J.R. Todd drove his Lucas Oil Fuel Treatment Top Fuel dragster to a quarterfinal finish at the 28th annual Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway before being defeated by Doug Kalitta.
Todd beat one of his biggest adversaries and best friends in drag racing, Larry Dixon in his first round of eliminations by running a time of 3.964 seconds, 289.07 mph to Dixon’s very similar pass of 3.970 seconds, 304.39 in a great side-by-side race determined by only six-thousandths of a second (. 006). Both drivers had identical reaction times of. 073 making it one of the better races on the day.
Unfortunately, in the quarterfinals, Todd was unable to assist his teammate Morgan Lucas in his points efforts and was defeated by Doug Kalitta. Kalitta, at the time of the race, held down the No. 10 spot in the standings with Lucas in close pursuit in the No. 11 position, but now is only 13 behind to David Grubnic, who slipped a spot to now take over the No. 10 position.
Todd smoked the tires around the mid-track points allowing Kalitta a clear lane to the win light. The Lucas Oil driver ran a time of 4.980 seconds, 157.74 mph to Kalitta’s winning time of 3.968 seconds, 303.91 mph.
“Basically, we’ve stop thinking about making the Top 10 because our chances would be a long-shot at best, ” said a dejected Todd. “From this point on, we’re going to work on getting our consistency down and concentrating on winning races in helping Morgan along the way.
“It was on a real good run first round, but still spun the tires and put a cylinder or two out down track. The good thing is we’re going in the right direction and we’re getting help from Jimmy (Walsh, Lucas’ crew chief) and all he needs is more runs on Morgan’s car to receive the information for himself and us both. ”
Todd will remain in the No. 13 position in the Top Fuel points standings with 577 points after the completion of 16 races with only two races remaining for him to recover the deficit en route to a Countdown to the Championship berth.
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