Good morning race fans! We’re looking forward to getting started here in Bakersfield with qualifying rounds in just a few minutes, but before things begin, we do have one update from yesterday. In the final test & tune session, 275 Drag Radial racer Artis Houston had an incident at the top end of the track and contacted the wall. Per Houston’s Facebook post,

“Rough day for me folks. 160 +mph and into the wall. First and foremost I’m good. Wheels locked up and was nothing I could do. Im fine though. Thanks for checking everyone. Drag racing life can be tough.”

Truer words have never been said, and the important part is that the chassis and safety equipment did their jobs and kept him safe and uninjured. This greatly complicates the championship picture for the class, and since we have a dog in this hunt, we’ll be keeping on top of the situation.

Saturday Pit Gallery

Qualifying Round 1 Video

Qualifying Round 1 Results

Qualifying Round 2 Video

Qualifying Notes

Lee Smith and his crew/family were busy working to repair the Pro Mod Mustang’s transmission, which had mysteriously broken coming out of third gear. Here, we see them removing the plugs on the case to get at the problem inside.

Robert Costa’s Pro Mod C2 was undergoing a leakdown test when we showed up, but Costa told us there was nothing to worry about. Considering that today he ran a best time ever of 6.27 @ 249 MPH, we couldn’t help but agree.

Final Qualifying Results

Pro Street

Pro Street provided plenty of fireworks in qualifying, with Mike Bowman setting the bar in the first round with the initial five-second pass of the day, clocking 5.956,  which Scott Oksas bested in round two with a 5.929. But the real surprise of Pro Street qualifying was Joe Lepone Jr. grabbing his own five, with a 5.996 pass in the final round under the lights tonight. To make things more interesting, Bowman shot blanks in rounds 2 and 3, and Lepone did harm to his nitrous-fed Musi mill with his balls-to-the-wall third round pass, so eliminations should prove to be interesting tomorrow.

 True 10.5

The True 10.5 class proved to be a bit of a cipher in qualifying – in round one, Al Jimenez set the bar with a 6.923, but then came up hard and down even harder on his second pass, then was a no-show in the final qualifier. Meanwhile, Roger Holder busted out his True Kung Fu in the third round, running a blazing 6.925 and carrying more than 5 MPH more than Jimenez’ best through the traps.

Meanwhile Kelly Henry and Rick Snavely knocked on the door of the sixes in quals – with a 12 car field and four full rounds of racing, there’s plenty of opportunity for the frontrunners to make up ground on Jimenez in the championship chase tomorrow.

275 Drag Radial

With would-be blocker Jeff Young out of the picture this weekend, and Artis Houston crashed out in test and tune, Drag Radial qualifying came down to just a question of whether defending champ Kevin Young or challenger (and our boss) James Lawrence would take the top spot. In order to take the 2013 championship away from Young, Lawrence needed almost every point left on the table, but couldn’t outrun Young’s 7.355 top qualifying pass. That means Lawrence will need to both win on Sunday and set an ET record, or settle for second place when the points are tallied.

N/A 10.5

Mike Demayo hit it hard in round one with a 7.972 – a would-be record ET that wouldn’t be backed up in rounds 2 and 3, while Tony Aneian struggled with a car that wanted to porpoise hard through the first half of the track in practice and the first round of qualifying. By round 2, he had gotten things settled down and clicked off a smooth 8.15, but the question remains as to whether either he or Demayo can dial things back enough on Sunday to avoid an unforced error, yet still be quick enough to fend off the rest of the pack.

 Outlaw 8.5

Ryan “Toaster” Jones is going to be very, very hard to beat tomorrow, holding a two-tenths performance advantage over nearest competitor Dan Hale, who has his own two-plus tenths advantage over the bottom half of the field, comprised of Ron Shaw and Erik Carlstedt. But the thing about eighth-mile, small-tire racing is that pretty much anything can happen – applying a lot of power to a small footprint is hard to get right consistently, and a win will take as much luck as skill. Don’t count anyone out just yet…