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TOPEKA, Kan. - Notes from round 1 qualifying in Top Fuel at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 15th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX listing lane, driver name, elapsed time, top speed, and position in order following run: Left Lane: Kenny Bernstein Runs 4.651/316.30, Now #1 Right Lane: Chris Karamesines No Time, Now #2 5:30 PM Current weather conditions: 73 degrees, 64 percent relative humidity, the barometer 30.04 inches, under a light overcast. Bernstein did not make any test runs in the
car prior to coming here. Karamesines had some kind of problem on his burnout and drove it out
the other end to keep from delaying Bernstein. The Budweiser dragster went right down the
groove on a very smooth-looking run. Left Lane: Scott Palmer Runs 4.883/287.90, Now #2 Right Lane: Scott Weis Runs 11.371/76.46, Now #3 Looked like a fuel line came off Weis' car, leaving a quickly-drying trail behind him as the car coasted down the lane. Nice pass by Palmer, clean and straight, not aggressive, but one they should be able to tune from. Left Lane: David Grubnic Runs 5.444/167.12, Now #3 Right Lane: Melanie Troxel Runs 6.221/191.48, Now #4 After a brief delay to let the spilled fuel dry up, these two fired and rolled through the water. Both cars left hard, both cars lost traction before going 330 feet. Left Lane: Paul Romine Runs 4.653/316.08, Now #2 Right Lane: Rhonda Hartman-Smith Runs 4.970/282.90, Now #4 Hartman-Smith came up on the short end of two-shot qualifying at Englishtown, while Romine fared better, but sacrificed an engine on almost every run. Hartman-Smith hazed the tires before half track, pedaled, and completed the run. Romine lost a head gasket just past half track in a large flash of flame. Left Lane: Tony Schumacher Runs 6.631/127.96, Now #8 Right Lane: John J. Smith Runs 6.236/146.37, Now #7 Schumacher also lost out in the abbreviated qualifying at E-Town, his first DNQ in several seasons. Both drivers lost traction, both pedaled at least once, both gave it up as a bad deal. Left Lane: David Baca Runs 4.585/317.42, Now #1 Right Lane: Cory McClenathan Runs 4.670/313.07, Now #4 Nice! Two nice runs, Baca's car quicker from the beginning. By the way, his car is featured in an advertisement in the current American Airlines in-flight magazine. Left Lane: Darrell Russell Runs 5.549/165.36, Now #9 Right Lane: Doug Herbert Runs 4.615/314.97, Now #2 Russell's team started the engine, then shut it off immediately, a problem on the top end delaying things briefly, so the team had to back the engine off to get the unburned fuel out of the cylinders. Russell led to half track, then hazed the tires and lifted. Herbert made a nice, smooth run with no visible problems to move into the second spot for now. Left Lane: Doug Kalitta Runs 5.114/200.32, Now #9 Right Lane: Larry Dixon Runs 4.616/323.89, Now #3 The "two baddest Top Fuel dragsters on the planet" closed out the first session. Dixon leads Kalitta by around 150 points, but Kalitta has been hot lately and appears to be the only driver in a position to challenge Dixon for the title this year. Kalitta was quicker to 330 feet, but started hazing the tires and Dixon took over from there on a relatively conservative pass. They will be back in a few hours to try to step things up a bit.
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