A steady stream of relatives, fans and friends slowly made their way through the Friday afternoon
greeting line at Memphis Motorsports Park. They all wanted to say hello to Clay Millican, their
hometown drag racing hero. Many asked for an autograph and to take a photo with him.
And the native of Drummonds, Tenn. -- about 30 minutes from the race track -- was happy to
accommodate them.
The fans kept coming during the day and we're still gathered around the Hope4Sudan/Motorvation Top
Fuel dragster pit area after Millican qualified a disappointing 13th as the 22nd O'Reilly Mid-South
Nationals opened with two qualifying sessions.
Millican had runs of 3.957 seconds at 310.48 mph and 3.979 seconds at 311.85.
"That last run could've been very good," Millican said. "But the tires shook and I had to pedal
it. We've said it before that it is so hard to make up what could've been on a good Friday evening
run. But we'll give it another good go again Saturday."
He'll have two more attempts to improve Friday's numbers.
