CANIDAE Racing NHRA Funny Car Team Returns to Track at Las Vegas

Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver and the Jim Dunn-owned CANIDAE Racing team will join their NHRA Full Throttle Series peers in making a return trip to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for this weekend's ninth annual NHRA Las Vegas Nationals. The premier drag racing series made a stop at The Strip earlier this season in April and returns for the 23rd of 24 races on its schedule.

"What's not to like about going to Las Vegas?" Toliver asked. "It's another first-class, Bruton Smith-owned track in a great city. And it looks like it's going to be cool there, although it might hit 80 on Sunday, so the track could be really fast and you should see some good times and great racing this weekend."

Toliver looks to get the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil/WileyX Chevy back on the performance path it displayed last month qualifying in the top-half of the field at the U.S. Nationals and then a season-best third at Dallas. The Jim Dunn Racing team also had its best day of eliminations on the season at the Texas Motorplex when Toliver defeated Memphis winner Jeff Arend in the first round and Bob Tasca III in the second round before losing to Jack Beckman in the semifinals.

"We've had some ups and downs with the CANIDAE car this season, there's no question about that," Toliver said. "But we're real positive going into these last two races of the season at Las Vegas and Pomona. We owe it to ourselves, to our sponsors, to the Dunns to give it our best and try to get a win in these last two races.

"Like I said before, the Countdown to 1 is exciting and probably going to come down to the last round, but we're not looking to play the role of spoiler and ruin anybody's chances. I don't want to be a spoiler; I want to be a winner. We're looking to win rounds and win races, and that's what we're going to try and do."

A two-hour telecast of qualifying coverage for the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals can be seen on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD on Saturday, Oct. 31, beginning at 11:00 p.m. (ET). Coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD continues on Sunday, Nov. 1, when NHRA Race Day kicks off eliminator coverage starting at 2:30 p.m. (ET), and concludes with three hours of final-eliminations coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. (ET).

Kirk Weeks