Hot Rod Fuller, sporting the colors of Australian Caterpillar dealers Hastings Deering and WesTrac on his dragster, drove his David Powers-owned car to the No. 11 qualifying position Thursday afternoon at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. The Las Vegas resident used an elapsed time of 3.944-seconds to post the 11th quickest lap of the day.
Fuller, who raced to his third final-round appearance of the season two weeks ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, used a tune-up from crew chief Rob Flynn to blast the Caterpillar car to a pass of 3.944 seconds at 302.28 mph to finish 11th in the 16-car order with three scheduled qualifying sessions remaining at the final race on the 2008 NHRA schedule. Fuller, who has qualified for 84 consecutive races – the second longest streak in Top Fuel (Tony Schumacher) – has an average qualifying position of 7.43 in 23 races this season. He won the St. Louis race in May, his seventh career win.
“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. We want to continue our performance from (Las) Vegas and come out and win this race on Sunday. We have a car that can do that.”
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