Tire shake in Saturday's final Pro Stock qualifying attempt erased Dave Northrop's last hope of
finishing in the top 16 for Sunday's Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park.
Northrop, who was seven-thousandths of a second shy of qualifying two weeks ago, missed by a mere
three-thousandths of a second this time. His quickest quarter-mile lap of 6.722 seconds at 205.16
mph came in Saturday's first session. He and crew chief Eddie Guarnaccia hoped to improve the
performance of Kenny Koretsky's Nitro Fish Pontiac GXP for the last go-round.
"We just didn't get it done," said a disappointed Northrop. "I thought it was tough when we didn't
get to run at Englishtown where we didn't qualify by those seven-thousandths, but to miss by
three-thou here is tough, too.
"We had a problem here that we hadn't encountered before. The car didn't run well down low, so
Eddie made the tune-up changes he thought would work. But they were too aggressive and the tires
began to shake. I got halfway through low gear when the tires started shaking, so I shut off the
motor."
Tony Pedregon, who is looking for his third straight Funny Car win -- and second in the Nitro Fish
Impala, qualified third (4.217 seconds). He races Jim Head (14th, 4.366) in the opening round.
Pro Stock Motorcycle driver Matt Smith was No. 5 (7.058) in Don Schumacher's Nitro Fish Suzuki and
Angie McBride was 15th at 7.139. Smith races Junior Pippin (12th, 7.112) and McBride squares off
against Hector Arana, No. 2, 6.966.
