Fri, 6 Oct 2000, 06:08 PM MEMPHIS - Top Fuel Qualifying Notes, Session #1

By Larry Sullivan

MILLINGTON, Tenn. - Notes from round 1 qualifying in Top Fuel at the 13th annual AutoZone Nationals presented by Pennzoil listing lane, driver name, elapsed time, top speed, and position in order following run:

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Left Lane: Clay Millican Runs 5.413/166.64, Now #1
Right Lane: Luigi Novelli Runs 9.733/89.89, Now #2

4:13 PM Millican is in the thick of a tight points battle in the IHRA and is running here as a tuneup for the IHRA event in Shreveport, La. next weekend. He is running an IHRA-legal combination, including a 25-percent blower overdrive limitation. He got to half track okay, then started smoking the rear tires and overstressed the engine, leaving a trail of oil down the left lane. That will cost him $500. Novelli lost traction almost immediately.

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Left Lane: Bobby Baldwin Runs 6.266/145.58, Now #2
Right Lane: Paul Romine Runs 9.609/79.43, Now #3

Romine is also in the three-way IHRA points battle. Not much traction for either of these two, Romine up in smoke before going 200 feet and Baldwin off the throttle on the top half of the run.

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Left Lane: Bruce Litton Runs 5.071/227.34, Now #1
Right Lane: Melanie Troxel Runs 8.781/94.99, Now #4

Litton is the third in the three-driver IHRA points battle, all three using this event as a tuneup, with $200,000 of Summit's money at stake for the victor. He made the closest thing to a full pass we've seen so far in this session, Troxel spinning the tires early in her run while Litton got to about the 1,000-foot marker before pulling the plug.

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Left Lane: Rhonda Hartman-Smith Runs 9.629/89.82, Now #6
Right Lane: David Grubnic Runs 12.307/59.91, Now #8

Tire shake and tire smoke in the left lane, instant tire smoke in the right.

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Left Lane: Don Lampus Runs 4.730/295.40, Now #1
Right Lane: Doug Herbert Runs 8.895/127.55, Now #6

Herbert lost traction immediately. Lampus made a very nice pass, our first full pass of the weekend in Top Fuel. Wayne Dupuy is doing a great job of tuning to turn Lampus' season around - the expressautoparts.com dragster going from starting line to finish line with very little tire smoke. However, the fuse is still a bit short, the engine letting go when he lifted, the Safety Safari called upon to clean up oil in the left hand shutdown area.

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Left Lane: Bob Vandergriff Runs 17.512/62.59, Now #12
Right Lane: Cory McClenathan Runs 4.735/296.86, Now #2

Vandergriff was up in smoke immediately. Cory Mac was on a good run to about 1,000 feet and then tire smoke got the best of him. But he showed that the right lane could also hold a pretty good run.

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Left Lane: Kenny Bernstein Runs 4.694/302.62, Now #2
Right Lane: Doug Kalitta Runs 4.666/298.27, Now #1

Finally a good side-by-side race, Kalitta getting to the finish line first. Both cars were clean most of the way, neither showing tire smoke until the final couple hundred feet or so.

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Left Lane: Joe Amato Runs 4.645/308.21, Now #1
Right Lane: Larry Dixon Runs 4.799/248.93, Now #6

The beer wars go to Budweiser this time around, both cars on very solid runs, but the Miller Lite car coming up a bit short, a puff of raw fuel from the headers at the 1,000-foot marker possibly signaling the loss of a blower belt. The Budweiser King dragster was clean and dry all the way through the finish line, the best run we've seen today.

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Left Lane: Tony Schumacher Runs 4.668/305.70, Now #4
Right Lane: Gary Scelzi Runs 4.641/307.79, Now #1

The title chase closes the session - Scelzi leadin Schumacher by 49 points coming into this event. The result was about what you'd expect, Schumacher with a very good run and Scelzi with low ET of the session, both cars smoke-free through the entire 1,320 feet.




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