Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver leaves this weekend's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals with a lot of positive reinforcement despite his first-round loss to 14-time Funny Car champ John Force. He matched his best qualifying effort of the season. He posted the second-fastest speed at more than 280 mph through the four rounds of qualifying. And the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil Chevy is responding when the Jim Dunn Racing team asks it to.
"We continue to make gains, and we made great strides this weekend," Toliver said. "This CANIDAE car is leaving, it's reacting. Our 60-foot time is good, and our speed at 280 mph was the second-best in qualifying. That tells you that we're getting there. Now we have to learn to race the racetrack, learn to go out there on race day and go some rounds, but it doesn't happen over night."
In his fourth match-up with Force this season, Toliver in the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil Chevy hazed the tires just past halftrack and slowed to a 4.583-second elapsed time at 201.61 mph as Force made the second-quickest pass of the first round with a 4.268 e.t. at 280.89.
"I said two or three races ago that we've been working on a new clutch program and that it was slowly coming together," Toliver said. "You just can't take big bites. You'd love to. You'd love to go out there and say oh yeah, let's just change that and make it happen right away, but it just doesn't work that way. There are so many variables with what we do out here, what Jim (team owner/crew chief Dunn) has to do, it's amazing. It's small baby steps, but I think we made some giant steps this weekend."
Next stop on the 24-race NHRA Full Throttle Drag Series is the first leg of the three-race Western Swing, the 30th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Denver, Colo., from July 10-12.
Kirk Weeks
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