After traveling all the way across the North Atlantic Ocean from Doha, Qatar to participate in the ADRL's triumphant return to Memphis, K.A. Balooshi and New York's own Mike Castellana led the Al-Anabi team's qualifying effort, occupying the No. 1 and 2 slots with an impressive pair of 3.91-second blasts (Castellana: 3.913/191.43, Balooshi: 3.919/192.71) down the eighth-mile. In his own return to action behind the wheel of a Pro Nitrous doorslammers, "The Iceman" made his presence known with a 3.935-second, 191.54mph lap in his SPEEDTECH Nitrous-equipped '68 Camaro, while Burton Auxier took the No. 6 spot with a 3.963/190.38mph combination.

Occupying four of the 16 available qualifying spots, all in the Top 8, was at the top of the priority list for the Al-Anabi Racing camp, and putting two of the four in the finals, or even going a few rounds in the ultra-competitive Pro Nitrous eliminator, could only be considered icing on the cake.

Shannon Jenkins was the first called into action on Saturday evening for eliminations, paired with Maryland's Ed Burnley in a battle of the '68 Camaros. Jenkins left first with a .047 light and never looked back, sailing to an easy with a 3.902/192.69mph shot to Burnley's 4.23/142. K.A. Balooshi continued the first-round domination with a shot-heard-round-the-world 3.888-second, 193.29mph pass, his second in the 3.8-second range and low E.T. of the meet, to best Terry Housley, while Mike Castellana rounded out the first round with an early shut-off 4.07/161.67mph run to take out Pro Street legend Tony Christian.

The last completed round before the rain showers ensued featured three Al-Anabi Racing cars in an equal number of exciting races. First out was Castellana, facing off with Oklahoma's Dave Pierce; the late-model 'Vette got the jump on start by a slim margin, Castellana utilizing one of his patented .030 lights and quickly driving around Pierce to post 3.950/189.28 on the boards to a losing 4.02/186. Jenkins, on the other hand, was on the wrong end of a slightly too-quick reaction time, going .006 red against Tim Savell in the second round. Balooshi, though, looked to avenge his second-round loss to Steve Vick at the ADRL Georgia Drags here in Memphis, and did just that with the help of a 3.921/191.62mph blast, complete with a .020-second reaction time, to best Vick's 3.98 at 187mph.

With two Al-Anabi Racing cars going into the final-four, things couldn't have looked much better for the team until rain clouds filled the skies and broke lose with a downpour that simply vaporized all hope of completing the race on Saturday night. Despite the massive crowd number over 30,000 race fans, the action had to be halted and with the forecast looking even worse for Sunday the decision was made to complete the semi-finals and finals at the upcoming ADRL FORD Summer Drags V held at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan next month.

ABOUT AL-ANABI RACING/QATAR
A result of drag racing's continually increasing popularity abroad, Al-Anabi Racing is based out of the country of Qatar. Qatar is widely-known for working with the United States military forces to build one of the premier U.S. air bases in the Arabian Gulf Region at Al-Udeid. The Qatari philosophy was to obtain the best defense by providing the best facilities for U.S. and coalition forces. At the heart of the Al-Anabi Racing program is His Highness Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamad Al Thani, a member of the ruling family of Qatar, who set a goal of promoting the domestic and international awareness of motorsports in the nation of Qatar through multiple racing teams competing within the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

Al-Anabi Racing recently completed construction and held its first events at the new Qatar Race Club (QRC), a state of the art drag strip outside the city of Doha in the nation of Qatar.

Courtesy of Wes Buck