NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Qualifying for the penultimate race of the 2016 season wrapped up in front of a sold-out crowd at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the large crowd that packed the grandstands was treated to some great action across the four NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series classes.

Here are today’s highlights:

1. “Fast Jack” is quickest in Funny Car
With delays throughout the day, the Funny Cars ended up running under the lights for the final session, and that opened the door for more strong performances. Jack Beckman’s team took advantage of that and moved to the No. 1 spot with a track record 3.871.

2. Millican moves to the head of the class
Clay Millican saved his best run for last, and it was a very good one. Millican powered to a track record 3.689 to take the No. 1 spot on the Top Fuel ladder and shift Friday leader Leah Pritchett down to second.

3. Anderson takes Pro Stock pole
After a relatively quiet Friday, the Summit Racing team rallied on Saturday, led by Greg Anderson, who had the quickest times of both Saturday sessions. Anderson posted a best of 6.677 to claim the top qualifying spot.

4. Savoie sweeps qualifying
Jerry Savoie wrapped up a dominating qualifying performance in Pro Stock Motorcycle with two more class-leading passes, including a 6.880 that locked up the No. 1 spot.

5. Wild rides
Alexis DeJoria and Jon Capps had a crazy day with both making contact with the guardwall at the end of the track after one of their runs today. DeJoria’s troubles happened in the third round of qualifying, while Capps’ came in the final session.

Funny Car | Pro Stock | Pro Stock Motorcycle | Etc.

There seems to be little doubt among most folks that Antron Brown will clinch – perhaps as early as this weekend -- his second straight and third overall Top Fuel championship since 2012, and the record that he and crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald have amassed with their Matco Tools team explains that domination.

Brown has won seven events so far this season, assuring that for the fourth time in the last five seasons that he will lead the class in wins because no other driver has more than three victories this year. Dating back to 2012, Brown has 30 victories, one more than the combined total of the next two highest Top Fuel drivers combined, Tony Schumacher (15) and Shawn Langdon (14).

Those kind of numbers haven’t been seen in the Top Fuel ranks since Schumacher won six championships in a row (2004-09) when “the Sarge” won 50 of 140 events (35.7 percent); Brown has won 30 of 118 events (25.4 percent).

Additionally, Brown has won six of the last 10 Top Fuel playoff races over the last two seasons.The Matco dragster showed no signs of slowing in qualifying. Despite finishing in the No. 4 spot, the team made four great runs -- 3.792, 3.723, 3.757, and 3.730 -- to set them up nicely for Sunday.

Terry Haddock took to the track for the first time Saturday after reluctantly sitting out Friday’s two passes due to an unexpected late arrival in town.

“Not the way we planned it,” said the Texan who switches off between Top Fuel and Funny Car. “We got off to a late start, then got stranded in New Mexico when we stopped for fuel in the middle of the night and my credit card wouldn’t work. The truck didn’t get here until 9 o’clock Thursday night, and there’s no sense dragging the car up there unprepared and looking foolish.”

After an opening pass of 4.099 Saturday, Haddock and crew chief Jimbo Ermalovich pulled off a real Hail Mary in Q4 with a 4.009, edging Troy Buff out of the field by just .001-second, despie the engine tossing the blower belt well before the finish line.

Haddock had some good moral support this weekend with son McKailen, who turns 10 on Sunday. Unlike kids his age, McKailen, who already has a Jr. Dragster, isn’t asking for video games for presents. What does he want? “Tools and some duct tape.”

Since Indy, Haddock has been flying a special paint scheme honoring fallen law enforcement officers, spurred by the July killing of five officers in Dallas in July. “They asked everyone to put a piece of blue tape on their cars to honor them, and any man that will take a bullet for me deserves more than that,” he said. The names of 76 officers who have died in the line of duty this year are lettered on the cowl of the car, which carries the slogan “Back the Blue.”

Qualifying was a rough go for the twin Morgan Lucas Racing cars of Morgan Lucas and teammate Richie Crampton. After three qualifying sessions, Lucas, appearing in just his sixth event this season, was on the bump with a 4.456, while Crampton, winner of the spring Las Vegas event in 2015, continued his frustrating season as he was outside of the field in the No. 17 spot.

Crew chief Aaron Brooks rectified half of that dilemma, tuning Crampton to a 3.772 in Q4, which got him into the show at the expense of his boss, Lucas. Troy Buff, running alongside him, knocked him another spot further from the field with a 4.010. Lucas’ problems only got worse as he was unable to get the car into reverse after his burnout and idled down the track to finish with a rare DNQ.

Troy Buff experienced the best day of his Top Fuel career at the spring event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when he drove Bill Miller’s home-state dragster to a runner-up finish behind Antron Brown, but his hopes for a repeat or better performance was waylaid by gremlins that slowed the Bill Miller Engineering machine on its first three qualifying passes.

Tire shake ended the first two Friday – "It ran really good … for one second,” said Buff – and they lost their Q3 pass before it started due to an air-pressure problem in the control lines. A 4.010 in Q4 got him into the field, albeit on the bump spot, but when Terry Haddock squeezed out a 4.009 on his final pass, Buff was outside by the painful margin of just .001-second.

The run cost him a chance to be backstage at the Elton John concert at Caesars Palace on Las Vegas’ other “strip,” but Clay Millican, who is friends with drummer Nigel Olsson, a huge drag racing fan, insists he was happier to be standing in the spotlight in the media center rather than backstage with the celebrated singer.

“I think Nigel will understand and that I can catch another Elton show, but I’d rather be up here with the media,” he said with a grin.

Millican’s career-best 3.689-second pass early in the final qualifying session took the pole position away from Leah Pritchett and earned him, crew chief David Grubnic, and team owner Doug Stringer their second No. 1 of the season – the first coming at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals – and the fourth of Millican’s career.

“That .68 did not surprise me because we’ve shown numbers like that before,” he said. “We ran 2.09 [seconds] to 330 feet, and in Dallas, on a run that didn’t make it all the way to the finish line, we ran 2.07, which I was told was the quickest ever to 330.”

Millican now hopes that his car’s great performance, which also included other qualifying passes of 3.784 and 3.747, will translate Sunday into his first career NHRA win.

“I’m hoping for more cool conditions tomorrow because we know we have a car capable of running with anyone, and we just need to put together four good runs on Sunday,” he said. “There were many times I hoped for hot conditions because that was the only chance I used to have, but not anymore. I’ll take our car against anyone when the conditions are right.”
 

Jeff Arend now owns the distinction of anchoring the quickest field of Funny Cars in NHRA history after clocking a 4.045 in Pete and Helen Russo’s Monte Carlo. The old record was 4.100, set earlier this year in Chicago, which broke a record that had stood for years. Although Arend ended up in the No. 16 spot, it was John Hale’s 4.031 in Jim Dunn’s Circle K Charger that bumped Dave Richards’ 4.121 from the field in Q4 to set the record. The run was a huge one for Hale and company, who until that run was languishing in the No. 23 spot after losing their fine 4.056 from Q1 due to the Top-12 rule.

The field, for which a strong contingent of 24 entries competed, also set another record with 14 four-second qualifiers, breaking the mark of 13 set earlier this year in Epping and matched in Chicago, Indy, and Dallas.

Alexis DeJoria gave everyone a fright, especially herself, when her Tequila Patron Toyota crossed the centerline in front of John Force in the shutdown area after a 3.91 qualifying run and clouted the left guardwall hard. Thoughts immediately went to the fractured pelvis she suffered earlier this year in a collision with the guardwall in Sonoma that sidelined her for several events, but she clambered from the car unscathed.

The cause of the incident appears to be that one of her braking parachutes didn’t deploy – perhaps the result of a weak spring behind the pilot ‘chute – and wrapped around the rear axle. The problem was exacerbated when the left front tire began digging into the body, further limiting her ability to steer the car.

“I couldn’t steer, and I couldn’t stop,” she said. “It’s just mind-boggling that this could happen to me twice in one season.”

DeJoria credited improvements to her seat and safety harness position for helping her avoid further injury.

One session later, hometown favorite Jon Capps experienced a similar situation to DeJoria, though the root cause was much different. Capps, brother of Funny Car points leader Ron Capps, was trying to make the field on his final pass when the front end of his Steve Plueger-owned Impala went into a big wheelstand. When the car landed, a suspension component in the front end reportedly broke, sending Capps, who was making a solo run, across the centerline and hard into the left-lane wall.

“I could have probably arm-wrestled [UFC fighter] Chuck Lidell and beat him,” he said of the effort expended to try to keep the car straight. “It was going left, going left, and I said, ‘This is gonna hurt.’ There was nothing I could do. I was just along for the ride.”

Del Worsham may have lost a low e.t. pass in Friday’s first qualifying session as his DHL Toyota was well ahead of the pace being set by qualifying mate Robert Hight on his then-track-record 3.913 pass. Worsham was more than two-hundredths quicker than Hight to 330 and even further ahead by 660 feet before Worsham had to lift when the car wouldn’t respond to his steering inputs. The chassis was fronthalved just before the Dallas event and the toe-in/toe-out settings on the front tires were fluctuating.

“I just couldn’t hold it in the groove,” he said. “I had all of the input into it I could and it still was drifting; I even hit it with my hand, but it wouldn’t come back.”

Worsham recovered to run a 3.89 in Q2 but struggled today and will be making some laps in teammate Doug Kalitta’s Mac Tools dragster to help the team work on a new combination. If those tests go successfully, new teammate Troy Coughlin Jr. will make some laps in the car as well to give him some more runs in advance of his official debut in the class next season.

It’s been a few years since announcer Bob Frey nicknamed good pals and fellow nitro crew chiefs Nicky Boninfante and Tommy DeLago the Super Mario Brothers, and with Halloween fast approaching, the duo finally acted on the suggestion this weekend. Boninfante, co-crew chief for Del Worsham, donned the red hat and mustache of Mario while DeLago, tuner for Alexis DeJoria, took on the Luigi persona.

You’ll note that “Luigi” is playing with a bit of a handicap this weekend as DeLago recovers from arm surgery. Proving that rainouts are bad news, DeLago tore a bicep in his right arm while bowling after Friday’s rainout in Reading. He toughed out the Dallas event with a wounded wing before undergoing surgery last week. He’ll be in his soft cast for six weeks.
It’s been almost nine months since his devastating top-end crash at the Winternationals, but Gary Densham is still feeling the effects, at least mechanically. After the near-total destruction of the car and the loss of many mechanical parts, the 45-year Funny Car veteran has been struggling to adapt to newer equipment he’d never run before. That bit him in Q1 when he lost oil pressure due to being unaware of a different oil routing in a new block he got, but he bounced back with a 4.083 in Q2.

“We had the same old crap for years and we knew how it worked, and we’re still learning the new stuff, and because we don’t run that many races, we’re kind of out of the loop,” said Densham, who also ran the spring Las Vegas event as well as Sonoma and Seattle. “It’s even harder being one run behind. And it doesn’t help when I pick an event where there’s 24 cars.”

Densham's best run of 5.024 was well short of the record bump.

After losing to points leader Ron Capps in round two in Dallas, Jack Beckman joked that his only chance of catching Capps would be for Capps to fail to qualify in Las Vegas – as he stunningly did at the spring event here. Those fantasies pretty much disappeared when Capps’ NAPA Auto Parts Charger streaked to a 3.897 in Q1, then bettered it with a 3.881 in Q2 and they ended up third.

Ironically, it was another DNQ at the spring Vegas event, in 2012, which led team owner Don Schumacher to move Rahn Tobler from tuning Beckman’s car to Capps’ team, creating a powerhouse that has challenged for the championship every year since.

For his part, Capps is taking nothing for granted, even with a three-round lead. "There is so much racing left that anything can happen," he said. "You try not to think about the championship, but it's hard. I've been trying to keep busy and not think a lot about it. We're driving 330-mph Funny Cars with nitro in the tank so anything can happen.”

Jack Beckman, crew chief Jimmy Prock, and the Infinite Hero team came into Saturday’s final two qualifying sessions not in the field but left the track as No. 1 qualifiers, their fifth of the season, after a strong 3.871 in the final session.

“We had an interesting qualifying outing,” he explained. “We threw a six-disc clutch in for the first qualifying session, but it didn’t run well. We put our five-disc clutch back in, and on that run, the computer data showed the early numbers were better than they were on that 3.87, but mounts that hold the clutch timer box broke, it pulled back, disconnected the wires and shut the car off. We came into today not qualified, but it was overcast so we felt we would be OK. Then there was a huge oildown, the sun came out, and the track temperature went up 10 degrees. We backed it down and ran a 3.94 so we were in and I didn’t feel any pressure coming into the last run, but it was pretty gratifying to leave here today with the green hat [symbolic of the low qualifier].

“The championship is still mathematically possible for us, and, to be realistic, if someone locked Ron Capps in a hotel room for the next two weeks and we won everything, we could pass him in the points. But that car is running well every lap, Ron is driving well every lap, and they’re not in a slump. So our short-term goal is a trophy here and a trophy in Pomona. It’s possible for us to finish second, but I think we’d be happy to leave with some trophies.”

Though they finished the day in the No. 3 and 5 positions, the Summit Racing duo of Jason Line (pictured) and Greg Anderson weren’t 100 percent happy with their performance on Friday.

“We just didn’t make good, clean runs yesterday, so we’re a little disappointed with day one, but day two is a whole new ballgame,” said Anderson. “We’ve got the same weather conditions that we had, so we should be able to improve. We’ve just got to do a better job. We tested last week, but the racetrack is a little different than it was last week, and we didn’t adapt right. Hopefully we can adapt better today and make better runs.”

Anderson was able to step up and do so in a big way during the third session, posting a 6.677 that was .002-second quicker than Drew Skillman and moved him to the No. 1 spot. Anderson followed that up with a 6.68 that paced the fourth session of qualifying.

It was mixed results for Anderson’s teammate, Line, today. The points leader broke an engine and slowed to a 7.39 on his first attempt, though the exact damage was unknown.

“We broke something on his motor, and we’re not even sure what yet, but we ain’t got time, so we just changed it, took it out, and put another motor in,” said Anderson. “I don’t think it’s anything catastrophic, but we threw another one in.”

That new engine worked well, carrying Line to a 6.691-second pass that ranked as the second-best time of the final session. Line finished sixth in the order and will race Allen Johnson in tomorrow’s opening round.

Another team that was unhappy with its Friday results was that of Chris McGaha, who posted a best of 6.74 and finished outside of the top 12. Though he did not have a great opening day, McGaha was not worried coming into today’s final sessions because he wasn’t that far off of making the top 12, finishing just .002-second outside of it, and he knows why his team wasn’t on pace with the quickest cars yesterday.

“We’re already in test mode, I guess, for next year,” said McGaha. “We went back to where we were at the start of the year. We thought we were better at the first of the year. We were like, ‘We haven’t improved. We haven’t improved,’ so we went back that way. Obviously, we had improved better than we thought. Now, we’re going back to where we were and have been for today.”

Going back to the more recent setup worked well for McGaha, who improved on both of his passes today. McGaha opened Saturday with a 6.72, then ran a 6.71 on his final attempt. That final run was good enough to move him up to the top half of the field. McGaha, the No. 8 qualifier, will face Erica Enders in round one.

After getting off to a great start, running a 6.69 in the first session yesterday that had him ranked second heading into Q2, Alex Laughlin had a bit of a hiccup in the Friday evening session when transmission troubles slowed him to a 6.88. That slow run put Laughlin out first today, but he was able to rebound well in today’s first session, powering to a 6.683 that was the third-best time of the round and moved him up to the No. 3 spot. As good as the run was, however, there is a chance that it could have been a little better due to how early Laughlin ran and the impact that had on the pass.

“I don’t ever like being first pair out, for sure, and going up there after the bikes, too, because they all put their own tire in the same spot, which is where my right tire will be sitting,” said Laughlin, who followed up that 6.68 with a 6.69 in Q4. “The car launched here Q3 and drove a little bit to the left because the right tire had more grip. When the front tires came down, I just moved it back over as quick as possible. My crew chief, ‘Hank’ [Craig Hankinson], told me over the radio that we ran a 6.68, which was better than we had run so far. I was kind of worried, wondering how that would stack up with everybody else, and I had to watch the other guys go down. I was super anxious, listening to the radio the whole way back and see where we would end up.”

After posting a pair of 6.77s, Shane Tucker was looking to take his consistent car and improve the performance today.

“We just need to be a little quicker today. We made a couple of minor mistakes yesterday, just underestimated the racetrack, I guess. Unlike the other teams, I guess we don’t have any data for Vegas, so T1/Q1, T2/Q2,” said Tucker, who was the first Pro Stock car down the track for the weekend yesterday. “Being first car is always difficult, and then as it turns out, the two cars behind us didn’t go down, so we were fairly happy that we went A to B and had some data that we can work from, but I’m very competitive. I want to be top half of the field, so hopefully today we can figure that out and be right there in the mix with everybody else.”

Unfortunately for Tucker, he was unable to pick up the pace on his first run today, slowing to a 10.26 after encountering troubles midway through the pass. However, Tucker’s fortunes turned for the better in the final session when he made a straight, clean 6.74 that earned him the 15th starting spot. Tucker faces Dallas winner Drew Skillman in the first round.

After debuting the General Lee paint scheme yesterday, Bo Butner’s team went full-in on the The Dukes of Hazzard theme today with the entire group dressing up as characters from the popular 1970s television program. Butner even joked about taking his General Lee on a ride similar to that of the one on TV. 

“We were thinking about jumping the sand trap,” Butner joked after his 6.68 run in Q3. “But it’s not time yet. Honestly, that was getting closer to a ‘Yee-haw’ moment. We made a pretty good run.”

In the final session, Butner clocked a 6.693 that was the third-best run of the round and earned him a single qualifying bonus point.

Looking for a dark horse in tomorrow’s eliminations? Matt Hartford has the potential to play spoiler after a solid overall qualifying effort that was capped by 6.726 that moved him from 13th to 10th in the final order. Hartford, who also recorded times of 6.74 and 6.73 during qualifying, will match up with Vincent Nobile in the first round.

Though some may have written off No. 3 Vincent Nobile and the rest of the competitors in the championship chase, Greg Anderson and Jason Line certainly have not, and they are approaching this race with the same high level of aggressiveness they have used throughout the Countdown to the Championship. Today, that certainly showed when Anderson jumped to the top of the pack and was the quickest of both sessions, gathering six of the qualifying bonus points.

“My car made two great runs today, and I think it’s ready for race day. A great recovery after yesterday, and we grabbed some of them small points, and those are very important this time of year. I feel great on Saturday night,” said Anderson, who will line up next to Seattle winner Aaron Strong in the first round. “You definitely look at [the bonus points], and I’ve got beat before because of not getting them, so it’s very important to be aggressive through qualifying. Our M.O. throughout the season has not been necessarily that aggressive throughout qualifying, but we had a little sit down with our crew chief a few weeks back and decided, you know what, we need to be more aggressive through qualifying. We’re going to need those small points. You never know what this deal might go down to. It could go down to the final round at Pomona like it did a couple years ago, so we need every small point we can get, and you’re going to have to get aggressive and risky and take a chance. We have for the last couple, three races, and it’s paid off. We’ve got a lot of small points, and we hope that pays off at the end.”

Anderson, who starts from the No. 1 spot for the 87th time in his career, is a four-time winner of this event in addition to three wins at the spring race here. With the strong qualifying effort that included racking up seven bonus points and the maximum eight regular qualifying points, Anderson has cut Line’s lead down to less than a round. Line, who earned four bonus points and four regular qualifying points, is ahead by 19 entering eliminations.

The original plan for this weekend was for both Katie Sullivan and Chaz Kennedy to be aboard Suzukis and try to make the 16-bike field. However, a recurring problem with vertigo popped back up for Sullivan, and she was forced to the sidelines, and Kennedy shifted over to ride her bike instead for the weekend. This is not the first time Kennedy has pinch-hitted for Sullivan. He also stepped up to fill in for her in Atlanta, but that was back in May, so yesterday was primarily a day for getting him re-acclimated to Sullivan’s bike. Entering today, Kennedy said he felt good on the bike and was ready to go quicker.

“I’m pretty comfortable. I rode Katie’s bike in Atlanta a while back, and I got a good feel for it there, so jumping on it from another bike yesterday was no problem for me,” said Kennedy. “The goals today are to hopefully go a little bit faster each round and hopefully make the show at the end of the day.”

Kennedy was able to get quicker on each pass. Unfortunately for him, the 7.11 he recorded in the final session wasn’t quite enough to break into the field, landing him 18th out of the 27 bikes on the property.

The Arana team is having a much-needed get-well weekend with both Hector Sr. and Hector Jr. (pictured) making a combined seven strong six-second passes and one 7.00 during qualifying. Not only is this a big boost after what has been a challenging weekend for the Lucas Oil-backed team, which has combined for just 20 round-wins (by comparison, points leader Eddie Krawiec has 35), but it is a big boost after a challenging trip to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“I’ll tell you what, this is what we needed. This trip over here to Vegas was rough,” said Hector Sr. “We broke down with the trailer. We were down for two and a half days. The generator wasn’t working — the batteries were all dead — so overall, all those obstacles, we made it here and got set up. To have an outing like that here is what we needed, the boost that I needed to keep on going to go on to Pomona.”

With the strong showing, Hector Sr. and Hector Jr. qualified sixth and seventh, respectively. That is especially good news because it means the pair will not meet in the first round again. They have matched up in E1 six times this season, including three times in the Countdown. With their starting spots, the Hectors would race until the semifinals, assuming they both make it that far.

“That’s what we’ve been looking at, for us to stay on the top half,” said Hector Sr. “That’s the first thing that I looked at. We’re looking great, but I prefer the opposite side so I don’t have to see him until the final.”

It’s no secret that Angie Smith’s 2016 season has been a very frustrating one, and her team has constantly worked on her Victory to work out the bugs and get it back on track. That hard work paid off today when she powered to a 7.00 in the third session to move to ninth in the field at the time.

“When you struggle for a year and a half, seven-flat’s not very fast, but it's good here. To put me No. 9, I’m ecstatic about that,” said Smith. “We have struggled and struggled. We went and stripped this whole motorcycle last week. We put a Magneti Marelli fuel-injection system on it and a Racepak. We went back to the old school, and this Victory Gunner, we’re making progress, and I couldn’t be happier.”

Unfortunately for Smith, she did not get a chance to try and better that in the final session because a problem with a crank sensor prevented her team from starting her bike. Smith dropped to the 11th spot in the final order, and she will pull up next to Hector Arana Sr. in the first round.

No group embraces Halloween more than the Pro Stock Motorcycle contingent, and the teams once again came up decked out in costumes ranging from super heroes and villains to Olympic athletes for the final qualifying session. However, one member of the two-wheel community got off to an early start with his “costume.”

“I’ve got my costume on. I’m trying to be a professional businessman and motorcycle racer. Come by and see me,” Steve Johnson joked at the top end after his first run of the day.

Johnson was in good spirits after a great first run for the day. After a best of 7.02 Friday that just kept him in the top 12, Johnson moved up the order with a 6.98 in Q3. Johnson followed that run up with a 6.99 on his final attempt, giving him a good tune-up for race day, in which he starts from the No. 8 position and faces LE Tonglet to kick off eliminations.

At three of the last four races, the Buells of the Aranas have lined up alongside one another for the first round. Now, it’s Star Racing’s turn. Angelle Sampey (pictured) and Cory Reed entered today’s final qualifying in the No. 8 and 9 spots, respectively, looking to move in the order and try to prevent the undesirable first-round match between them. The good news is they did move around in the order. The bad news is they did so in such a way that still ended up with them lining up for the first round. Sampey moved up to fifth thanks to her 6.96 in Q3, while Reed was unable to better his 7.00 from Friday and slipped to 12th. This will be the third time the Star teammates have raced this year; each have won one of the previous pairings.

Jerry Savoie stole the headlines in qualifying, pacing every round, including that incredible 6.88 in Q3 that gave him the No. 1 starting spot, but his nearest points rivals, Eddie Krawiec (pictured) and Andrew Hines, weren’t too shabby during the four sessions either. Krawiec had the second-best times of the first three sessions and was third-quickest of the final one, while Hines was third-best of the first three and second-best of the last. Krawiec, who qualified No. 2, said that though they were behind Savoie every round of qualifying, his team feels as though they can run with him.

“We have everything it takes to run with him,” said Krawiec. “He’s going 1.04, 1.05 60-foot. We’re going 1.07. For us, that’s what we’re working on now. We feel we have a really good tune-up. I ran top speed second session, so it shows the tune-ups are right. I have No. 1 in back-halves. When you’re doing that, and you’re not at the top, you’re missing it early. For us, really what we’re focusing on is getting both of our motorcycles off the starting line. It’s nice to have two bikes that are running identical with each other. We’re going to pick away at the front half here and see what we can do these two sessions. All in all, I think we can run with him neck and neck or possibly even nip it just a little bit. Right now, it’s going to take quite a bit to go a 6.88, 6.89. We’re going to have to go 1.04 or 1.05 to get there. I’m not saying we can’t get there, but I don’t know if we can get there.”

When Jerry Savoie visited the press room Friday night after leading Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifying, he said his bike should have run a 6.88. Today, Savoie and his talented team proved him right when they stunned everyone by powering to a 6.880 during the third session to solidify his hold on the No. 1 qualifying spot. Savoie also had the best run of the final session, giving him the maximum 12 qualifying bonus points in addition to the eight regular ones awarded to the top qualifier. Those points allowed Savoie to eat into the advantages of Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines, who are first and second, respectively.

“It’s great because that could be the deciding factor on race day in Pomona," said Savoie. "You’ve got both of ’em. Eddie and Andrew are neck and neck, so it’s going to be very interesting. The good thing is they’re both on the same side of the ladder, too. Last year, I’d split them up, be right between them. The last two races we’ve got in front. Hat’s off to my crew — Jeremy and Steve and Tim — I can’t say enough about them.

“These guys out here are all good, but every year at this time of year, we usually step up, and hopefully, this year we can give them a run for their money. It’s exciting, it really is.”

This is the second straight race at which Savoie has qualified No. 1, and he is coming off a runner-up finish against Krawiec in Dallas. Entering race day, Savoie is 43 points behind Krawiec and 23 in back of Hines.

For the fifth time this season, every ticket was sold for a day at the NHRA drags as Saturday’s crowd was announced as a complete sellout. Previously this season, the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, and the NHRA New England Nationals in Epping were sold out on Saturday during race weekend. The Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals in Sonoma was sold out on Sunday.

Former NHRA Mello Yello champions Matt Hagan and Tony Schumacher, along with Dallas Pro Stock champ Drew Skillman and iconic Funny Car owner Roland Leong, took part in the traditional Mello Yello autograph session.

 

Event sponsor Toyota also staged an autograph session with a number of its drivers, including Del Worsham, Doug Kalitta, Alexis DeJoria, Antron Brown, Shawn Langdon, J.R. Todd, Cruz Pedregon, and Chad Head.

 

Worsham had a busy morning as he also joined NHRA’s Alan Reinhart in teaching some racing basics to fans in the popular Nitro School segment in the pits.

 

Wheelstanding legend Ed “the Outlaw” Jones made his semi-annual trek out to the event to entertain the fans between rounds with his famed Jelly Belly Candyland Stage. Jones and his wife, Wendy, have been campaigning the venerable stagecoach replica for 40 years.

 

Toyota-sponsored Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta made a pass in the company’s “super sleeper” Camry, which sports a nitrous-fed TRD-supercharged 5.7-liter V-8. Although Kalitta took it easy on his exhibition pass, Toyota says the tube-framed, tilt-body car is capable of a 9.8-second quarter-mile.


Final qualifying wrapped up with exhibition runs by a pair of jet dragster, and they put on quite a show with sub-six-second e.t.s and speeds more than 276 mph.






Though Halloween isn't until Monday, the teams of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series got into the spirit of the holiday, dressing up during today's two qualifying sessions. The Pro Stock Motorcycle contingent, in particular, showed off their Halloween spirit with pretty much all of the teams dressing up for the final session.

Friday Notebook