“I saw him out front early and he was in the corner of my eye all the way though the finish line. We didn’t change anything in our combination but the air conditions improved and it came to our tune-up.  We weren’t expecting to run near that fast but I knew it was on a pass when I saw more flame than usual from the pipes,” said Marriott.

Next up Donny McSwain and Mark Bowman lined up and McSwain was out first and took the win with a 4.01 at 180 mph to Bowman’s career-best pass with a 4.10 at 171 mph. Bowman put down three straight solid passes in the “Blown Income” car and the team deserves credit for that while McSwain surely wanted a little more out of his first round pass as he knew it would take a 3-second win to advance to the final, but he got the round win none the less! 

David Purifoy came out next along side Tom Butherus, who was inserted as an alternate for Todd Simpson. Butherus knew he had to get a jump on the tree, which is hard to do against Purifoy. Butherus went red but laid down a nice 4.53 at 163 mph to Purifoy’s winning 4.04 at 177 mph, a career best pass for Purifoy and the Herb Whisnant-owned, Bill Burns-tuned “Thrill Factor” team, who are now the 2010 OFAA points leaders with one event remaining.

Jimmy Jones

As first round of eliminations continued, Jimmy Jones and Donnie Massey crept into the beams. Jones searching for his third consecutive final round in his first three races with the OFAA series while Massey hoped to lay down another trouble free pass after a summer of struggles.  Jones got the jump and clicked off a career best 3.86 at 184 mph to take the win over Massey’s best pass of the night with a 3.96 at 184 mph, the second all three second pairing of the round. 

With one pair in the waterbox, Marriott and Jones looked to be guaranteed a spot in the final as Trussell and Leyda would both have to run career bests by over a tenth to claim a final round spot. Leyda got a huge jump on the line with a .023 reaction time and laid down a career best 4.05 at 177 mph in the Dale Wilkens-owned and =tuned “Hemi Hunter” but lost to Trussell’s career best 3.88 at 186 mph. A pair of career-best passes to close the first round as Trussell blows away his previous best – but, amazingly, he still wasn’t one of the quickest two winners as Marriott and Jones were set to pair up in the final round. 

A quick re-cap of first round sees that six of the ten cars clicked off career-best passes and Chris Trussell became the fourteenth member to join the OFAA 3-Second Club.