Hot Rod Fuller, sporting the colors of Caterpillar’s Undercarriage Division on his dragster, drove his David Powers-owned car to the provisional No. 6 qualifying position Friday evening at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Las Vegas resident used an elapsed time of 3.863-seconds to post the sixth quickest lap of the day.
Fuller, the defending event champion of the ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals, opened qualifying by racing his Rob Flynn-tuned rail to a pass of 3.939 seconds at 303.64 mph to finish sixth after the first of four scheduled qualifying attempts. The seven-time Top Fuel winner then powered the CAT Undercarriage rail to a performance of 3.863 at 313.44 to remain sixth in the 16-car order. There are 22 dragsters attempting to make the field at the eighth annual ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals. The hometown hero looks to qualify for his 84th consecutive race on Saturday. It is the second longest qualifying streak in Top Fuel (Tony Schumacher). Fuller, who won the St. Louis race in May, has qualified sixth once this season (Englishtown, N.J.). He qualified seventh at the spring Las Vegas race in April.
“This was a good start to the weekend,” Fuller said. “We don’t have anything to lose, so we’re just going to go out and have fun and race. It was like the old days being the last pair on Friday night. We didn’t go as quick as we wanted to, but we’re in the show and we can work on that race day setup on Saturday. We don’t have to worry about the (Top Fuel) Shootout this year, so our focus is on winning this race again and defending our championship.”
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