NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Brandon Welch, who is making his Top Fuel debut at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, made a solid 3.84 opening pass but punctuated it with an engine explosion in his BetterDiesel.com dragster.

“It motored on down there and running pretty good then at roughly 900 feet I felt a big boom and clearly the engine let go,” he said. “I see we’ve got a couple of rods out of the engine.

“Not how we wanted to start but a 3.84 is a good number and a good baseline to get on the board. “We have enough parts; we came prepared to keep the car going. We want to show up for the next round and show that we’re not here for one run and done.”