Lucas, Capps, Stanfield and Hines Top NHRA St. Louis Qualifying
Morgan Lucas, Ron Capps, Greg Stanfield and Andrew Hines take No. 1 positions in their respective NHRA categories heading into eliminations on Sunday at 11:00 a. m.
Courtesy: NHRA Media Relations
LUCAS TAKES NO. 1 QUALIFIER AT GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY; CAPPS, STANFIELD, HINES ALSO NO. 1 AFTER QUALIFYING
MADISON,
ILL – Morgan Lucas continues his hot streak as he took the top spot in
Top Fuel at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway
International Raceway on Saturday.
Two qualifying sessions took
to the track on Saturday after rain cancelled qualifying for all
classes except for Pro Stock Motorcycle on Friday. This is the seventh
of 24 events in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
Ron
Capps, Greg Stanfield and Andrew Hines also take No. 1 positions in
their respective categories into eliminations on Sunday at 11:00 a. m.
Lucas
wheeled his GEICO/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster to a pass of 3.881
seconds at 299.46 mph. This is his first No. 1 qualifier of the year,
the third of his career, and comes off of his win at Atlanta.
“It
feels great to keep the momentum going. You never want to have
something really big happen and then just fail the next week miserably,
you always want to do the best you can,” said Lucas. “Its not making
big changes, not doing anything radical and getting ourselves lost,
staying down the path we’ve been going down.”
In Funny Car, Capps, a
three time GIR winner, finds himself atop the field in his NAPA Auto
Parts Dodge Charger R/T with a 4.111-second pass at 297.02 mph to take
the top spot. It's Capps’s 9th career No. 1 qualifier and the second of
this season.
“For a while number one always felt like you were a
little bit jinxed going into Sunday and it didn’t really matter as long
as you were top four and had lane choice,” stated Capps. “The more
impressive thing was to be rained out yesterday and have Ed McCulloch
put me into a car that ran 4.11 in both lanes.”
Stanfield posted the quickest time in the Pro Stock category, as he
piloted his Attitude Apparel Pontiac GXP, to a run of 6.573 at 210.37.
This was the first No. 1 qualifying position for Stanfield since the
2006 race in Reading, PA.
“Usually for our team if we
lose two runs it is trouble for us. We ran good in Atlanta and
conditions are pretty similar which helped us a lot,” said Stanfield
following the qualifying session. “Losing two runs probably helped us
because there are some other teams that are stronger than us so maybe
it played in our favor.”
Hines was the leader of the
Pro Stock Motorcycle field and also set a new national elapsed time
record with his pass of 6.860 seconds at 192.14. This was the third
top qualifying position of the year for Hines and the 25th of his
career.
“It was really going in the first eight-mile and
after that it really sailed through there and had enough momentum to
carry on through and get that number,” said Hines. “It really didn’t
feel that fast and I didn’t know anything until people called me up and
said number one qualifier”
Eliminations begin Sunday at 11 a.m.