NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Reigning world champ Steve Torrence, who has won the last three NHRA national events and four of the last five at zMAX Dragway, had the best run of both qualifying sessions Friday and took over the points lead in the process.

Torrence who entered the event two points behind Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals champ Doug Kalitta, picked up a point on him by earning three bonus points by leading the first session while Kalitta earned two. Torrence then made the pass for the lead with another low-of-session pass on the evening run to earn three points and take the lead by two markers.

Not that he wants to know anything about that.

“It’s way too early to start counting points,” he cautioned. “If you even remotely start looking at them, you can allow that whole thing to get in your head and don’t want that there for this race or any of the next three races. As a team and a driver we do the best we can to keep that at bay and concentrate on the task at hand, which is to qualify well, and we had two good runs. Tomorrow we’ll work on our Sunday tune-up and, like I said last year, you need to go out and try to win all of the [rounds] and let the points take care of themselves.”

Richie Crampton, who got his Countdown off to a fast start by driving the DHL dragster to victory in Reading was the low qualifier with a 3.742 until Torrence fired his shot of 3.711 on the final run of the session.

Antron Brown grabbed the No. 3 spot with a 3.758 while Torrence’s father, St. Louis winner Billy, took the No. 4 position with a 3.765. Kalitta is fifth with his 3.777 from the first session.

Independent hero Pat Dakin, who’s been racing in the class for more than five decades, jumped into the top half of the pack with an impressive 3.79 for the No. 7 spot.

Former Top Alcohol Dragster event winner Justin Ashley had a strong opening day in his Top Fuel debut, clocking a solid 3.831 in the opening session with his Influencer dragster.

Eighteen cars made qualifying attempts for the 16-car field. Englishman Smax Smith current sits on the bump spot with a soft 7.577 in the Leverich family entry.