Connolly was happy about the weekend, especially since it comes in a part-time role, but he clearly wanted more.

"Being competitive, you always want to walk away with a Wally," Connolly said. "When you don't it definitely takes the wind out of your sails, even with a runner-up. But it's nothing to hold our heads about.

"It was fun. You try to take advantage of every time we get out here because my schedule is pretty limited these days. It got cut short in Charlotte and this will be the last one for a little bit. We were trying to take full advantage of it but it just didn't happen. It just wasn't meant to be."

Connolly normally serves as a crew chief with Tommy Utt on Erica Enders' KLR Group Chevrolet, and with both drivers on opposite sides of the ladder, they could have met in the finals. Alas, Enders' car slowed in her first-round loss because of a parts failure.

"That probably cost her making it to the finals," Connolly said. "Vincent got away with a red-light second round. If we could've been there to take advantage of that, it would've been a real good day for all of GK Motorsports."

Connolly returns to his role as crew chief for Enders next weekend at Atlanta Dragway for the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals on May 4-6. He is scheduled to drive again at Charlotte and Dallas later this year. And though he continues to be a part-time driver, he expects full-time results.

"I expect to go out there and do well," Connolly said. "We've got good power, and we've got Tommy Utt back over here. Even though we're experimenting a little bit with that car, we felt like we could hit the ground decent. To come out here and say you're going to qualify top four, that's a bold statement. I wouldn't have said that, by no means. That surprised us a little bit.

"I tried to do it round-by-round; I was hungry and drove decent today. It just wasn't enough."

Connolly is regarded as one of the best natural drivers in Pro Stock, but even he needed some work before coming to Houston. He was timed out in the first round in Charlotte in a controversial decision in the 4-Wide Nationals, his first time in a Pro Stocker this season. So he entered a bracket race at South Georgia Motorsports Park last weekend to work on his reaction times.

"I took a little refresher course last weekend," Connolly said. "I went down and got my butt kicked bracket racing. That whips you into shape pretty quick. Those guys are brutal. It certainly gets you back into a competitive mode."

For the fourth time in six races this season, Lucas Oil veteran drag racer Larry Morgan managed to upset a higher-ranked car in the opening round of sudden-death eliminations. However, the exuberance of knocking out hometown favorite and good friend Erica Enders was soon overshadowed by a second-round, red-light loss to a broken Vincent Nobile.

"I like taking down the big dogs," Morgan said. "But I need to figure out how to capitalize on these early-round wins and turn them into more win lights."

Slotted 11th on the qualifying sheets, Morgan used a .020-second starting advantage to get an early lead on the sixth-ranked Enders and then held off the hard-charging Houstonian to win with a 6.655 at 208.55 mph to Enders' 6.723 at 208.84 mph.

That set-up a second-round tilt against Nobile, but a -.045 second red-light start negated what would have been a winning 6.651 at 209.01 mph. Nobile only went a few feet under power before his car was out of control. Seeing the win light flashing in his lane, he smartly shut-off and coasted to a winning 15.277 at 55.65 mph

"We didn't run as good as we should have all weekend," Morgan said. "We get another big round win, which was really good, but then I turn right around and absolutely give one away right there against Vincent.

"I was bearing down at the start because I know how good he is on the Tree but I sure didn't feel like I left early. Just one of those racing things, dang it."