Sun, 25 May 2003, 05:07 PM Top Alcohol Dragster Final, Round 4 Eliminations

By Larry Sullivan

TOPEKA, Kan. - Results of final, round 4 eliminations in Top Alcohol Dragster at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 15th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX:

 Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET---Speed-----Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT----ET---Speed
   51 Alan Bradshaw                         391 Bill Reichert
E4   ****WINNER****  0.024  5.285 262.64                     0.073  5.292 267.96
 Prior rounds:
E3    (T Datweiler ) 0.056  5.294 269.89      (M Thacker   ) 0.086  5.312 270.59
E2    (S Howard    ) 0.034  5.378 259.26      (M Lucas     ) 0.058  5.193 277.03
E1    (M Myers     ) 0.037  5.673 255.48      (T Rudy      ) 0.178  7.418 142.51
 Qualified:             #2  5.321 254.38                        #1  5.289 274.50

3:56 PM Randy Meyer, Bradshaw's car owner, has been conspicuously absent most of the weekend, receiving medical attention, but he showed up for the semifinals, hobbling around with a cane, and he's back for this final round matchup. Reichert came in with three national event wins and was the runner up at Gainesville this year. He also won the Division 3 event at Indianapolis this year. bradshaw had no prior national event wins, but was runner up at Houston this year and won Divisional events at Dallas and here at Topeka earlier this year. It was a good drag race, but Bradshaw had a much better light and a slightly quicker run to earn the win by more than half a car length. Alan Bradshaw's incremental margins: 60ft(0.029), 330 ft(0.059), 660ft(0.070), 1,000ft(0.068). MOV: 0.0563 seconds (approximately 22 feet). Congratulations to the Meyer team for running so well with "telephone tuneups" most of the weekend.

Timing data courtesy of CompuLink