MILLINGTON, Tenn. – Native Australian Dave Grubnic, driver of the bright yellow, Nitro-fueled, 8,000-horsepower DHL Top Fuel dragster, enters this weekend’s, Sept. 26-28, annual running of the O’Reilly NHRA Mid-South Nationals in Millington, Tenn., just a few miles north of downtown Memphis, knows it’s a long way to the top, but he and his team are ready to flick the switch at Memphis Motorsports Park.
At the previous NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event in Dallas, Grubnic and the DHL dragster team suffered their first failure to qualify for eliminations of the year. The setback placed the team 272 points away from the POWERade championship points leader, but the ever-affable Aussie is not ready to give up on his 2008 championship hopes just yet.
“We’re down, but we’re not out yet,” Grubnic, a 46-year old resident of Ennis, Mont., “That’s what’s so great about NHRA drag racing. We could string together two or three wins here at the end and have a chance. You just never know. Our DHL car is capable of running stellar numbers every time we pull up to the line, so I would never, ever count us out.”
Grubnic is in 10th place in points and in the NHRA Countdown to 1 postseason. Including Memphis, there are four events remaining in the 2008 Countdown to the Championship.
Grubnic achieved the first No. 1 qualifier position of his 14-year Top Fuel career at Memphis Motorsports Park in 1999.
In early 2004, Grubnic was hired to drive for legendary team owner Connie “the Bounty Hunter” Kalitta and Kalitta Motorsports. In the fall of ‘04, Grubnic won the lucrative and coveted Budweiser Shootout in Las Vegas, becoming only the fourth driver in the special event’s history to win its $100,000 prize in his first attempt. Grubnic picked up an emotional first NHRA national event win in May, 2005 in Topeka, Kans., to become the first non-native North American to win a Top Fuel trophy. He has one other event victory to date, the 2006 running of the famed Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.
Native Canadian Jeff Arend, driver of the Nitro-fueled DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car, is hoping that a caress of steel on the DHL flopper this weekend in the Bluff City will cast the limelight upon him and his team with a trip to the MMP winner’s circle.
“Our DHL Funny Car just keeps making better and better laps,” Arend, a 46-year old resident of San Dimas, Calif., said. “We qualified strong (9th) in Dallas and made a good lap in the first round, even though we came up on the losing end.”
“We just keep tweaking small things on the DHL car, and it’s responding how we expect it to almost every single time we adjust something, so that’s a big step in the right direction of getting some round wins and hopefully picking up a Wally (trophy) before the end of the year.”
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