Sat, 5 Sep 2009, 11:24 PM Millican: Sunday Crucial Qualifying Day at U.S. Nationals

Courtesy of Joe Sherk

CLERMONT, Ind. -- It's down to one day and two runs Sunday as Clay Millican attempts to put a lock on 10th place in NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel points and clinch a place in the six-race Countdown to the Championship in the final day of qualifying for Monday's U.S. Nationals at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

On Saturday, Millican drove the Hope4Sudan/Motorvation Top Fuel dragster to its best of three qualifying times -- 3.935 seconds at 309.56 mph. It was good enough for the 15th spot, but the team knows it needs to run quicker.

Millican's lead over Joe Hartley is just three points and Hartley wound up 13th Saturday.

"Our last run was a good one," Millican said, "but we wanted more. That's what you do when you need to go down the race track. We need to improve Sunday. We want to qualify better than Hartley. You never who's going to run a hot number -- and we'd like to be the ones to do it."