Toliver Qualifies No. 3 at NHRA Fall Nationals at Dallas

CANIDAE Racing Team Continues Late-Season Surge with Best Qualifying Effort of the Season

Turning in their best qualifying effort of the season, Jerry Toliver and the Jim Dunn Racing team continued to make late-season gains by qualifying No. 3 on the Funny Car grid for tomorrow's eliminations at the 24th annual O'Reilly Super Start Batteries NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex. In yesterday's night session Toliver drove the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil/WileyX Chevy to the third-quickest elapsed time at 4.163 seconds at 302.55 mph. His speed was second only to pole-sitter Robert Hight who qualified No. 1 with a 4.109 e.t. at 305.46 mph. With today's hotter track conditions no drivers were able to improve on their times from Friday and Toliver held on for his best starting position on the season.

"How about that, No. 3," Toliver said. "I said coming into this race that we just needed to do a little better job getting this CANIDAE car to leave off of the starting line, and that has come around nicely this weekend. Everything's going in the right direction. I'm really pleased with the speed we ran last night and the way we got down the racetrack.

"It was really hot out there today but we still learned something. When the track gets hot like today, the clutch wants to lock up and shock the tires, so we just need to calm it down a little with the tune-up."

Toliver will face No. 14 qualifier Jeff Arend in the first round for the second time in the last three races. The CANIDAE Funny Car pilot will look to reverse his first-round loss to Arend at Indy at the U.S. Nationals.

"We face Jeff Arend in the first round and we're fighting for a position in the points, so it should be a lot of fun," Toliver said. "I'm really excited about the way the CANIDAE car is running. Jim's (team owner/crew chief Dunn) got this in a window right now that whenever he makes a move on it, whenever he does something the car is responding which is a huge thing. A lot of times you pick a spot where the car just doesn't respond to what you're doing, but right now the car is doing what he's telling it to do and I feel pretty good about it."

Kirk Weeks