Painful DNQ

Well, not a good way to kick off the season. We made three consistent passes in qualifying; a 3.528, 3.537 and 3.518 on our last pass, and missed qualifying as the bump turned out to Jack Wyatt at 3.469, which is just about what we thought it would take going in to the race.

Last year our issue was consistency. WHEN we ran clean, we were running in the 5.0x's at around 300 but were smoking the tires way to much. We found a bad part in our clutch setup that was causing it to lock up at the hit and got it replaced, but I think as a team we're so skittish about that we're a little afraid to crank our tunes up to hot.

Going into the last session, Richard and Dad set the car up to run in the 3.40-3.45 range. We added some timing and brought the clutch in faster, but the car didn't seem respond down low at all. Our speed of 241.02 is a little bit high for the 3.518 we ran, and from my perspective it really didn't start to pull until late in the run. Maybe if we were running a full quarter mile we'd have had a good time, but even then, our eigth mile splits last year were in the 3.30's so who knows.

This really hurts us in the pocketbook. Financially, we have our operating costs setup to where we can run break even by qualifying or going a round, but this DNQ is like waking up and having someone hand you a bill for $7,000 that you didn't expect the day before. Oh well, I can PROMISE you we will be alot more aggressive in Rockingham. Richard knows how to make power, look at how he has Bruce Litton's car running...Bruce was the #1 qualifier in Top Fuel Dragster this weekend.