Top Fuel points leader Cory McClenathan earned two bonus qualifying points right out of the box in Friday’s first qualifying session, by posting the second quickest pass of that round, a stout 3.953-second elapsed time at 303.71 mph.
His ensuing laps driving the Valvoline Engine Guarantee/FRAM Tough Guard Top Fuel dragster first produced a quicker 3.878/315.86 on Friday night, which placed him fifth, then were followed up with a 3.985/303.43 and a 4.024/296.05, keeping “Cory Mac” in fifth position to the finish.
“We’re going to A to B, but it hasn’t been the prettiest thing,” he said. “We know it’s unhappy right now. I feel almost like last weekend (where he said the same thing on Saturday, then went on to win the Concord, N.C., event).
“Thanks to our Friday night session we got the No. 5 spot. It ran OK on the third round. We were trying to do about the same thing on this last one - run some kind of high .90 - and it ran a 4.02, putting out a cylinder early.
“(Crew chiefs) Todd (Okuhara) and Phil (Shuler) will figure it out by race day tomorrow. The good news is we are going down the track, which is a lot more than some of these guys can say out here, so we’ll take it one at a time.”
McClenathan faces Doug Kalitta in the opening round of Sunday’s Top Fuel eliminations.
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