FUNNY CAR
“It’s unbelievable. It’s always been a dream of mine to win at this race track since I’ve been driving. I actually have been at every event contested here, every national event. I was coming to the races as a spectator before I ever got a job working on the crew,” said the former JFR clutch mechanic. “Just to work on a car, it didn’t matter whose car it was would have been great. My favorites were always Kenny Bernstein and John Force and I’d always hang out at their trailers. I knew that I could do that job.”
“To finally get a chance to do the job for John, to work on his car for a lot of years and now to drive one of the best Funny Cars in the nation is like a dream come true. I grew up in Northern California. This would be the closest race track to where I used to live,” added Hight.
Melanie Troxel
Troxel’s Funny Car lost traction past the 330-foot mark and spun the tires, opening the door for Jerry Toliver to get the round win in 4.156 seconds at 299.60 mph. Troxel finished in 4.986 seconds at 176.72 mph.
“It was probably going to be a pret ty decent run, but I let the car get out of the groove and it smoked the tires,” lamented Troxel, who is 14th, 509 points. “It’s funny. Sometimes you feel like you are in a hole and no matter what you do, you can’t get back out."
“Unfortunately, that probably ends our hopes of getting into the top 10, but I think we have a lot of season left. We need to definitely keep working on growing as a team and making sure we are exactly where we need to be for the beginning of next year.”
Del Worsham
"I just want to win, you know, and as much as I'd like to outrun a guy like Robert, or maybe even beat him on a hole-shot, the truth is I'd take a win-light any way I could get one. Over the course of a season, especially a good year, you usually win a lot of those imperfect races, the ones where you don't run perfect but the other guy has worse issues than you do. Teams like Robert's just don't leave the door open very often, and they didn't even let it open a crack today. We ran great, but we lost. That's just the way it is. It's reality, but I don't have to like it."
Jack Beckman
Beckman is now 42 points ahead of 11th-place Bob Tasca III and just 54 markers out of ninth. Only three national events remain before the Countdown to the Championship for the top 10 in points kicks in following the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis.
"What happened was that Gary Densham had a better tune-up in his car again," said Beckman. "That's the second weekend in a row he's got us. We beat him in Denver and he unfortunately returned the favor times two in the next two races.
"I still thought we had him. It started spinning the tires down there and it was too far down track to pedal it, so I just legged it and let it spin and he got around us at about 800 feet (of the 1000-foot race track).If we can keep doing this for the next three races we'll be fine, but we need to win one of the next three races and know that we're going to take care of our own fate."
Ron Capps
"This points thing is going to tighten up and I think if we keep going the way we've been going - other than this weekend - and keep up the momentum into Brainerd, Reading and so on, we're going to be OK in the points," he said. "That's all we've got to do. And we have to really hope our teammates get in as well. Currently, besides Beckman, his other DSR Funny Car partners Gary Scelzi and Jerry Toliver are 13th and 15th, respectively.
Gary Scelzi
"It ate a clutch disk and it slowed down. It should have run 4.12 or better," explained the four-time NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series world champion and Fresno, Calif., native. "Even at that, Wilkerson's 4.10 was pretty stout. It's hard to play ball when you have to run a hitter like that, but it happens. So, I guess were off to Brainerd.Our chances of getting into the top 10 are getting slimmer and slimmer," he added.