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Apr 14, 2024

NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals Hosted In Minnesota

The Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway is the 14th event on the schedule. Coming up next, over the Labor Day Weekend, is the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA US Nationals at Indy. The

The Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway is the 14th event on the schedule. Coming up next, over the Labor Day Weekend, is the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA US Nationals at Indy.

The Brainerd event normally showcases very strong performances, but like most of the season, the weather had a say in things. The first two days of qualifying were drastically different than what the teams would see on race day. This threw the crew chiefs a lot of twists and turns, creating a situation that made it look like two completely different events on the same weekend. Unexpected oil down, due to a damaged engine in the second round of qualifying, caused that second round to be postponed. This was due to the time it took to get the track cleaned up with respect to evening darkness setting in. The track facility has no night track lighting and a 6:30 p.m. curfew. But, by Saturday everything was back to normal and qualifying was completed. On Sunday, eliminations, everything was different, but, pleasantly better. With regard to tuning the race cars, the conditions had become almost optimal. But this great opportunity also brought some upsets along the way, as not every team would properly take advantage of the better tuning conditions, playing it conservative, instead of being aggressive enough. Series Point contenders, Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel), Matt Hagan (Funny Car point leader) and JR Todd (second in Funny Car) all fell as upset victims. Mike Salinas had the fans take notice, when he recorded the low elapse time of the event in the second round with a 3.654 at (new track speed record) 338.26 mph. This placed him on the top-ten Top Fuel speed list at #3, with Brittany Force still maintaining the other nine positions on the list, including #1 and #2.

In Top Fuel, point leader Justin Ashley qualified #1 in the shaky weather conditions, but stumbled during eliminations as they tried to regain their performance levels. Antron Brown and his team quickly adapted to the better conditions, taking out Shawn Langdon, Steve Torrence and Mike Salinas in his march to the final round. On the other side of the ladder, Leah Pruett got past Tony Schumacher, Brittany Force and Justin Ashley to get to the final round. In a rematch of an event at the same track, six years earlier, Brown evened the score. He left first and drove away to a 3.715 at 326.08 mph to 3.7547 at 331.12 mph win. With the win, he moved ahead of Brittany Force into the third spot in the series point standings.

In Funny Car, Ron Capps was on a mission. The mission was to take over the series point lead by Indy in Funny Car. And that became a possibility, after Hagan went out in the opening round of eliminations. Capps, who had qualified #1 with a 3.894 second elapse time, had about the most consistent car in the category, as he marched into the final round. His opponent, Robert Hight, has been getting his performance level back up to his normal standard, as he got past Bobby Bode, Dave Richards and John Force to get to the final round. Capps needed to win the event to move to the top of the point battle and win he did. Capps left first and drove away from Hight with a 3.887 at 332.,75 mph to 3.900 at 324.90 mph performance.

Dallas Glen came into the event with a career season going. He had the most wins in the category (three) and was the point leader. His car was very consistent during the season and his driving of the race car was very consistent. He qualified sixth, but quickly found his performance level after eliminations start under the better weather conditions. He took out Jerry Tucker, Erica Enders and Aaron Stanfield as he marched into the final round, where he would take on Kyle Koretsky. He and Koretsky, along with Greg Anderson and Camrie Caruso, are all teammates on Titan Motorsports. Each team shares the shop and tuning information, but they all race as individuals. Koretsky had taken out Caruso, Anderson and Matt Hartford along the way. In the final, Koretsky reacted first but, his car suffered extreme tire shake, forcing him to abort the run. He then could only watch as Glen streaked to his fourth win of the season and eighth of his career, with a 6.556 at 207.56 mph pass.

Next event is the NHRA US Nationals, for the final event of the regular season before the points are reset for the six-event Countdown to the Championship.