There isn't much Greg Anderson, and his Summit Racing Equipment team have been wrong about this season.
Anderson, who has five No. 1 qualifying efforts this season, didn't figure he would get much worthwhile information from a racetrack which hit a sweltering 130-degrees and had accommodated a large contingent of race cars on Saturday.
The multi-time series champion was dead wrong during the final day of qualifications at the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Nationals outside of Cleveland, Ohio.
He, Del Worsham (Funny Car), Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel) and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle) all remained atop the leaderboard on the strength of their Friday performances.
"You're just curious to how the race car is going to react to the hot starting line,” explained Anderson. “We obviously had a lot hotter starting line today than we had yesterday. The air conditions, the quality of the air was worse, and the motors made less power. We knew we weren't going to run as fast, but we knew the starting line was going to be tricky. We made a lot of changes to the race cars and came out the first session today, and we're pleasantly surprised to find that the starting line didn't disappear like we thought it would; it held up great.
Anderson and Line became the first two drivers to clinch berths in the Countdown to the Championship after just 12 races. They tied Tony Schumacher's 2008 season for the quickest to clinch scenario.
Worsham, defending NHRA Funny Car champion, took a wild ride to end qualifying, all the while retaining his top spot. The parachutes on his DHL Toyota Funny Car failed to deploy sending his car at a high rate of speed through the sand pit aimed to slow runaway cars. He was uninjured, and the damage to the car's new carbon fiber body was minimal.
"We had a malfunction in the routing of the wire of the cables from the lever to the parachutes," Worsham explained. "I guess it took a couple of runs for it to fail and lost tension of the cable, and I swatted for them twice, and when the chutes didn't deploy, I got on the brakes, and it was all I could do to get it stopped. This is my 25th year driving and that was my second chute failure in 25 years."
Worsham's teammate Kalitta ensured the team's third clean sweep qualifying effort when his 3.719 track record withstood both of Saturday's qualifying session. It wasn't a banner day for the Mac Tools-sponsored dragster.
"The first run we had a cylinder go out, so the last run there we had the belt come off there about 800 feet, so we were on a pretty good run," Kalitta explained. "We still managed to get a good baseline for Sunday, and I think we're in good shape. We'll see how it goes. It'll be interesting because it's going to be a little warmer."
The No. 1 starting position was Krawiec’s fourth of the season, and No. 31 of his storied career. He’s won two races out of three finals this season and currently leads the championship points.
"It's all about making good runs, and today we made some decent passes," Krawiec said. "I wouldn't say they were the greatest. The main objective was to get the car off of the starting line clean. This is probably the first hot race track the bikes have had to face this season. It's a matter of adjusting.”
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Bobby Bennett is the Publisher/Editor of CompetitionPlus.com, a leading independent online drag racing magazine, since 1999. For the latest in dragster news worldwide, visit www.competitionplus.com or follow on Twitter @competitionplus
