Jerry Toliver wore a satisfied, albeit tired smile Sunday afternoon at the Fairplex in Pomona. He qualified 11th, defeated Kenny Bernstein in the first round and lost a close race to eventual Funny Car winner Robert Hight in the quarterfinals of the season-ending Auto Club Finals.
It was the kind of performance he coveted for most the past few months and the showing provided a big confident boost for Toliver’s ROCKSTAR Energy Drink/AutoZone Toyota Solara Funny Car team as it begins its three-month hiatus.
“I’ve said all along that we started late and it took us a long time to catch the group, ” said Toliver. “These are all professional teams. Imagine the New York Yankees not going to spring training with any players and then pick from the players that are left in the league and come out and fight with the other teams. You are way behind, even if you had the players, you still aren’t in shape or ready to go.
“I’m proud of this team. The car performed like a bracket car this weekend. We made it down the track on five our six laps within three-hundredths of a second. We have a good program going into next year and we have a crew that works together and can accomplish the goals we need to. It gives us a big boost. We can start with everyone else . .. we can practice and we can test and come out fighting. ”
Toliver had solid qualifying runs of 4.869, 4.852 and 4.820 seconds, the latter 11th quickest. On Sunday, he ousted Kenny Bernstein in the first round – 4.871 at 322.34 mph to 4.915 at 316.75 – in the battle of energy drinks before squaring off against Hight. Toliver was timed in 4.839 seconds, 323.58 mph to 4.796 at 319.29.
“So the end result was that it was a big day for ROCKSTAR, ” said Toliver. “ We are looking good going into next year. We have a good handle on the race car. ”
| 
|