Rod Fuller sits in an unfamiliar position after two rounds of qualifying for the 43rd annual Auto Club Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. The current NHRA points leader sits 18th in the Top Fuel order.
After the first two days of qualifying for the final event of the 2007 NHRA season, Fuller’s best pass in the Caterpillar dragster was a run of 4.643 seconds at 265.85 mph on Thursday afternoon at the historic Southern California drag strip. On Friday, the CAT-backed car dropped a cylinder and slowed to a pass of 8.642 seconds placing Fuller 18th in the 16-car order. There are 22 cars attempting to make the cut for this weekend’s race. The only time that Fuller wasn’t in the field after Friday was at the Sonoma, Calif. race in July. He moved from 18th to third on Saturday at Infineon Raceway.
“We have a ton of confidence, ” Fuller said. “We’ve just had a few gremlins. We had a mechanical malfunction on the first run and the motor broke at 1,000-foot. It was going to run a mid-4.50. We dropped a cylinder at the hit today and just missed the tune-up. Am I in panic mode, no. If we can’t make one good run in four attempts, we don’t deserve to be in and don’t deserve the championship. We’re not going to be down. We’ll come out tomorrow and get in. ”
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