On a day which saw over a four-hour delay before the second round of Top Fuel eliminations was run,
due to water seeping through the track surface, Cory McClenathan was defeated in the quarterfinal
by Spencer Massey at the 25th annual NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway.
He took out Clay Millican in the opening stanza despite losing traction at the top end. Millican
also smoked the tires, but McClenathan's came later and he was able to recover to take the win with
a 4.255-second elapsed time at 236.17 mph to Millican's 4.597/207.85.
In his match-up over Massey, McClenathan and the FRAM Tough Guard team were forced to shut down
after a quick startup when water began to seep again at the end of the track. After a short delay,
McClenathan and Massey started up again. Both cars traveled the 1000-mile track without incident,
with Massey taking the win with a 3.965/291.19 to McClenathan's 3.990/285.05.
"Cory Mac" moved up one spot in the Top Fuel point standings, and is now No. 4, with one race left
before the Countdown to 1 playoffs begin for the top 10 following the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day
weekend for the final six events.
"It was hard for the fans, it was hard for the drivers, it was hard for the crew guys, and it was
hard for everybody to wait this long to run a race," said McClenathan. "It's really nobody's fault.
Mother Nature just kind of gave us a rough time this weekend.
"With only two qualifying runs going into eliminations, we thought we had a pretty good handle on
everything. We expected to run some kind of mid-3.90 and Massey and his team were just better, all
the way around. A little bit on the starting line, a little bit on the race car, And that paid
dividends for those guys.
"The good thing is we went around Brandon Bernstein and we're fourth in points going into Indy.
That's a good thing. We're excited about that. Mixed emotions I guess, but it's hard to wait that
long and try to get back up as a driver for a race."
Next up is the 55th annual U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Sept. 4-7, 2009.
