Counting Down in Pennsylvania
Written by Sheila Scarborough · August 18, 2007
Fuller, Worsham, Anderson and Sampey hold onto low qualifier positions at Maple Grove Raceway, as the last race of the regular season determines who goes on and who goes (figuratively) to the trailer.
NHRA.com Saturday recap.
After Sunday eliminations at the 23rd Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals, only the top eight racers in each Pro category will remain eligible to win this year’s POWERade Series championship.
The pressure is intense.
In Top Fuel, pole winner “Hot Rod” Fuller has another temporary Caterpillar color scheme this weekend to carry him along, although unfortunately he has to face David Powers teammate Whit Bazemore in the first round.
“I’m here to race,” Fuller said. “We’re teammates but we both have sponsors to answer to. We’re trying to get Caterpillar on full-time and they’re excited to be with us this race and he’s got all the Matco people pulling for him.
“We’re all on one team but there’s a lot of pride between the two sides. Those guys want to beat us and we want to beat them when we have to race each other. You want to be the king of the pit, so to speak. Otherwise we’ll do whatever we can to help them, and vice versa.”
On the Budweiser team, driver Brandon Bernstein is down for the count with kidney stones, but Rit Pustari is filling in for him and hanging in there pretty well at the thirteenth position.
The Funny Car community took a few moments away from voting for Ashley Force for Hottest Female Athlete to put together an exciting qualifying session, including Del Worsham trying to squeeze that CSK car into the Countdown as he faces teammate Jeff Arend in Round One.
“This weekend is huge,” Worsham said. “Coming into this race, I don’t want to say I had completely lost hope but I had just put the whole Countdown thing out of my head. It was just driving me crazy. Then we got the No. 1 qualifier yesterday for just the fourth time in my career and it was like, ‘Maybe there’s something there.’ It’s gonna take a miracle but we do have a chance.
“We’ve been talking about [our race with Arend] but we haven’t made any decisions. It’s a tough, tough call. I hate team orders. We’ve had the best car all weekend but it’s so hard to say what we’re going to do. I don’t want to say it’s not going to happen and make a liar of myself but I’m leaning towards racing him straight up.
“The car’s solid, it’s mechanically good, and it doesn’t hurt parts any more. We’re competitive again and that’s exciting. I think we’ll be competitive for the rest of the year.”
The first round teammate matchups continue in Pro Stock, as a track record-setting low qualifier Greg Anderson must face Jason Line on Sunday.
“I had no idea how good it was going to get today,” Anderson said. “I woke up this morning and the barometer had jumped up four-tenths of a point and the humidity had dried up from 60 to 20 percent, we knew right then it was going to be a good day. We hit our tune-up on the bulls-eye with my car but missed it twice with Jason’s. He’s lucky to have made the show at all.
“The bad news is we have to race each other early. Cry all you want; we made our bed and we have to live with it. We’ll get his car fixed and we’ll be ready to put on a good race tomorrow, I’m sure of that.
“I’m leaving here and heading straight to Indy to test his car. Jason will be going back to the shop to work on the motors. We have to hit the ground running when the Countdown starts and we want to have that 1-2 punch.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Angelle Sampey almost lost her number one qualifying position from Friday to Saturday, but she clinched it today with a 6.901 at 193.96 mph.
“I was determined to get that No. 1 spot,” Sampey said. “I did a poor job of riding in the first session and I really wanted to make up for it because I knew I had a bike capable of being No. 1 in the field. I need to do a better job of riding overall if I want to win the championship this year.
“I’m really proud of [crew chief] Steve Tartaglia for getting this bike to run so quick when he’s spending the majority of his time getting Antron [Brown] up to speed on that side of the team. We’re a true team and that showed today.”
The race at Reading will air on ESPN2 at 10 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.
Top Fuel Qualifying Positions
1. Rod Fuller 4.521 (ET) 327.19 (mph)
2. Tony Schumacher 4.526 332.75
3. Doug Kalitta 4.545 331.20
4. David Grubnic 4.545 330.88
5. Melanie Troxel 4.549 326.08
6. Larry Dixon 4.557 321.96
7. Clay Millican 4.560 324.75
8. Bob Vandergriff 4.562 322.42
9. J.R. Todd 4.583 321.50
10. Hillary Will 4.588 321.73
11. Cory McClenathan 4.597 320.81
12. Morgan Lucas 4.601 322.04
13. Rit Pustari 4.607 323.35
14. Doug Herbert 4.642 299.40
15. Doug Foley 4.643 319.29
16. Whit Bazemore 4.668 320.28
Funny Car Qualifying Positions
1. Del Worsham 4.800 (ET) 323.97 (mph)
2. Jack Beckman 4.800 322.81
3. Tim Wilkerson 4.819 323.43
4. Ron Capps 4.838 314.17
5. Tony Pedregon 4.839 321.27
6. Gary Scelzi 4.850 316.45
7. Phil Burkart 4.854 317.94
8. Tommy Johnson Jr. 4.859 318.62
9. Tony Bartone 4.862 314.75
10. Ashley Force 4.870 306.67
11. Robert Hight 4.875 318.47
12. Jim Head 4.882 316.82
13. Kenny Bernstein 4.888 306.95
14. Gary Densham 4.893 318.69
15. John Force 4.899 309.13
16. Jeff Arend 4.904 309.70
——— Not Qualified ———
17. Scott Kalitta 4.904 294.24
18. Cruz Pedregon 4.908 309.27
19. Mike Ashley 4.929 315.64
20. Jerry Toliver 4.974 301.74
Pro Stock Qualifying Positions
1. Greg Anderson 6.583@ (ET) 209.88& (mph)
2. Dave Connolly 6.606 208.75
3. V. Gaines 6.610 208.62
4. Jeg Coughlin 6.610 208.33
5. Allen Johnson 6.612 208.36
6. Warren Johnson 6.615 209.20
7. Max Naylor 6.615 208.75
8. Jim Yates 6.616 209.10
9. Larry Morgan 6.617 209.04
10. Craig Hankinson 6.619 208.30
11. Richie Stevens 6.621 208.39
12. Ron Krisher 6.634 207.66
13. Kurt Johnson 6.641 208.97
14. Mike Edwards 6.645 207.91
15. Greg Stanfield 6.646 207.85
16. Jason Line 6.647 208.78
——— Not Qualified ———
17. Kenny Koretsky 6.652 208.14
18. Dave Northrop 6.667 207.18
19. Bob Benza 6.691 207.21
20. Justin Humphreys 6.706 207.08
21. Tom Hammonds 6.717 205.16
22. Jim Cunningham 6.755 202.36
@ = Track ET Record
Pro Stock Motorcycle Qualifying Positions
1. Angelle Sampey 6.901@ (ET) 193.96 (mph)
2. Chip Ellis 6.906 193.65
3. Peggy Llewellyn 6.940 193.24
4. Eddie Krawiec 6.962 191.78
5. Andrew Hines 6.966 189.44
6. Craig Treble 6.982 194.13
7. Hector Arana 6.982 192.99
8. Antron Brown 6.997 190.48
9. Steve Johnson 7.005 192.49
10. Matt Guidera 7.009 191.43
11. Chris Rivas 7.010 190.11
12. Matt Smith 7.012 191.38
13. Michael Phillips 7.021 194.63
14. Geno Scali 7.057 188.83
15. Karen Stoffer 7.059 189.66
16. Shawn Gann 7.074 189.98
——— Not Qualified ———
17. Mike Berry 7.109 186.54
18. Barry Henson 7.121 188.75
19. Tom Bradford 7.121 188.46
20. Paul Gast 7.122 184.35
21. David Hope 7.222 182.35
22. Wes Wells 7.453 181.40
@ = Track ET Record
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