Bernstein was paired with David Grubnic in the semis, and the MAVTV car made it through warmup without issue but after the burnout the team discovered a small leak in the fuel system and had to push the car off the starting line. It was discovered back at the pits that the fuel line had been rubbing up against something inside the car, and wore through during the burnout.

"And of course to add insult to injury, Dave smoked the tires on his run," Bernstein said. "I knew that was coming."

JR Todd (near lane) and Steve Torrence during qualifying. Todd qualified at #8, but lost in the first round to Doug Kalitta. Torrence was #2 with a 3.801/320/51. He got past Hillary Will in the first round, but met Grubnic in the next and that was a day.

FUNNY CAR

It was an all DSR final round in Funny Car when Jack Beckman in the Valvoline NextGen Dodge Charger R/T used a near perfect reaction time and holeshot to beat teammate Ron Capps in the NAPA BRAKES Dodge.

No trophy likely means as much as the Wally Beckman won Sunday. The championship round produced the 13th meeting between DSR Funny Car teams, and Beckman knew he had to take a wild shot if he wanted to beat teammate Ron Capps and the NAPA Brakes team.

Capps was racing in his fourth straight championship round and had won the last event two weeks ago near Atlanta. It was the fourth event since team owner Don Schumacher switched two of his four Funny Car teams that paired Beckman with veteran Todd Smith, who was hired to join the organization in early April.

"We knew that NAPA car with (crew chief) Rahn Tobler goes down the track every run, and it's one of the fastest every run," said Beckman. "When we saw him run 4.12 in the semifinals we knew we couldn't run that and risk smoking the tires. Todd said let's put a 4.15 in (our car) and I took a shot at the starting line."