Toliver Anxious to Get Back on Track at Norwalk

This weekend's third annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Motorsports gives Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver the perfect remedy for what ails the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil Chevy - laps down the track. He and his Jim Dunn Racing teammates look to take the positive from a challenging race weekend at Englishtown (N.J.) two weeks ago and continue to work on getting the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil car consistently down the track, starting at the Bader family-owned quarter-mile in Norwalk.

"Breaking in a new clutch system on what is essentially a new car is not something that is fixed overnight," Toliver said. "We just need laps on this CANIDAE car. Unfortunately, at Englishtown, we were probably just two laps behind the entire weekend. The upside of it and looking at the glass half full, we have our last lap from eliminations at Englishtown as a good lap, and we should have something to start down the hot track at Norwalk with, get down the track and improve on. That's the upside of our last race."

Despite some challenges in qualifying, Toliver has made solid passes in eliminations at the last three or four races and looks for continued improvement in the CANIDAE car's performance.

"It's a slow process, but we're narrowing in on our window, so to speak, and I think we're ready to see some good performance out of this CANIDAE car," Toliver said. "It's just a matter of time. We're still testing and getting this thing figured out, and we've had a couple of setbacks, but that happens to everybody sometime. It's just a matter of keeping your head down and keeping on running.

"It's been challenging, that's for sure, but when you're starting with a brand new car with no preseason testing, it's going to take time. I think we're finally narrowing it down and have eliminated some of the other variables that have hurt our performance. Everything is working and responding, so that's the good thing. Now it's just a matter of sneaking up on it a little bit quicker."

A two-hour telecast of qualifying coverage for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals can be seen on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD on Saturday, June 27, beginning at 8:00 p.m. (ET). Coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD continues on Sunday, June 28, when NHRA Race Day will kick off eliminator coverage starting at 12:00 noon (ET), and concludes with three hours of final-eliminations coverage beginning at 7:00 p.m. (ET).

Kirk Weeks