Friday Qualifying

A case can be made that it is harder to qualify for an NHRA J&A Services Pro Mod series race than to win it. That thought was born out by the qualifying battle at Houston. Friday’s first qualifying round demonstrated how serious the racers were when Rickie Smith re-set the RPM ET record for nitrous-injected cars and Jonathan Gray, current ET and speed record holder for the turbocharged class, ran 257+ on a pass that saw his left rear slick explode just after he stepped off of the throttle crossing the finish line and damage his car beyond repair.

At the end of the first round of qualifying 15 of the 16 provisional qualifiers had ET’s in the 5-second range and one of the top qualifiers was already on the trailer done for the weekend.

The second qualifier on Friday was better than the first. With just five pairs left Troy Coughlin in his turbocharged ‘Vette charged to a 5.798/255.92 that tied Smith’s first round ET but was five mph faster than Smith and that got him the number one spot.