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QUALIFYING ROUND RECAPS

PRO STOCK Q3 (1:53 p.m.) Jeg Coughlin Jr. displayed the same form that he had when he captured the No. 1 qualifying position on Friday evening when he again had the quickest time in the third session with a 6.564, just .007-second off of his pace-setting time of 6.557. Second and third place drivers Bo Butner and Greg Anderson did not improve on their Friday clockings with respective times of 6.568 and 6.574, but Erica Enders moved up from sixth to fourth with an improved 6.574.

TOP FUEL Q3 (2:21 p.m.): Drivers tried to get a handle on warmer temperatures in the third qualifying session with mixed success. Steve Torrence picked up the best pass (3.762) to move into the No. 6 spot. He’s one of just a handful of drivers to make it down the track, including Antron Brown, who continued his impressive consistent streak. Brown hit a 3.785, just a thousandth of a second off his first qualifying session run. Tony Schumacher posted his best pass of the day (3.798) and moved into eighth. Troy Coughlin Jr. continued to fight with his new Sealmaster dragster, failing to get down the track with a 6.674 e.t. 

FUNNY CAR Q3 (2:50 p.m.): It was a get-ready/get-well session for a lot of teams as 10 of the 15 that ran improved nn their Friday numbers under conditions similar to what they might expect on Sunday. Jack Beckman led the performance parade with a 3.921 in the Infinite Hero Dodge that solidified his hold on the No. 5 spot behind Saturday’s fast four, which is still topped by Courtney Force’s 3.851. Robert Hight’s AAA of Texas Chevy was second-quick with a 3.924 and Tim Wilkerson next best with a 3.946.

PRO STOCK Q4  (4:30 p.m.): The 6.557 that Jeg Coughlin Jr. ran with his Elite Motorsports ’17 Camaro managed to hold up for the No. 1 position after the fourth and final round of Pro Stock qualifying was conducted. The only changes in the order were Drew Skillman moving from eighth to sixth with a 6.587 and Richie Stevens jumping from 13th to 11th with a 6.615. Earning the bonus points with the three quickest runs of the session were Bo Butner (6.575), Skillman, and Coughlin (6.589). Alex Laughlin was 10th with his Gas Monkey Energy  Camaro, but he ended up 17th and out of the program with his Top Alcohol Dragster entry. 

First-round pairings (lane choice listed first): Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. bye; Drew Skillman vs. Chris McGaha; Erica Enders vs. Richie Stevens; Tanner Gray vs. Alex Laughlin; Bo Butner vs. Allen Johnson; Greg Anderson vs. Alan Prusiensky; and Jason Line vs. Vincent Nobile. 

TOP FUEL Q4 (5:15 p.m.): Steve Torrence used his best pass of the day (3.743) to move to No. 4, setting up a first-round matchup with Shawn Reed. Nobody could take the green No. 1 qualifying hat away from Clay Millican, who didn’t make it down the track in his final pass of the session; that’s something none of the top three qualifiers did in the final session of the day. Troy Buff had his best run of the day, moving from No. 16 all the way up to No. 9 with a 3.81 pass. His reward is a first-round meeting with Tony Schumacher who improved with a 3.783 pass to get to No. 8. 

First round pairings (lance choice listed first): Clay Millican vs. Steve Chrisman; Antron Brown vs. Terry Haddock; Doug Kalitta vs. Terry McMillen; Steve Torrence vs. Shawn Reed; Brittany Force vs. Troy Coughlin Jr.; Leah Pritchett vs. Scott Palmer; Bob Vandergriff vs. Shawn Langdon; Tony Schumacher vs. Troy Buff.

FUNNY CAR Q4 (5:45 p.m.): Courtney Force held onto the No. 1 spot with his Friday 3.851 and had the second-best run of the final session with a 3.897, but it was her teammate, Robert Hight, who shined the brightest with a 3.894 in the AAA of Texas Camaro to move to the No. 4 spot. With team boss John Force in the No. 3 spot, the JFR cars have three of the top four spots. Ron Capps’ 3.901 was the round’s third-best run and made a clean sweep of qualifying passes with four straight runs in the threes, the only Funny Car to accomplish that feat.

First-round pairings (lane choice listed first): Courtney Force vs. Jeff Diehl; Tim Wilkerson vs. Alexis DeJoria; Robert Hight vs. Jim Campbell; Cruz Pedregon vs. J.R. Todd; Ron Capps vs. Todd Simpson; Tommy Johnson Jr. vs. Jonnie Lindberg; John Force vs. Del Worsham; Jack Beckman vs. Matt Hagan.

Saturday recap: Millican, Courtney Force, Coughlin hold onto No. 1 qualifying spots in Houston

PRO MOD ROUND ONE: Pro Mod racer Bob Rahaim of Grosse Pointe, Mich., exited his TLC Waste Disposal Services 2015 Chevy Camaro under his own power after it went out of control and impacted the left and then right guardwalls during the first round of eliminations on Saturday. Rahaim was evaluated by onsite emergency staff and was released (animated gif).

FEATURES

The Houston event always marks a nice anniversary for Tony Schumacher’s U.S. Army team as it was at this race in 2009 that newly-promoted crew chief Mike Green scored his first win with the team. Alan Johnson, who had tuned five straight championships, had left the team at the end of 2008 to start the Al Anabi operation, and Green took over.

“We had a lot of pressure,” recalled Schumacher. “So many people were out there saying we wouldn’t be able to win without Alan Johnson. It took us four races, and getting that first win was huge. Mike has proven over the years that he is absolutely one of the best at getting these cars right. He assembled an incredible crew with guys like [new assistant crew chief] Phil [Shuler], and things seem to be running on all cylinders. The U.S. Army team has always thrived when it’s pressure time and that all started with Mike back in 2009. That Houston win proved we could do it, and we’re still winning now. That was the last time we won here, so hopefully we can add another one there this weekend.”
 
The race also is a “home race” for transplanted Chicagoan Schumacher, who now lives in Austin, just three hours away, but it didn’t get off to a very “homey” start as the throttle stop was accidentally left on after his Q1 burnout, making for a slow ride down the RPR track. Friday night was better with a 3.81, but a dropped cylinder slowed what would have been a much better run.

After two years with Don Schumacher Racing, followed by a brief hiatus due to a lack of sponsorship, Shawn Langdon is back in the Top Fuel fray with a new team. That comes with a bevy of changes. 

Langdon’s new car, sponsored by Global Electronic Technology, has no canopy; that’s a significant departure from what he was used to with DSR. His new car isn’t exactly a convertible, of course. It comes with a high windshield, just like any other Top Fuel car, but there are some significant differences.

“It’s just like driving a truck or driving a car,” said Langdon. “The thing that you can hear in a canopy car is more the tone of a motor rather than the pitch of it. The pitch is rather just the loudness of it. But in a canopy car you can kinda hear the tone of it and it’s easier to pick up if it's dropping a cylinder in the canopy car.”

The canopy can impact vision, too, particularly when at the starting line. It doesn’t matter so much once you get the car down the track, though. 

“Now the downfall of the canopy car is it took some time to adjust to the light because of the glares of it,” said Langdon. “Once I get down the track I have my helmet so taped off anyway, that I basically see what I’m going to see anyway.” 

Getting accustomed to a new crew chief is another part of joining a new team. While some fans treat burnouts as a moment to check their phones or take a sip of their drink, some crew chiefs take the pre-race ritual more seriously than others.

“At the end of the deal everything is the same everything is the same, but our warmup procedure is substantially shorter than everyone else’s,” said Langdon. “The discussion we had yesterday was length of burnout. With Alan (Johnson) we had three different length of burnouts, with Don (Schumacher) we had two and one thing I always watch as a driver is the fuel pressure and the run timer and where do they want me to trim it at.”

“With Alan, it was very particular. We were rolling through the water at 15-17 seconds, I was stopped at 33 seconds and I was back at the starting line at 60 seconds. If I’m beyond those seconds it was kind of a big deal whereas at Schumacher it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Langdon said the burnout procedure is a little less strict with his new team and they’re still working to adjust to one another. With two runs under their belt, things are looking just fine for the Langdon squad. The Global Electronic Technology car ran a 3.825 in its first pass and sat eighth after the first day of racing. 

Troy Coughlin Jr. is in a new car this weekend after getting a new teammate in Shawn Langdon. Coughlin’s old car went to Langdon with his tuners, Connie Kalitta and Rob Flynn, so now Coughlin has a new set of wheels with the familiar Sealmaster wrap. 

Jim Oberhofer takes over as crew chief for Coughlin, and remains the tuner for Doug Kalitta. Coughlin went through some growing pains in his new set of wheels in the first qualifying session on Friday evening. 

He planned to shut the car off halfway down the track in Q1, but a problem with the air bottle led to a clutch malfunction that dragged Coughlin through the beams, so the half pass had to be moved to Q2, which was a good thing. With a new crew, the startup and staging procedure took longer than expected and had not Coughlin shut the car off early the engine would have run out of fuel and "it would have been ugly," said Oberhofer.

If that wasn’t enough, a problem with the team’s trailer led to parking the Sealmaster dragster in Scott Palmer’s trailer. Palmer leaves his car out overnight, which ended up being to the benefit of Coughlin and company. 

Coughlin entered the second day of qualifying in the No. 12 qualifying spot. 

Old habits die hard for Scott Palmer. After years of lean financial running that required him to pitch in working on the car between rounds, he still likes getting his hands dirty, even after his operation is about as well-funded as many of his peers, thanks to an injection of financial and moral support from Tommy Thompson. And while most of his peers’ only between-rounds maintenance involves repacking the parachute, Palmer can often be found with a wrench in his hand, working alongside his girlfriend and crew chief, Ashley Fye.

“Up until last year I did the bottom end,” said Palmer, of the hot and dirty job of dropping the oil pan and removing the rods and pistons. “Even though we’ve got a full crew this season, I still like to pitch in, even if it’s just doing the valves.”

As mentioned in the item above, Palmer’s crew leaves their car out of the trailer at night -- he thinks the 90-minute process of removing the wing and loading the car each night and then unloading and reattaching the wing the next morning adds wear and tear to the crew – but makes sure that track security knows about it.

“I go find those guys at every race and give them some hats and t-shirts and tell them to look out for me,” he said with a grin. The practice of leaving his car out dates back to his friendship with Texas Alcohol Funny Car racer Jackie Jones, who liked to do the same thing. “I always thought that was the coolest thing, so when I got my first Funny Car I did the same thing.”

With backing from Thompson and his companies, including CatSpot kitty litter, Palmer and Fye are running a full schedule for the first time and currently hold down the final spot in the Top 10.
 

After skipping the Las Vegas event to participate in his other passion – drag boat racing – Shawn Reed and the Paton Racing/Hughes Oilfield Transportation dragster are back in action at what is a home race for his Odessa, Texas-based major sponsor, and owners Floyd and Barbara Hughes are on hand to watch their car in action.

Reed, a multi-time champion in Pro Mod boat racing, won in his boat, dubbed Top Secret, in Phoenix during the Las Vegas events and scored the following weekend in Parker, Ariz., and now holds a healthy points lead early in the season.

The Reed/Paton team has a 10-race schedule planned, and will be off the tour for a number of events but will return for the races in Sonoma and Seattle – the latter in Reed’s homestate of Washington – and then the final three events of the season, though they may pick and choose other events during the year to attend.

For a while Friday night, it looked like Courtney Force and older sister Brittany might both be holding No. 1 spots in their respective classes. Courtney had already locked down the No. 1 spot in Funny Car when Brittany temporarily took the pole in Top Fuel. It didn’t last – Clay Millican eventually had the top spot among fuel dragsters – but it wouldn’t been the first time that the sisters dominated the qualifying sheets. At the Topeka event in 2014, both finished atop the pack in qualifying.

“To watch Brittany light up the board and go No. 1 for her Monster Energy team, that was a huge run for her,” Force said. “For us to be in the top spot, even if it’s just for a few moments, it’s definitely exciting.”

The fact that Courtney’s Advance Auto Chevy sits No. 1 is not a surprise, as the team made the quickest run in class history, 3.840, during preseason Nitro Spring Training in Phoenix, and was No. 1 two weeks ago in Las Vegas with a track-record pass. In its four previous starts this season, the team has started fourth or better, but has struggled on Sundays, with first-round losses at the last three races after starting the season with a runner-up in Pomona.

“We struggled a little bit the last few races,” she admitted. “Don’t think that’s not in the back of our heads right now. We know we’re coming out here to change things and most importantly to go rounds on race day. I think we’ve tried to push our car a little too hard [Sundays] and expect more out of it; that has kind of messed us up a little bit. I think we just need to stick to what we know and stick to the setup we use throughout qualifying. Our main goal is looking for that consistency.”

The yearly return to Houston is always a nostalgic one for Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car crew chiefs Rahn Tobler and Dickie Venables, both of whom have deep roots in the area.

Tobler and Venables have been good friends since Tobler was 16 when he began hanging out at Venables' father's auto repair and race shop in Houston. Ronnie Venables and driver Steve Stephens campaigned their QuickSilver Top Fuelers and Funny Cars in Division 4 in the 1970s and twice won the division championship.

Tobler grew up in Southern California but moved to Houston when his mother, an analyst for Shell Oil, was transferred by the company. While riding his bicycle home from a part-time job at a grocery store one day, Tobler, who had attended drag races in Southern California, discovered a garage behind a gasoline station that housed the Stephens & Venables dragster.

He started out just helping clean the shop before moving up to travel with the team that later led to a career as a crew chief and four NHRA world championships including last year's first with NAPA and Capps. Tobler later hired Dickie to join his Top Fuel team with driver Shirley Muldowney. Venables has gone on to win three Funny Car world championships, including 2014 with Hagan.

On an unrelated note, Tobler’s NAPA Auto Parts team, is making due at the event without veteran crewman Joe Chrisman, who had to have emergency surgery Thursday to remove his appendix after he got to Houston. The team flew in a back up crewmember, Jason Davis, to take his spot. Chrisman, a DSR crewman for 13 years and clutch specialist on the NAPA Dodge, spent Friday at the hospital where he is expected to fully recover and could be with the team next weekend when it races in the Four-Wide Nationals.

Cruz Pedregon knew from the beginning of the season it would take five or six races to get his Funny Car on the right track. Well, the NHRA SpringNationals is race No. 5 and it looks like Pedregon’s prediction is proving prescient after his first career pass in the 3.8 second range in the second qualifying session put him in the No. 4 qualifying spot after the first day of racing.

“It’s like baseball,” said Pedregon. “You take the big swing and you strike out or you just try to get on base and we just tried to get on base. When you land that big cut it’s nice but we’re just trying to build some runs so we can get a read on everything.”

Pedregon went through myriad problems in Las Vegas, including losing the computer on one run. Now he feels he has a setup he can tune on and his timing couldn’t be better with three-straight races coming up. 

“We’ve got two runs and a database on both,” said Pedregon. “We’re happy with that. We knew the day would come where we’d hit both days on Friday, and we did, and we could carry on from there. A lot of it is momentum.”

Pedregon entered the SpringNationals in 14th place, 43 points behind JR Todd. He’s aware there’s plenty of racing ahead of him. If this is the start of consistent racing for Pedregon, the Countdown is well within his reach.

“You don’t want to give any races away of course,” said Pedregon. “I’ve always looked at making moves that are going to be good big picture. Short term is cool of course but you’ve got to be looking big picture. I’m just glad (crew chief Aaron Brooks) was available.”

Jeff Diehl is looking for a much better Saturday after a wasted Friday that left his name absent from the Funny Car qualifying sheets. His understaffed team was still working to repair damage from their last outing in Phoenix, so they opted to skip the first qualifying session in favor of the cooler night run in Q2.

Unfortunately for “the Surfer,” the car had to be shut off on the line shortly after startup due to a fuel leak. The good news is that with only 16 cars on the ground, Diehl will qualify just by leaving the starting line, but he’s hoping for much more, including his first career three-second pass.

Diehl, who is now mostly recovered from the highway accident – his car was rear-ended by a semi truck on the way to his son’s wedding -- that seriously hurt him and wife Leeza after last August’s Seattle event, holds a career-best pass of 4.02, recorded on an all-over-the-track pass at that Seattle event, so “if the driver can keep the car straight” and weather conditions cooperate, Diehl may well break into the threes.
 

Pro Stock campaigner Drew Skillman is driving a new Jerry Haas-built Chevrolet Camaro this weekend and has high hopes for the new ride. Skillman, who runs engines from Gray Motorsports, said, “So far this season our engines have been better than the car. We’ve had the power, but we’ve struggled with the car set-up because it had a narrow chassis-tuning window. This new Haas Camaro was made from the same jig as Tanner’s car, so we’ll be able to exchange more meaningful data between the two vehicles. It also has the new 2017 Camaro body, which is more aerodynamic, so that will be a plus as well. 

During Friday’s qualifying, Skillman was the 10th quickest car with a best of 6.623. “The car moved to the left in the first session and we had an EFI issue in the second. We should have had a 6. 58 on that run.”

As the defending Pro Stock champion of the NHRA SpringNationals, Greg Anderson will attempt to be third factory hot rod driver in the last seven years to score back-to-back victories. The most recent was Erica Enders, who won during each of her two NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series championship seasons of 2014 and 2015, and Vincent Nobile, who scored victories in 2011 and 2012. You have to go a long way back to find the only other Pro Stock driver with repeat wins, and that was Bob Glidden, who scored triumphs in 1988 and 1989. 

The weekend started off rough for Anderson when he ran a sub-par 6.652 in Friday’s first qualifying round that put him in the No. 7 position. Anderson explained that he had “no clutch” on that pass and he was able to rebound in the evening session with a 6.563 that moved him up to third. 

When Jeg Coughlin became the provisional No. 1 qualifier with his 6.557 during Friday evening’s session, it marked the first time this season that a car from Elite Motorsports has been in the top position. KB Racing has dominated the qualifying action for the factory hot rods this year with Jason Line having been No. 1 for all four of the first races.

“We definitely made the right move by switching back to Chevrolet Camaros,” said Coughlin. The change in brands had resulted in a gain of 55 horsepower from the NHRA Finals to the NHRA Winternationals, but we lost a year’s worth of development time on the Chevy combination while all the other teams were perfecting their packages. We had some engine miss issues in Las Vegas and we also had to work on a new clutch combination. But we managed to get those things sorted out with a couple of test sessions before we came here. It really feels good to be making solid runs again, and I’m especially happy for the guys on my team who have been working so hard."

PHOTOS

PREVIEW

The night qualifying session came as advertised in Top Fuel as the lead changed hands multiple times, eventually ending up in the hands of Clay Millican, who picked up the Royal Purple Raceway track record while he was at it. Millican’s 3.772 pass topped the mark set by Steve Torrence in 2016 to put him at the top of the heap and beat out Antron Brown (3.723), Doug Kalitta (3.731), Brittany Force (3.745) in the night session. Leah Pritchett’s 3.747 e.t. in the first session was the only one to make the top five. Warm temperatures on Saturday will make it difficult for anyone to topple Millican’s mark, but expect some movement amongst the pack in Baytown. 

It’s unlikely but not impossible that anyone will better Courtney Force’s track-record 3.841 from Friday night to take the No. 1 spot in Funny Car, which would provide the second-generation star with her second straight and 12th career pole position. Reigning world champ Ron Capps is a solid four-hundredths behind her with a 3.884 but he also had the only car to make three-second runs in both qualifying sessions. Although only 15 cars show up on the qualifying sheets, Jeff “the Surfer” Diehl did not run Friday after sitting out Q1 and then having a problem during fire up in Q2.

Jeg Coughlin heads into Saturday’s first Pro Stock qualifying session in the No. 1 position with a  time of 6.557, and among those who will be trying to surpass him will be Jason Line, who has been the top Pro Stock qualifier in each of the NHRA Mello Yello events. Line will have to improve upon his Friday pace if he hopes to unseat Coughlin as he is currently fifth with a 6.576. Between Coughlin and Line are Bo Butner, 6.560; Greg Anderson, 6.563; and recent Las Vegas winner Tanner Gray with a 6.575. Erica Enders is right behind Line in the No. 6 slot with a 6.591.