Terry McMillen (Ron Lewis photo)

Terry McMillen, drove his AMALIE Motor Oil XTERMIGATOR NHRA Top Fuel Dragster to a second round win in as many races. The win marked McMillen’s 125th NHRA start and solidifies the team’s career best start. McMillen leaves Phoenix ninth in points.

McMillen took advantage of the 15-car field and used his four qualifying session to continue testing different tuneups on his dragster. “We’re still working hard on our early numbers and Rob (Wendland, crew chief) and I wanted to try a few different things,” McMillen said. “We’re getting closer and closer to the setup we want. We’ve still got a little work to do, but I’m pretty sure no one wants to run us first round right now.”

McMillen took out the points leader Steve Torrence in first round action when he posted a 3.840 to Torrence’s 3.851 elapsed time.

“The XTERMIGATOR had its tongue hanging out a little on that run,” McMillen explained. “The car was going to run a .80, but we ate up a piston on the big end. The pan pressure switch did its job and shut the motor off. I’m still not sure if I like that - I mean it probably saved us a motor in that situation, but it almost cost us that round. If I could have got my feet through the floorboard I was going to break out the Fred Flintstones and start running to the finish line. Steveo (Steve Torrence) has a good hotrod right now and I didn’t want to give him any chance to go around us.”

Steve Torrence picked the worst time to make his slowest run Sunday when his early exit from the competition cost him the Mello Yello point lead. After qualifying third at 3.766 seconds, the Capco Contractors dragster slowed to a 3.851 in the opening round against McMillen, moving him to second in the points. (Ron Lewis photo)