Massey, on the strength of a 3.771 pass at 316.82 mph, came out of the number-three-qualifying position en route to his third consecutive final-round appearance. He began Sunday’s final eliminations with a 3.783 run at 311.85 mph to defeat Dom Lagana, followed by a pass of 3.778 at 324.90 mph to top DSR teammate Tony Schumacher.

Rain and cold stopped the event following the Funny Car quarterfinals, which meant Massey would open today’s resumption of the event with a race against defending champion Larry Dixon. The Fort Worth native defeated Dixon with a 3.773 lap at 322.11 mph to set up the final-round match with Dixon’s teammate Worsham.

“Winning the last three rounds in this race was huge because they came against drivers who are right behind us in the Countdown,” explained Massey who has extended his lead in the title race to 65 points over DSR teammate Antron Brown. “We’ve been to three consecutive final rounds in the first three Countdown races and if we continue to do that (in the last three), I think we have a good shot at the championship.”

The Kenny Bernstein-owned Copart Top Fuel team remains sixth in NHRA Full Throttle point standings despite a nasty accident in the third round of Auto-Plus Nationals qualifying that left driver Brandon Bernstein shaken but unhurt.

(photos by Todd Dziadosz)

“We were running in the left lane alongside Doug Kalitta,” explained Brandon.  “At the 800-foot mark the left rear tire blew and took out the left element of the rear wing.  At this point the car became a handful and began to veer across the track.  We were trying to stay away from Doug as we passed behind him and at the same time, get the car slowed and stopped without slamming the wall. The safety mechanism worked when the wing was damaged and the parachutes deployed and helped scrub some speed.  Ultimately we got the car stopped but nudged the right-side wall with the front wing.

“The chassis was tweaked and damaged enough that we couldn’t race it, so we sat out the final qualifying round and the team worked their butts off to get a new car assembled for Sunday. As it turned out, the final round of qualifying was pretty historic in terms of quick times so we would like to have had a crack at the great racing conditions.  You never want to sit out a ‘dance’. You want to run every round, but it took an enormous effort by our team to plumb another chassis and get it race-ready. When Sunday came and we warmed up the car before first round, the adrenaline started flowing and we were ready to race.”

Bernstein met Tony Schumacher in the opening round of eliminations.  The Copart dragster lost traction at the hit of the throttle while Schumacher had a trouble-free run, taking the round win.