A lengthy staging duel ensued when both drivers lit their pre-stage lights, but after nearly a minute Burgess finally spooled up his twin turbos—and left before the tree was activated, throwing away a 5.86 at 251.77-mph pass that would have set low ET and top speed of the meet—while Ray stumbled to a tire-spinning 8-second win. Also notable was the upset of Janis by Troxel in the opening round.

(Ian Tocher photo)

Sunday’s second round of eliminations had Rickie Smith racing past Ray, Castellana beating Kenny Lang, Troy Coughlin taking out Troxel, and Hoover making his quickest pass of the weekend at 5.94 seconds while handing Balooshi just his second round loss of the year after the Qatar-based driver got loose by half-track.

In the semis, Castellana slowed to a 6.23, but caught a big break as Coughlin was shut off on the starting line by NHRA officials when they spotted his turbo-boosted, small-block-Chevy-powered ’07 GTO spitting oil. Coughlin team members later confirmed the oil was coming from an overflow tank. In the second semi-final pairing, Hoover ran 6.01 to earn lane choice while Smith blew the tires off early in his run. Smith later explained he’d installed a new mechanical fuel pump immediately before the semis.