Tim Boychuk (near lane) got the Top Fuel win over Bruce Litton.

“It was a great race. With our new body I have had a hard time seeing the front end of the car and when we went to stage the car I accidentally staged the bulb right away, which I did not want to happen,” Boychuk said.

“It threw me off a bit, but we waited for Bruce and we went in and made a run at it and it just went great.

“I knew the only way we could beat Bruce was with a holeshot because I felt he had a little bit of a superior car to ours so I knew I had to be on my game. Thank goodness it worked out for us.”

It was a step in the right direction for Boychuk who hadn’t even claimed a round win until two weeks ago in Dallas.

Struggling out of the gate, Boychuk started to turn the corner in Texas with the No. 1 qualifying spot and followed that up with a run through the Top Fuel later on Sunday to claim his third win in the last six races.

“Over the winter we missed a few things on the car that should have been done that weren’t done and it took us a few races to find those problems and fix them,” Boychuk said. “I think we have got rid of all those gremlins now and we are finally back.”

Sunday’s Top Fuel semifinals saw the most exciting pairings of the season as Litton battled Cox and Lagana took on Boychuk.

Boychuk, who has had nothing but trouble through the early portion of 2009, reached his first final of the year with a 4.931/257.78 win over Bobby Lagana Jr. (5.172/212.43) in the semis. Litton reached his third final of the year with a 4.805/305.49 win over Cox’s 6.153/141.40.

Litton (above) came into Sunday’s eliminations as the No. 1 qualifier and was one of the cars to beat all weekend long, rolling past points leader Cox and Todd Simpson to reach his third final in four tries.

Boychuk was right on Litton’s heels throughout the weekend, however, qualifying second and easily dispatching Lagana to reach his third career final round.