Well, things definitely didn't turn out Sunday the way Clay Millican would have liked
Millican's Mile-High Nationals first-round loss to Doug Kalitta dropped him farther behind Kalitta
in NHRA Full Throttle Series Top Fuel points when the engine in the LifeLockracing.com dragster
once again dropped a cylinder.
"It was a good drag race, but we had another seven-cylinder race car." Millican said. "We just did
not get that problem figured out this weekend. I don't know what the magic potion is, but we did
not find it, that's for sure."
Although Millican left the starting line first, it didn't take long for Kalitta to pass him on the
way to a 4.097-second, 295.79-mph decision over Millican's 4.183 at 290.19. Kalitta was the race
runner-up to Antron Brown and is ninth with 632 points to No.10 Millican's 534.
"The challenge of running on the mountain really is fun," added Millican. "It was a pretty
expensive weekend for us because we tried to flip the car over backwards (Friday night when the car
did a wheelstand and came down hard on the front wheels) and we set the motor on fire (when it blew
up in a fireball Saturday). We were trying our best to run as good as we can. Once you get in the
car and put you're helmet on, you just have to get after it.
It wasn't all bad, however. Joe Hartley, 11th in points, lost in the first round, so Millican
didn't lose any points to him. And the dragster chassis will have a new front-half installed early
next week at builder Brad Hadman's shop in Tacoma, Wash.
The crew, meanwhile, was busy packing up to leave as soon as possible on the 1,400-mile drive to
Tacoma. The second event in the three-race Western Swing gets underway Friday in Seattle.
"When we get to Seattle, we are going to have a fresh, new car and a fresh new way of going down
the race track because the car always works better with a new front-half," Millican said. "I think
we will be able to get away from the cylinder-dropping when we get down this mountain.
"This was one of those weekends where we certainly wish we had done better, but we did all we
could. We are ready to get back to racing at sea level in Seattle."
