At the O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Int’l Raceway in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis, native Australian and NHRA fan-favorite Dave Grubnic made his fourth quarter-final round appearance in the seventh event of the 2007 POWERade Drag Racing Series Sunday.
Grubnic, driver of the black and electric blue, 8,000-horsepower Zantrex-3 Top Fuel dragster, qualified for Sunday’s 16-car Top Fuel eliminations field in the No. 5 spot, his best qualifying position of 2007. He defeated No. 12 qualifier Scott Palmer in round one, but it wasn’t a picture-perfect lap for either driver. Palmer’s rail had problems almost immediately after the start of the race and was not able to complete the race, stopping before half-track. Grubnic’s Zantrex-3 dragster experienced traction problems early in the run, but the venerable veteran Grubnic was able to get his rocket on wheels to recover to cross the finish line in 5.885 sec., at 309.34 mph.
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