In Top Fuel, Antron Brown made it to his second final round of the year but this time faced a differant DSR teammate in Tony Schumacher. Schumacher qualified #2 and made his run to the finals with wins against Mike Strasburg (#15), Doug Kalitta (#7) and Clay Millican (#13) while Brown was in the #5 position and beat Terry McMillan (#12), Spencer Massey (#4) and Shawn Langdon (#1). In the final round, Brown got the slight advantage off the line against Schumacher (.054 RT to .057 RT) and ran a 3.793 ET @ 319.82 MPH to the losing 3.813 ET @ 318.17 MPH. Although his day ended in a first round loss to Spencer Massey, Cory McClenathan made his 400th career Top Fuel start which is the most all-time!
The most anticipated race of the Funny Car class had to be the first round match-up between veteran John Force and his daughter, 23 year-old rookie Courtney Force. Like her sister Ashley did in her first race against dad in 2007, Courtney put him on the trailer with 4.146 ET @ 307.30 MPH while John got loose quickly and couldn't recover. Similar to what Brown did in Top Fuel, Mike Neff was able turn his #2 qualifying position into a trip to the finals for the second week in a row where he faced #8 qualifier and John Force Racing teammate Robert Hight. Neff eliminated Bob Bode (#15), Ron Capps (#10) and Jack Beckman (#6) and Hight eliminated Bob Tasca III (#9), Johnny Gray (#1) and Courtney Force (#12). They leave with almost identical reaction times (.084 RT for Neff to an .086 RT for Hight) and Hight runs a 4.139 ET @ 307.02 MPH to beat Neff who runs a 4.168 ET @ 309.91 MPH.
The Pro Stock class kept form with the other classes with an all-teammate battle in the final round. Jason Line qualified in the #2 spot and eliminated Jeg Coughlin (#15), Erica Enders (#7) and Greg Stanfield (#14) to make his first final round of the early season. Greg Anderson qualified in the #5 position and made his second trip to the finals with wins over Kurt Johnson (#12), Vincent Nobile (#4) and Rodger Brogdon (#9). In the finals, only one-hundreth of a second seperated the two and Line ran a 6.558 ET @ 211.69 MPH to beat his teammate who ran a 6.570 ET @ 211.06.
Jason Line, Antron Brown and Robert Hight celebrate their victories in Phoenix. (Photograph property of NHRA.com) |
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