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QUALIFYING ROUND RECAPS

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE Q3 (1:33 p.m.): Eddie Krawiec had the quickest run of Q3 with a 6.844 but he wasn’t able to knock reigning champ Jerry Savoie from the top spot. Krawiec’s Harley-Davidson teammate, Andrew Hines, made the biggest move of the round with a 6.866 that moved him from No. 10 to No. 4 in the order. Hector Arana Sr., Matt Smith, LE Tonglet, Cory Reed, and Joey Gladstone were also overcame the warm and humid conditions to run in the 6.8-second zone. Also of note, three-time world champion Angelle Sampy is still not qualified after three runs. Sampey has missed just one field in her career and that was due to an injury suffered in Las Vegas two years ago.

PRO STOCK Q3 (1:50 p.m.): As many had expected, there was little improvement from yesterday’s qualifying due to the warm and humid conditions at zMax Dragway. For the third-straight run, Jeg Coughlin Jr. collected three bonus points for having the quickest elapsed time of the round. Coughlin posted a 6.600 to lead the round, holding off Drew Skillman, who ran a 6.614 and Houston winner Bo Butner, who was third-quickest with a 6.615. Chris McGaha, who came into the session as the No. 4 qualifier, did not get to make a run after his team reportedly discovered an air leak. Greg Anderson and Vincent Nobile also did not make clean runs. Both drivers shook the tires and shut off. 

TOP FUEL Q3 (2:10 p.m.): The majority of the Top Fuel cars that ran in the heat of the session didn’t make it down the track; in fact, only two – teammates Tony Schumacher and Antron Brown – made full passes. Schumacher had low e.t. of the session with a 3.789 – backing up Friday passes of 3.77 and 3.74 – while Brown was not far behind with a 3.803. Clay Millican remains No. 1 with his Friday 3.72. Terry Haddock made his first run of the event, and his 4.404 represents the bump spot. Luigi Novelli and Smax Smith have the two cars outside the field.

FUNNY CAR Q3 (2:45 p.m.): The Funny Cars fared slightly better than the Top Fuelers on a tricky track. Robert Hight made the best run of the session, a 3.941, just ahead of his boss, John Force, who clocked a 3.946, further cementing the JFR team’s stranglehold on qualifying. Low qualifier Courtney Force was the only one of the trio not to make it down. Behind Force was Ron Capps (3.964) and his teammate, Tommy Johnson Jr. (3.994). Jonnie Lindberg got into the field with a 4.572, but he’s No. 16, with capable Dale Creasy Jr., Dave Richards, and Cruz Pedregon on the outside looking in with one session to go.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE (Q4 4:18 p.m.): Dating back to last season, Jerry Savoie has been the low qualifier at five-straight Pro Stock Motorcycle events. Savoie’s 6.824 from Friday held on to the top spot at zMax Dragway as the reigning champ withstood a challenge from Harley-Davidson teammates Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines, who are both less than a hundredth behind. The real drama of the final session involved three-time world champ Angelle Sampey, who was not in the field heading into Q4. Facing the possibility of just the second DNQ of her career, Sampey rallied to make the Four-Wide field with a 14th best 6.948 on her Team Liberty bike. Sampey bumped out Melissa Surber. 

FIRST-ROUND QUADS (Lane choice, in order):
Jerry Savoie vs. LE Tonglet vs. Scotty Pollacheck vs. Steve Johnson;
Eddie Krawiec vs. Hector Arana Jr. vs. Matt Smith vs. Shawn Gann;
Andrew Hines vs. Hector Arana Sr. vs. Cory Reed vs. Angelle Sampey;
Chip Ellis vs. Joey Gladstone vs. Karen Stoffer vs. Angie Smith.  

PRO STOCK (Q4 4:32 p.m.): Jeg Coughlin Jr. fell off the pace slightly in Q4 with a 6.627 but that wasn’t enough to prevent the five-time Pro Stock champ from claiming the top spot for the second-straight week. Houston winner Bo Butner picked up the three bonus points for leading the final session after wheeling his KB Racing-powered Camaro to a 6.604. Chris McGaha (6.610) and Vincent Nobile (6.619) also gained bonus points in Q4. With qualifying complete, the quads are set and one of the most intriguing match-ups involves Tanner Gray and Alex Laughlin, who had an off-track scuffle last weekend in Houston. Gray and Laughlin will be in a quad that also includes Erica Enders and Shane Tucker. 

FIRST-ROUND QUADS (Lane choice, in order):
Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. Drew Skillman vs. Vincent Nobile vs. John Gaydosh;
Erica Enders vs. Tanner Gray vs. Alex Laughlin vs. Shane Tucker;
Greg Anderson vs. Bo Butner vs. Shane Gray vs. Deric Kramer;
Chris McGaha vs. Jason Line vs. Allen Johnson vs. Alan Prusiensky. 

TOP FUEL Q4 (5 p.m.): No one was able to knock Clay Millican off the top of the pack, so he’ll have his second straight No. 1, but points leader Leah Pritchett had the quickest car of the final session with a 3.785, just ahead of the guy she beat to win the Houston event two weeks ago, Steve Torrence, who ran 3.788. Pritchett’s Papa John’s car has made two runs of 3.770 to accompany that 3.78, so she looks ready to try to win her fourth event of the season.

FIRST-ROUND QUADS (Lane choice, in order):
Clay Millican vs. Shawn Langdon vs. Leah Pritchett vs.Terry Haddock;
Steve Torrence vs. Troy Coughlin Jr. vs. Scott Palmer vs. Dom Lagana;
Doug Kalitta vs. Brittany Force vs. Terry McMillen vs. Chris Karamesines;
Antron Brown vs. Tony Schumacher vs. Pat Dakin vs. Ike Maier.

FUNNY CAR Q4 (5:40 p.m.): Drama was high in the final session and the bumping fast and furious. Cruz Pedregon made his only good run of the event, a 4.00, to bump Jonnie Lindberg and Dave Richards ran a 4.12 to bounce Jeff Diehl from the field. Lindberg then raced his way back into the show with a 4.078 that removed Richards from the field. On the performance side of the ledger, Ron Capps made it four straight three-second passes with a class-leading 3.920, but Courtney Force held on to her No. 1 spot.

FIRST-ROUND QUADS (Lane choice, in order):
Courtney Force vs. J.R. Todd vs. Bob Tasca III vs. Jonnie Lindberg
Matt Hagan vs. Tim Wilkeron vs. Cruz Pedregon vs. Bob Bode
Robert Hight vs. Tommy Johnson Jr. vs. Jack Beckman vs. Jim Campbell
John Force vs. Ron Capps vs. Del Worsham vs. Chad Head

FEATURES

It’s kind of ironic that Clay Millican and his Great Clips/Parts Plus/UNOH team – headed by crew chiefs Dave Grubnic and Lance Larsen – began the season promising to work more on consistency than big numbers, yet already have one No. 1 qualifier – two weeks ago in Houston – and, after Friday at zMAX, are already halfway to their second pole position.

“Last year we ran a lot of [3].60s, but didn’t win as many races as we thought we could have,” he said, “so this year we just said, ‘Let’s take a step back, but try to go down the track more often.’ But as it’s gotten a little warmer this season, we’ve found ourselves at the front of the field. I said this last week in Houston, if it’s 100 degrees [Saturday], I’m OK with that so we can stay No. 1, and even though we held onto the No. 1 spot through Saturday in Houston, we didn’t make it down the track on either run and ‘Grubby’ told me he would have traded that No. 1 for two good runs down the track, so we’ll be looking to do just that this time.”

The success of Millican’s Doug Stringer-owned team is remarkable in as much as they are a single-car team without a palatial Don Schumacher Racing-style shop.

“This team, literally, is run out of a garage behind Doug’s house,” said Millican. “We don’t have a ‘Garage Mahal’ or Brownsburg complex; it’s just a little metal building we call the ‘Nitro Barn,’ but when we come to the starting line we have the same parts as everyone else, and the car is just running so well, and not hurting itself.”

The Four-Wide Nationals is pretty famous for its copious horsepower – four 10,000-horsepower nitro-fueled beasts charging down the zMAX track as one – but Doug Kalitta has other horses on the mind lately.

Kalitta’s air-cargo business, Kalitta Charters, owns and operates a Boeing 727-200 aircraft for Tex Sutton Enterprises in Lexington, Ky., exclusively to transport horses. The aircraft, configured and painted for this purpose, is cleverly dubbed “Air Horse One,” and has transported horses all over the world, including to next week’s fabled Kentuck Derby.

The plane can hold 21 horses in individual pens, and attended to by handlers and veterinarians Additionally, the pilots are trained to be sensitive to the travel needs of their equine passengers, avoiding steep ascents and descents, steering clear of adverse weather conditions, putting a premium on smooth, uneventful landings and minimizing time between stops.

Despite all that, Kalitta admits, "When you walk into the plane afterward, there's no denying you had horses on board."

Kalitta's plane also has transported marine mammals, including beluga whales, penguins, and baby sharks.

Smax Smith and the Leverich Racing team are back to racing after licking their wounds from a tough outing in their season debut in Gainesville, where they hurt two engines and had the parachute accidentally deploy while backing up from a burnout during qualifying, then lost in round one when a brake line let go, causing Smith to red-light.

“It was just a lot of little stuff, but it was disappointing,” he said. “We’d had a good outing at Reading [the Keystone Nationals the previous October] and had just win a race in Cayuga [Ont.], where we ran our fastest time. We thought we’d come out at Gainesville and run good.”

“The engines weren’t hurt that bad, and we got them patched up and line bored and ready to go,” he said. “We came out of it pretty good financially, but it was still tough.”

Running on a budget as they do, the team is not adverse to taking other team’s castoffs – cranks that might have minor cracks that the team can monitor – and rods and pistons from Bob Leverich’s Michigan neighbor, former Top Fuel racer Jack Ostrander, to keep the machine running. The team also regularly gets to run new tires from the bigger teams to “scrub in” before they’re returned, which also helps the budget.

After an early shutoff 8.04 Friday, the Leverich team will sit out Q3, then make the necessary adjustments with a set bump-spot target after seeing the results from Q3.

“We’re No. 15 after Friday, but we’ll make some bigger steps for the [lousy] weather today, spinning the blower seven percent more and raising the compression ten-thousandths to try to stay in the field,” he said.

Courtney Force finished Friday qualifying atop the pack in Funny Car after a track-record 3.851 – her third straight track record and the first of a John Force Racing sweep of the top three spots – but also lamenting a bit the loss of her Q1 pass, which ran into trouble when the car hooked left just off the starting line. Her father, John, finished Q1 on top of the field with a 3.904 she thinks she also could have outrun.

“Judging by our 60-foot time and comparing it to my dad, we should have been No. 1 after the first qualifying session,” she said. “My car left the starting line and just went left. The car’s been trying to go left at a lot of tracks and the crew has made some changes to counter that, but we did it again. I had them double-check everything, but I’m going to put the blame on me. It went left, but it’s my job to correct it. I just made sure the car was pointed straight on that [Q2] run to get down there.

“We’re excited to be 1-2-3; this a very important race for us,” she added. “Raleigh, N.C., is the home of my sponsor, Advance Auto Parts, and they have like 200 people coming out this weekend, so the pressure’s on. I had to go face them after Q1 and I had my head down a little, but I was sure we’d get it fixed.”

The Four-Wide Nationals is just the second event of the season for former full-time Funny Car racer Bob Tasca III, but it’s also the second of nine he plans to attend as he works his way back towards a more full schedule.

He’s backed at this event by AutoAlert – like all of his sponsors this year, which include Crossley Ford, TrueCar, PPG, and his own TascaParts.com, there’s an automotive tie to his Ford dealerships – and AutoAlert CEO Mike Dullea in on hand to watch his progress.

Tasca, who hit the ground running in Gainesville, quickly getting into the threes, ran two more Friday – 3.96 and 3.96 – proving that he’s up for the task.

“We’re happy; we’re just picking away at it,” he said. “We think we can run quicker today than we did yesterday and then get set up for Sunday so we can go rounds.”

Tasca will run in Topeka, Epping, Englishtown, Norwalk, Reading, and Dallas.

Jim Campbell got his four-wide baptism in Friday’s first qualifying session in a quad with Del Worsham, Tim Wilkerson, and J.R. Todd (ironically, Campbell, Todd, and Worsham had reaction times within a thousandth of a second) as he continues to learn the ropes as a fulltime driver for Jim Dunn Racing, opportunities he never had as a privateer. Lining up in Lane 3, he had cars on either side and had to make sure he was looking at the right staging bulbs, which can be difficult for drivers in the middle two lanes who have took look across the Tree to see theirs. The confusion causes some drivers to not stage quickly enough and get “timed out.”

“I just kept my eye on bulb 3; I didn’t want to be that guy,” he said.

After an opening 4.08, the team had high hopes for Q2, but was unable to make the call due to mechanical problems in the pits. An inside head nut somehow ended up falling into the engine, seizing it up. The team discovered the problem while trying to turn the engine over by hand – preventing any damage that might have occurred during fire-up – but it took the team too long to trace the problem to be able to make the call.

Chris McGaha and his father, Lester, paid to have an engine shipped to Charlotte from their shop in Odessa, Texas and whatever the cost, it’s already proved to be a wise investment after McGaha finished Friday’s qualifying as the No. 4 ranked driver in the field.

“While the rest of the class was out there fighting, we’ve been home working,” McGaha joked. “We have an engine right now that is pretty much the best of everything we have. It showed a lot of promise on the dyno and for once, those numbers have translated to the race track.”

So what’s the secret; intake manifold? Fuel injection? A new camshaft design?

“I can tell you it’s not the intake manifold,” McGaha said. “We really just took all of the best ideas we’ve had and rolled them into one package and it works. That’s as much as I want to say about it right now although I will say this; we are now within five horsepower of where we were with carburetors and that even takes into account the 10,500 rpm limit so we’ve definitely been busy.”

No matter how successful he is in eliminations at the Four-Wide Nationals, McGaha plans to skip the next four races. He will return to the tour in Norwalk in late June. 

“That’s one of the reasons that we shipped this motor here; we didn’t want to wait a month or more to see how it runs,” he said. “My dad made the decision because he was impatient. We plan to run it all weekend because we have nothing to lose. We’re taking some time off but I’m not exactly going to have my feet up watching TV. We’re going to be busy in our shop. We’re just a little ole single car team from Texas. We’ve got to race smart.”

Less than a month after surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right knee, John Gaydosh has returned to the seat of his Pypes Performance Pro Stock Camaro. Gaydosh is admittedly in a bit of pain, but for someone who loves Pro Stock racing as much as he does, a bit of discomfort isn’t enough to keep him sidelined. 

“Typically, the recovery period for this type of procedure is four to six weeks and I’m at about two-and-a-half,” said Gaydosh. “My doctor said that’s pushing it but I wasn’t going to miss this race. I love this more than anything. Thankfully, it’s my right leg and not my clutch leg. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to drive. I caught a bit of a break there.”

Gaydosh, who now does his own engines, is currently on the bump spot after a best of 6.853 on Friday. With a bit of luck, he believes he can move up one or two spots and then take his chances in the unpredictable Four-Wide format.

“In Q2 I screwed up a bit with our tune-up and that’s’ why we made such a bad run,” Gaydosh said. “We can definitely run better. This is the same engine I got from the Gray team. It’s been 6.54 at over 211 [mph] back when we ran carburetors. It’s a good piece but at this point, it’s probably down 50-horsepower from its peak. I’m a small, one-man team but we do what we can with what we have.”

Despite his status as a part-timer, Gaydosh plans to compete in four of the next four events in Atlanta, Epping, Englishtown, and Norwalk. 

After last week’s much-publicized dust-up with the rival Gray Motorsports team, Alex Laughlin is enjoying a much more laid-back event this week. In his second race with the Elite Motorsports team, Laughlin is currently qualified with a 6.617 best in his Gas Monkey Energy Camaro. Even though Laughlin is seeded No. 10 in the field after three runs, he’s just four-hundredths behind the pace set by his new teammate, Jeg Coughlin Jr. 

“There is a lot I could say about what happened last week but I think it’s best to just leave it all alone right now,” Laughlin said. “I will just say that I’m very happy with what we’ve got going here with the Elite team. They’re located pretty close to us and so it’s convenient and they’ve made the transition for us very easy. I don’t have any concerns about them running four cars. They have a lot of structure and everyone knows their role so I am sure they can handle it.”

Laughlin did not race Pro Stock in the first four events in Pomona, Phoenix, Gainesville or Las Vegas but he does not feel the least bit rusty. He did test in Bradenton in January. He’s also gotten some seat time behind the wheel of Anthony Dicero’s Nitro University Top Alcohol Dragster. Laughlin was scheduled to race Dicero’s car in Charlotte but that plan was scuttled. Instead, Richie Crampton is driving the car at the Lucas Oil Series Regional event at Lucas Oil Raceway Indianapolis.

“We’ve had some issues with that car lately and Anthony decided to stay in Indy so they could get them worked out,” Laughlin said. “It was nice of Richie to help us out but I plan to be back in the car soon.”
 

Peering at Saturday’s weather forecast for zMax Dragway and seeing a predicted high temperature of 88-degrees, Jerry Savoie can’t help but think of his home in Southern Louisiana and for the reigning world champ, that’s a good thing. 

“The hotter it gets, the better we run,” said Savoie, who is already the provisional low qualifier thanks to Friday’s 6.824-second run. “Every year when we get to Gainesville, everybody runs good; well about 99-percent of us do. That’s because the temperature is cool and the humidity is low, and track is great and the conditions are just perfect. When we get to the middle of the summer and it gets all smudgy, we still run good. Tim [Kulungian, crew chief] loves this hot weather. When it gets all muggy like it is in Louisiana, that boy is bad ass. The [hotter] it gets the more we like it so bring it on.”

Given the expected change in weather, Savoie isn’t sure if his run from Friday can be topped, but if it is, he expects to be the one to do it. Thus far in 2017, Savoie has banked 11 of a possible 18 qualifying bonus points and he’s had the quickest bike in three of the six sessions run so far.

“One thing about Tim, he doesn’t think about tomorrow and he doesn’t think about round two when we’re still in round one. He’s got a good handle on things. He’s very methodical. I know I’m just the rider. There is probably someone out there that can do just as well as I can on the bike. That’s why I give [my crew] all the credit.”
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Savoie also noted that he’s been battling the painful effects of a kidney stone for the last few days but he hasn’t allowed it to affect his riding. 

“Right now, it’s not too bad; it think it might have settled down in there,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can make a few fast runs on that motorcycle and it will jar it loose and I can get rid of it before I go back home. That would be ideal.”

Last season, Chip Ellis was ranked as high as No. 2 during the Countdown to the Championship playoffs but a late-season slump dropped him to the No. 5 spot. Ellis and his team worked all winter to correct the problem but struggled again at the season-opener in Gainesville, but it finally feels like they’ve solved their issues. Through three runs in Charlotte, Ellis is comfortably in the No. 3 spot with a 6.852. 

“I think we have our old bike back,” said Ellis. “After last season, we sent the bike over to DCE in Mooresville [N.C.] to have it completely rewired and they replaced the batteries, which I think was the root of our problem. We run the same stuff in my bike and Melissa [Surber’s] bike and she had a battery problem as well.  After Gainesville, we went testing and I probably made 15 runs and we didn’t have a problem.”

Ellis put his bike into the sand trap last year in Pomona and that also caused an issue for the team since they needed to replace crucial components including the front forks, and the body. Six months later, Ellis finally feels like he’s able to start winning races again. 

“Honestly, it’s taken us longer than it should have to get competitive again, but it’s just been a string of little things,” he said. “We ran really good last year in Reading and then it fell apart. I feel pretty good right now.”

No matter how he performs, Ellis will remain one of the most dapper riders on the tour. In Charlotte, he’s debuting his new Bates riding leathers which were made to resemble a tuxedo. 

“The way I have it figured, I just saved myself $150 at the end of the year because now I don’t have to rent a tux for the banquet. I can just wear my leathers. I may be a redneck but I’m a smart redneck.”

Andrew Hines wasn’t at all concerned to enter Saturday’s qualifying session as the No. 10 ranked rider in the field and he quickly solved the problem with a strong 6.864 that that was good for the No. 4 spot. 

“We were lazy in Q1, and then it bogged in Q2 because the [wheelie] bar was too high, but we had the third quickest back-half numbers so I knew the tune-up was right,” Hines said. “For us, it was just a matter of making a good run; getting the bike off the starting line and I knew we’d be good. 

Hines has won the last three Four-Wide events and he is admittedly comfortable with the unique characteristics of side-by-side-by-side-by-side racing. 

“You just have to make sure you don’t get caught off-guard,” Hines noted. “The biggest thing is paying attention to your own lane and not getting distracted by what anyone else is doing. It’s easy to get thrown off and thankfully, that hasn’t happened to me yet. Hopefully it doesn’t.”

Hines also hinted that the team is preparing two brand new bikes which are expected to debut sometime in the next couple of months. The Harley V-Rod bikes that they’ve been riding for more than a decade will be based on the all new Street Rod platform. 

PHOTOS

PREVIEW

Saturday qualifying at zMAX Dragway will set the final fields for the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, and with more than 16 cars in each of the four classes, there’s drama in store. With temperatures expected to climb into the high 80s balanced by cloud cover for a slightly cooler track, the crew chiefs will have the hands full.

Clay Millican enters Saturday with the qualifying lead in Top Fuel with his near-track-record 3.716, with Doug Kalitta hot on his heels with a 3.718. and reigning world champ Antron Brown third at 3.720, so the possibility for a change at the top is there if the weather cooperates. Neither Brown nor Kalitta has qualified No. 1 yet this season while Millican was the low qualifier two weeks ago in Houston. Bubbling below that top three are the capable cars of Houston runner-up Steve Torrence, hot rookie Troy Coughlin Jr., and eight-time world champ Tony Schumacher,

Courtney Force, who has now set track records at the last three events with her Advance Auto Parts Camaro, again fronts the Funny Car field, holding a solid two-hundredth edge on teammate Robert Hight, 3.851 to 3.873, with team boss John Force completing a sweep of the top three spots with a 3.889. Eleven cars qualified in the three-second zone Friday. Among those on the outside of the quick 16 are former world champ Cruz Pedregon and two-time season runner-up and class rookie Jonnie Lindberg.

One week after earning the No. 1 qualifying spot in Houston, Jeg Coughlin Jr. is well on his way to an encore performance in Charlotte. Coughlin wheeled his JEGS.com Camaro to the quickest run in both of Friday’s sessions, including a 6.578 to lead the field. Coughlin’s Elite Motorsports teammate, Erica Enders, is second with a 6.583 while Greg Anderson is third quickest following a 6.587 run on Friday. The top eight cars in the field are separated by just .036-second. 

Reigning Mello Yello Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Jerry Savoie admittedly struggled at the season-opener in Gainesville, but he’s righted the ship this weekend in Charlotte. Savoie’s White Alligator Suzuki was the quickest bike in both sessions on Friday and he currently enjoys a hundredth cushion over No. 2 qualifier Eddie Krawiec’s Harley-Davidson following a 6.824 run. The top eight bikes are all in the 6.8-second zone and the bump spot is a very competitive 6.982 by Melissa Surber with two more runs remaining today.