Fri, Oct 2, 07:02 PM Rain Greets Day Two

By Rick Green Parts America Nationals

TOPEKA, Kan. - Greetings from a wet and soggy Heartland Park Topeka for the second day of the 10th annual Parts America Nationals. The forecast is calling for occasional showers today which is an improvement from yesterday's forecast.

Rain put a halt to yesterday's racing action after a valiant Safety Safari effort to dry the track when the rain returned. The rain began during Federal-Mogul Funny Car qualifying with only Pat Austin left to run.

Todd Paton was the quickest of the Federal-Mogul Funny Cars with a pass of 5.819 seconds at 246.23 mile per hour. Federal-Mogul Dragster driver Rick Santos has a tenth of a second lead on the rest of the field with his pass of 5.477 seconds at 250.48. Weather permitting they will get two more qualifying attempts at the 1320 today.

In other Federal-Mogul action Robert Bailey in his A/ED was the number one qualifier with a 0.558 seconds under the index shot at the quarter mile. Joe Teuton was the leader in Super Stock with a 1.370 seconds under the index pass. Super Stock only got one shot at the Heartland Park track yesterday as they too were the victims of the rain. The leader in Stock after two qualifying passes is U.S. Nationals Champion Kevin Helms with a 1.020 under the index run.

Thursday highlights Pro Stock Truck qualifying, and the big surprise after one round of qualifying is Winston Points leader Larry Kopp is not in the show. Kopp dropped a valve in his new engine during the only qualifying session yesterday. He was still able to get down the quarter-mile in 8.108 seconds, but this is only good enough for the number 17 position. Brad Jetter from Greenville, S.C. took his Chevy S-10 to the provisional pole with a 7.719 seconds pass at 174.41 mile per hour. Jerry Hass in his S-10 was right behind with a 7.725, while Craig Eaton and Todd Patterson both in Dodge Dakotas round out the top four.

The rain which was falling throughout the night finally stopped at about 10:00 a.m. this morning. The Safety Safari immediately began drying the racing surface. When that is accomplished, today's revised schedule will begin with a timed trial round for Super Comp followed by second round qualifying for Federal-Mogul Funny Cars and Dragsters. Pro Stock Trucks will then lead off the first of two of today's scheduled qualifying sessions for the Pro categories.