Hot Rod Fuller drove his David Powers-owned Caterpillar dragster to a first-round finish Sunday morning at Texas Motorplex after qualifying the HOLT CAT dragster ninth at the 23rd annual O’Reilly Fall Nationals. The Caterpillar team ranks seventh in the Countdown to 1 standings.
Fuller was paired up against rival and the hottest driver on the NHRA circuit in five-time series champion Tony Schumacher, who qualified eighth. The seven time Top Fuel winner, including the St. Louis race this May, used a solid reaction time, but his HOLT CAT car overpowered the Texas Motorplex quarter mile and slowed to a run of 4.374 seconds at 230.72 mph. The Alan Johnson-tuned rail won its 29th consecutive round with a lap of 3.898 at 312.37. This was Fuller’s 90th career Top Fuel race. He now has qualified for 81 consecutive races and has a round-record of 23-19 this year. Fuller has not advanced the second round of eliminations since the Seattle race in July.
“The championship is pretty much over, so we have to now focus on winning race,” Fuller said. “That’s what this is all about and that’s winning races. We need to start qualifying better. We’re going to Memphis where we’ve done well in the past. We got our first win there and had the pole two years ago.”
The next NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event is the 21st annual O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals, Sept. 26-28, at Memphis Motorsports Park. Fuller won the Memphis NHRA race in 2005 (def. Schumacher). It was his first career Top Fuel win.
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