Clay Millican wants to see the hot weather in Topeka remain for Sunday's O'Reilly Summer Nationals
because he has an important first-round race against Joe Hartley at Heartland Park Topeka.
Millican and team crew chief Lance Larsen know elapsed times like their 3.890-second Friday night
qualifying run that put the Hope4Sudan/ Motorvation Top Fuel dragster into the No. 5 starting spot
aren't likely to be seen on Sunday, thanks to temperatures expected to remain in the low 90s.
"We hope it's going to be hot again Sunday," Millican said after posting Saturday's quickest
elapsed time (4.014 seconds at 296.96 mph) during a hot final qualifying session. "We feel like
the heat will level the playing field. Usually I'm not too happy with a 4.01 (second) run, but I'm
pretty happy about this one.
"The first round is huge for us because Hartley is just ahead of us in Full Throttle series points
and we need to take advantage of this opportunity."
Millican is 11th (194 points) and trails Hartley by 108 points with nine more events remaining
before the top 10 drivers advance to the Countdown to the Championship.
