NHRA: Force Hood Fast In Sin City

NHRA

NHRA: Force Hood Fast In Sin City

The warmest track temperatures the Full Throttle tour has experienced yet this season presented a challenge for many of the nitro cars who struggled to make full passes.

Kelly Wade | Posted April 16, 2010 Las Vegas, NV

Force Hood adapted to conditions quickly at The Strip. (Go2Geiger.com)

The warmest track temperatures the Full Throttle tour has experienced yet this season presented a challenge for many of the nitro cars who struggled to make full passes in the opening session of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

It was another story on Friday afternoon as Funny Car's Ashley Force Hood and Top Fuel racer Antron Brown had some competition but still raced to the top of their respective fields, and reigning Pro Stock world champion Mike Edwards earned the provisional pole in the doorslammer category.

Early in the day, cars in both fuel classes really battled to get down a track that had warmed in excess of 120 degrees, but the track cooled just enough to present a workable surface in the second session, and Force Hood, who was also quickest in the first session, wheeled her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang to a 4.195 second lap at 295.14 mph as one half of the final pair of Funny Cars down the track. The second generation racer has accumulated nine No. 1s in her career but is still looking to secure her first this season.

"We are definitely very excited that we got down the track both runs under power and went A to B," said Force Hood. "This is a very tricky track and with the weather, it was just a matter of, 'Are we doing the right thing?' It helped that we got down the track in the first round and we got that data for the second run.

"You could see the other cars are getting it figured out very quickly, and I'm sure tomorrow we'll have a session filled with full runs. I'm sure my time isn't going to stay first, but if the conditions improve and everyone else can improve upon their runs, I'm sure we can improve upon ours, too."

In the first session of Top Fuel qualifying, Larry Dixon was the only driver to run in the 3-second range with a quick 3.994, but in the later session, it was Matco Tools dragster pilot Brown who would end the day at the top of the pack with a 3.881 at 316.60 mph. Brown scored his most recent low qualifier three races ago at the Gatornationals in Gainesville and is aiming to make it stick on Saturday with a second No. 1 of the season and the 23rd of his career (12 earned aboard a Pro Stock Motorcycle).

"The track conditions came back to us that last session," Brown said. "The first session is how it's going to be on raceday. We're on the edge, we're a little bit aggressive, but the clutch looked really good going through. We went up and Brian(Corradi) and Mark (Oswald, co-crew chiefs) and the rest of the Matco boys — the wolfpack boys — kept their heads down. They called an .88 and then we ran an .881. When you have a group of guys who can call it like that, especially when the track is like it was, there is a lot to be said for that. I'm really fortunate to be part of that team."

Pro Stock racer Ron Krisher temporarily nabbed the pole in the slightly warmer early session with an impressive 6.716 that was a couple of hundredths ahead of the rest of the field, but it was no surprise when teammate Edwards snatched it from him in the second session. Edwards drove his Penhall Pontiac GXP to a 6.706 at 205.47 mph that bumped him up from fifth to the provisional No. 1 spot.

If it holds, the No. 1 will be Edwards' fifth of the season and the 27th of his career. In the first session, his 6.757 was just enough for the five-spot, a position the regular class leader hasn't been familiar with in recent times.

"We didn't get mad over that, we just fixed it," Edwards said. "We had engine issues the first session, so we changed motors and made a really nice run. I'm extremely proud of my guys. We fought back from a little adversity, got it all changed out and looked over. We didn't have much to go off of from the first run, but we made a lot of good changes and adjustments and made a nice run.

"We've made lots of runs at this track; we test here before the Pomona race, and we run here twice a year and have a lot of notes. It takes a lot because when you have a start like we did today, you have to rely on those notes, and that's what we did."

Qualifying action for the pros at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals continues at 11:30 a.m. PDT Saturday, with sportsman eliminations scheduled for an 8 a.m. start.

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Kelly Wade

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