Canidae Racing Team Making Early-Season Strides as NHRA Full Throttle Series Heads to Gainesville

The 2009 NHRA Full Throttle season is only two races old, but Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver likes the direction the Jim Dunn Racing team is going with his Canidae/Lucas Oil Chevy Funny Car as they prepare for this weekend's 40th annual ACDelco NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.  He has qualified for both the rain-shortened season opener at Pomona (Calif.) and at Phoenix where a solid 4.122-second, 302.08 mph lap placed him 10th on the grid for Sunday's eliminations at Firebird Raceway.

  

"We're pretty happy with the progress we're making here early in the season," Toliver said.  "We're just taking small steps at a time as we try and get better.  You have to keep in mind, this is a brand-new car and this team has a brand-new driver, so we're going to get better with each lap we make.

"You could see that in Phoenix when Jim (team owner/crew chief Dunn) hit the tune-up in qualifying and we ran a 4.12 at 302.  That just shows you how well versed he is in tuning these Funny Cars.  Even though we lost first round, we are a lot closer than it might look.  We could be a lot farther off the mark, but we're definitely in the window and have something to work with."

The veteran Toliver scored his second win of the season here at Gainesville in 2000 when he defeated Dean Skuza, Tony Pedregon and Todd Paton before besting Ron Capps in a final-round battle of Camaros for career win No. 3.

I love going to the Gatornationals," Toliver said.  "I mean, it's one of the two or three really big, historic races we have on our schedule, along with maybe Pomona and Indy.  The weather's always nice, there's just a huge turnout the entire weekend and the fans are great.  

"I was fortunate enough to win here in 2000 when I beat Ron Capps in the final round.  In fact, I've been fortunate enough to win at Pomona and Gainesville both, so that's two of maybe the three biggest races we have.  It would be great to add Gainesville to the resume a second time this weekend.  We're looking forward to it."

A two-hour telecast of qualifying coverage for the ACDelco NHRA Gatornationals can be seen on ESPN2 on Sunday, March 15, beginning at 2:00 a.m. (ET).  Coverage on ESPN2 continues on Sunday, March 15, when NHRA Race Day will kick off eliminator coverage starting at 11:30 a.m. (ET), and concludes with three hours of final eliminations coverage beginning at 3:00 p.m. (ET).

Kirk Weeks