{"id":16923,"date":"2018-06-11T16:15:33","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T20:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=16923"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:25:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:25:05","slug":"notes-quotes-virginia-nhra-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2018\/06\/notes-quotes-virginia-nhra-nationals.html","title":{"rendered":"Notes & Quotes: Virginia NHRA Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leah Pritchett, FireAde\/Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> Dodge Top Fuel Dragster<\/u>
\n(No. 5 Qualifier \u2013 3.830 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat run against Clay (Millican) was our redemption round for last week at Chicago. Our power source shut off down the track and the car started feeling erratic. I wasn\u2019t sure Clay red-lighted, so I stayed in it as long as I could, to make sure I got that win light, even though the car was acting up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was difficult about our loss in the second round is that there is nothing we would\u2019ve changed. For us, everything looked perfect. All of a sudden, to smoke at halftrack, that\u2019s not a typical thing. I knew we put in a really hot tuneup. And then for it to surprisingly smoke like that, it was eventful. For us, we\u2019re not letting it get us down even though we can\u2019t change the circumstance of what happened. We feel good about what we came to race with. Ultimately, that\u2019s going to set us up for championship contention, and we\u2019ll take a lot of character and morale to Bristol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Schumacher, U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster<\/u>
\n(No. 1 Qualifier \u2013 3.777 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was on a 77, 78 run and we spun the tires. There was no reason that far down the track to spin the tires. It was already through the clutch. And there\u2019s nothing we would\u2019ve done differently that could\u2019ve changed what happened. It\u2019s frustrating because we\u2019ve got an amazing U.S. Army car and we\u2019re running great. And it goes out there and it spins the tires on us on an amazing racetrack. We were on a great run, one that would\u2019ve won the round easily, low for the session. And it spins the tires, like it hits a bump where there isn\u2019t a bump. There are really only two explanations for it \u2013 I either drove through oil, or I drove through oil (laughs). And then we put a hole out and we lost by just a few feet at the line. It\u2019s frustrating, but we know we\u2019ve got a good car and sooner or later things are going to start going our way on Sundays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron Capps, NAPA Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car<\/u>
\n(No. 3 Qualifier \u2013 4.039 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what NHRA Drag Racing is. You just never know. As well as we qualified, we never thought that we even had a chance at smoking the tires. The car has been so solid. When you run Tim Wilkerson, you know that it\u2019s going to be a tough race. The car was running really well, and then it started slowly spinning the tires a little past halftrack and then slowly went into more tire smoke, and then I saw Wilkerson out next to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing the first pair out, we were pretty bummed. We feel like we beat ourselves. We didn\u2019t feel like the car was even going to be close to smoking the tires, but watching the rest of the Funny Car session that first round, it was really whoever could get down that track would win. The heat, the humidity; it was a tough first round.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Hagan, Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car<\/u>
\n(No. 11 Qualifier \u2013 4.088 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cVery, very tough weekend for Don Schumacher Racing. All four Funny Cars went out first round. We\u2019re still looking at the data. The car is responding to everything we\u2019re asking it to do. Talking to (crew chief) Dickie (Venables), I asked him if he was confident in everything we\u2019re doing, and he said he is. We just needed more data and more runs in these conditions to be able to fill in these graph sheets. Now that we have less glue and a different prep on the race track, we\u2019ve had to revamp how we run these cars. It\u2019s just taking more runs to get there. Some people are making some hero runs here and there, but really, no one has it totally figured out. We\u2019re really trying hard to get it pinned down to where we can get some more consistency and try and find some more downforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Beckman, Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car<\/u>
\n(No. 5 Qualifier \u2013 4.053 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only silver lining today is just about all of the other Funny Cars near us in points lost early. It is the \u2018upset nationals\u2019 here at Richmond. Did not see that coming. Never bet on a Funny Car race; qualifying doesn\u2019t matter, you don\u2019t race them on paper. Anybody can win on Sunday. We were picking away towards getting back to our optimal tune-up. We did not see (our car) going up there and throwing us a curveball. We will check the data and we can redeem ourselves in just a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tommy Johnson Jr., Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car<\/u>
\n(No. 10 Qualifier \u2013 4.083 ET)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a frustrating weekend. We were off a little bit all weekend. We actually feel good and confident with the new car. We\u2019re starting to figure it out. Heading into Bristol, it\u2019s one of our favorite tracks and we\u2019ve had a lot of success there. I think it\u2019s probably going to be a good weekend for the Make-A-Wish team.\u201d<\/p>\n

2018 NHRA Championship \u2013 Point Standings After Round 10 of 24<\/strong><\/p>\n

NHRA Funny Car<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Courtney Force \u2013 856<\/li>\n
  2. Jack Beckman, Dodge Charger R\/T \u2013 683<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Robert Hight \u2013 665<\/li>\n
  4. Matt Hagan, Dodge Charger R\/T \u2013 633<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. J.R. Todd \u2013 615<\/li>\n
  6. Ron Capps, Dodge Charger R\/T \u2013 576<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Tommy Johnson Jr., Dodge Charger R\/T \u2013 554<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. John Force – 468<\/li>\n
  9. Shawn Langdon \u2013 461<\/li>\n
  10. Cruz Pedregon \u2013 454<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    NHRA Top Fuel<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Steve Torrence \u2013 827<\/li>\n
    2. Clay Millican \u2013 719<\/li>\n
    3. Doug Kalitta \u2013 665<\/li>\n
    4. Tony Schumacher, Mopar Dodge HEMI\u00ae<\/sup> \u2013 641<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. Leah Pritchett, Mopar Dodge HEMI \u2013 639<\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. Antron Brown \u2013 530<\/li>\n
    7. Terry McMillen \u2013 521<\/li>\n
    8. Brittany Force \u2013 518<\/li>\n
    9. Richie Crampton \u2013 387<\/li>\n
    10. Scott Palmer – 383<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Leah Pritchett, FireAde\/Mopar\u00ae Dodge Top Fuel Dragster (No. 5 Qualifier \u2013 3.830 ET) \u201cThat run against Clay (Millican) was our redemption round for last week at Chicago. Our power source shut off down the track and the car started feeling erratic. I wasn\u2019t sure Clay red-lighted, so I stayed in it as long as I could, to make sure I got that win light, even though the car was acting up. \u201cWhat was difficult about our loss in the second round is that there is nothing we would\u2019ve changed. For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":16941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,849,615],"class_list":["post-16923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-dsr","tag-nhra"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/thumbnail-2-1.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16923"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59124,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16923\/revisions\/59124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}