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Millican Takes Third Consecutive IHRA Top Fuel Victory |
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STANTON, Mich. - Clay Millican driving the Werner Enterprises Top Fuel dragster tuned by Mike Kloeber took a huge step towards winning the IHRA/Summit Top Fuel World Championship with a third straight win. The defending Pro Mod World championship team of Jim Oddy and Fred Hahn, former Pro Funny Car champ Jimmy Rector, and another past Champion in Pro Stock Tommy Lee also found themselves in the final round. Millican, 35, of Drummond, Tenn., defeated veteran Jim Head of Columbus, Ohio in a side-by-side run that evaporated when Head smoked the tires at three-quarter track and Millican drove to the win with a 4.812/305.08 to Head's 5.198/273.27. The Top Fuel field once again had the minimum number of entries and if it weren't for the return of legendary driver "Pontiac" Jack Ostrander to IHRA Top Fuel competition there would have been only seven cars in Top Fuel at the Michigan event. In qualifying for the event it extended Ostrander's streak of running at least one IHRA event a year to sixteen.
Ed Hoover, who has been running Pro Modified since the inception of the class and in fact was Pro Modified's first-ever national event winner, was the winner over defending National Champ Fred Hahn, another racer who has been involved in Pro Modified since its inception. Although Hoover had been deadly consistent during eliminations, the resurgent Summit-backed Jim Oddy team had been the quickest car in almost every round of eliminations. "It was my fault," Oddy told DRO about the second-place finish. "I
knew that Hoover would be tough and I was trying to rotate the earth.
It shook the tires and Fred had to shut it off."
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