Hot Rod Fuller raced his David Powers-owned Matco Tools dragster to the provisional No. 11 qualifying position Friday evening at Memphis Motorsports Park after clocking an elapsed time of 3.909-seconds.
Fuller’s Caterpillar dragster lost traction on Friday’s opening lap as the seven-time Top Fuel winner slowed to a pass of 4.211 seconds at 229.39 mph. On his second attempt of the opening day of qualifying at the O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals, Fuller used a tune-up from crew chief Rob Flynn to power the Caterpillar dragster to a lap of 3.909 at 292.96, placing the seven-time Top Fuel winner 11th in the order. Fuller’s car is flying the colors of Caterpillar dealers Riggs CAT, Louisiana Machinery and Thompson Machinery during the Memphis NHRA race. Fuller’s teammate, Antron Brown, qualified ninth on Friday at 3.871-seconds in the Matco Tools car.
“The car was on a great run and it popped the front air up pretty good,” Fuller said. “It was tough to get back in the groove. It had a .838 60-foot time and that gives us something to tune from. It would have run a lot quicker if I had kept it in the groove.”
Professional nitro qualifying resumes Saturday afternoon at Memphis Motorsports Park with sessions scheduled for Noon and 3 p.m. (CT). Fuller won his first career Top Fuel race at the Memphis race in 2005 (def. Tony Schumacher).
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