Spencer Massey had high hopes of returning his FRAM-Prestone Top Fuel Dragster team to the winner's circle when he arrived at Heartland Park Topeka.
But after his team battled through four qualifying sessions, Massey was not thinking about defending the title he won a year ago. He was just content to make it into Sunday's eliminations.

He qualified 13th among 16 drivers. The team started Sunday with three wins in the first seven events and nearly made it four.

While a tricky racing surface that started cool for the first round then warmed throughout the afternoon stymied some teams, Don Schumacher Racing's FRAM/Prestone team and crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler were able to advance to the championship round.

"To be honest, we were happy to get by the first round racing a tough car like Shawn (Langdon) after how we struggled in qualifying," said Massey, who regained the championship points lead in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. "You always want to win, but we were pretty happy with how the weekend turned out. We went to another final round and moved back to first in points."

Massey moved around teammate Tony Schumacher, who dropped to second. DSR's Antron Brown, who like Schumacher lost in the second round, holds on to third.

"We got our race car back today to where we want it to be on race day and that gives us confidence going into Englishtown in two weeks. We did pretty well there last year. We'll get 'em next time."

In the first round win over Langdon, Massey posted the fourth fastest run in NHRA history at 329.10 mph that ranks only behind his two passes at over 330 mph and the milestone 330 by Schumacher at Concord, N.C. in April. The 329-mph speed was top speed of the meet at Topeka.

After turning his season around in Atlanta, Brandon Bernstein and the MAVTV/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster reached the semfinals for the second race in a row, before a fuel line break after the burnout ended Bernstein's day.

"It's unfortunate because the MAVTV car ran so great all weekend," Bernstein said. "We really thought this was our weekend and we had the car to beat. It's just unfortunate it happened when it did. It could have just as easily happened at any point during the weekend.

"It's really disappointing and unfortunate that it happened when it did. We wanted a win."