey Gladstone is gearing up for his first shot at the Countdown to the Championship, but the reality is that Gladstone has vast experience on a wide variety of motorcycles, and he’s already a veteran of several tough championship battles. 

During qualifying for the NHRA Carolina Nationals, Gladstone rode Joe Riccardi’s San Marino Excavating Suzuki to a best of 6.917, 193.18. Even though he was in the low 6.9s on all four runs, that was only good for the No. 11 spot, which means a tough round one battle against former champ and current points leader LE Tonglet.

“We came off the trailer with a general idea of what we wanted to do,” said Gladstone. “We made a decent lap in the first session. We put a new O2 sensor on my bike, and it read completely different than our other one, so we didn’t know if we were rich or lean with the tune-up. We took a swing at it in the second session and unfortunately made the wrong choice and slowed down a little bit.
 
“The track was pretty challenging in the final session because of how hot it was, but we managed to regroup from Friday’s qualifying and make one of our fastest passes of the weekend. We were second [quickest] of the session to the 60-foot mark, and that’s encouraging. We’ve got a race day tune-up now.”  

Overlooked in the battle for the top spot in Pro Stock Motorcycle was the battle at the back of the field to make it to Sunday’s eliminations. Newcomer Ron Turnow entered the final session on the bump spot, but he was knocked from the field by California’s Charlie Sullivan, who rode the Gann Speed entry to a 7.112 to earn the 16th and final spot in the field. Afterwards, Sullivan admitted that his desire to make the field necessitated a radical change in his riding style.

“That is the first time that I’ve ever shifted my weight to the back of the seat,” said Sullivan, who is also riding a V-twin bike for the first time after spending his entire career on Suzuki four-cylinder bikes. “On the one-two shift, I had to get my rear end on the second seat. I knew going in that I had to do it. I wasn’t sure how the bike would react but it was smooth. I’m sure that was the difference between qualifying and not qualifying. When I hit the finish line, I knew the run was good, but I wasn’t sure if it was good enough to get in. I was pretty happy when I found out I was in.”

Jerry Savoie and teammate LE Tonglet weren’t exactly thrilled to look at the ladder and see that their two Suzuki entries were on a possible collision course for a round two meeting. Savoie qualified No. 3 and Tonglet, the incoming points leader, finished as the No. 6 seed.

“That’s not what we wanted,” said Savoie. “Of course, we both have to get past the first round, but if we do, we’re going to race. On Saturday, we changed engines for the last qualifying session to see if we could get one or both bikes to move, but it didn’t work out. If we do have to run, I’m not cutting LE any slack. He’s going to have to earn it.”

Last year, Savoie entered the Countdown as the No. 6 seed and lost in the first round of the NHRA Carolina Nationals. He went 13-3 at the next five events with wins in St. Louis and Las Vegas to win his first Mello Yello Series championship. During Tonglet’s championship season in 2010, he was the No. 7 seed but went 21-2 with four wins to hold off Andrew Hines for the title.

PHOTOS

LE Tonglet comes out on stage during pre-race introductions at zMAX Dragway.

Richie Crampton  joined NHRA announcer Brian Lohnes for the NHRA SealMaster Track Walk. 

Tanner Gray and Erica Enders talk hats as the Countdown to the Championship gets started. 

PREVIEW