Cruz Pedregon had a less-than-stellar debut for his bright pink “Socket to Breast Cancer” Snap-On Toyota body in yesterday’s opening session of Funny Car qualifying when he ended up well into the sand trap after his parachutes failed to deploy on a 3.978-second run. The good news, of course, is that the A-to-B run put him in the show, but it spelled an early end to the special edition body. Pedregon’s team was able to clean the excess sand from the chassis and replace the body in time or the evening session, where Pedregon struck the tires and slowed. Ironically, his opponent in the other lane in the evening session, Jonnie Lindberg, also took a trip into the sand after his parachutes did not deploy in the Jim Head owned and tuned machine.

Fan-favorite Clay Millican closed the Friday evening top qualifying session out in style with the quickest elapsed time in the 1,000-foot era, a 3.631 at 330.39 mph, in his Great Clips/Parts Plus dragster. The national record elapsed time was particularly special to team owner Doug Stringer, who calls nearby McLeansboro, Illinois home.

Photo courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

“That run is 100 percent [crew chief] David Grubnic doing his thing. He is the baddest dude out here right now and I don’t think anyone can argue that. We just set the national record. He does it his way and there’s no shared information and it’s done with a group of young guys that the only way they know how to put that car together is the way David and Mac Savage tell them to. I haver nothing to do with this — I get to have the fun part of stomping on the loud pedal,” Millican said.

Millican proclaimed to the assembled media, “That’s the least amount of work I’ve ever done,”  referencing his all-time quick pass.

“We just went 8.12 to the 60-foot — we’ve been quicker than that, once — and 2.05 to the 330, which I’m pretty sure is the quickest ever to 330, and the river was testing out the traction over by the right side.”

As impressive as Millican’s performance was, he’s confident there’s more left in his dragster.

“I said in the media conference the other day that I believed we could set the national record. I’ve truly believed we could do it for a while, but the weather forecast I thought was going to be cooler than this. I really thought we could do it in Reading since it’s normally so cold there, but this year it wasn’t. This was really good, obviously the best ever, but I didn’t think it was good enough to go .63. There’s more there, that’s all I can tell you.”

Mike Castellana maintains a scant 48-point lead in the Pro Modified standings over Troy Coughlin at this, the penultimate race on the 2017 calendar. Castellana, the national record holder in his Frank Manzo-tuned, Al-Anabi Performance Camaro, paced the field in both of Friday’s sessions, running 5.74 in the opening round and 5.71 in the final pair of cars down the track in the evening session.

“It’s great. I mean, my team worked hard getting the car ready,” said Castelana, who is the points leader and holds the national elapsed time record. “We did some testing and set the car up good. Hopefully we can remain consistent this weekend.”

Chip King anchors the record field with a 5.823. Twenty-nine cars are here on the property — a field that includes newcomers Jeffrey Barker and Melanie Salemi.

While it wasn’t 340, Robert Hight did set a track speed record in yesterday’s opening session of Funny Car qualifying with a scintillating 338.60 mph blast, in 3.845-seconds. “There’s so many components on these nitro cars that have to work in sync with each other and everything be perfect to put a number like that on the board,” Hight said. “Tonight, our clutch didn’t wear like it was supposed to; it put a cylinder out down track. (Crew chief) Jimmy Prock came back and said, ‘I guess we ought to be happy.’ When you don’t make a perfect run and you’re still No. 1, that shows we’re doing something.”

Leonard Libersher qualified No. 1 this weekend in Stock Eliminator in his FS/XX 2015 Chevrolet COPO Camaro with an 8.249, a whopping 1.65-seconds under the 9.90 class index. Paired up with Tim
Snively’s 11.7-second ’85 Camaro in the second round of eliminations, Libersher went low for the weekend with a dead-on 8.221 on his 8.22 dial.

Greg Anderson leads a 1-2 Summit Racing punch in Pro Stock after two rounds of qualifying, as his 6.525 at 211.06 mph leads teammate Jason Line’s 6.533. Drew Skillman, at 6.525, sits sandwiched in between the Ken Black-powered cars, as Bo Butner closed out the night fourth at 6.542.

“The conditions, weather and atmosphere didn’t change that much between the first run and second run,” Anderson stated. “The race track is maxing out the track gripper and it’s as good of a race track you’ll ever ever get and when you get conditions like that you need to just throw everything at it.”

The NHRA on FOX crew is filming their NHRA today program in the professional pit area this morning ahead of the third session of qualifying.

Courtney Force presently sits sixth in Funny Car with a 3.877 best.

How stout was this weekend’s Pro Modified field? How about a 5.80 bump spot. The final session, perhaps one of the greatest in the history of the class, regardless of sanction, saw a number of drivers jockey their way into the field with one last hail-mary shot. All told, 13 of the 16 cars in the field were in the 5.70’s.

The St. Louis fans love their nitromethane, and Missouri native Scott Palmer was obliged to give it to them, as the only nitro team owner who consistently gives his Top Fueler a “whack” of the throttle during the pre-run warmup in the pit area.

Greg Anderson maintained his spot atop the Pro
stock field in the today’s third session, improving to a 6.50 in the final pair of cars down the track.

Steve Jackson won’t be a happy camper this evening after he red-lighted away low elapsed time of a cut-throat opening round of Pro Modified. Jackson clocked a 5.743 after going .080 red, as opponent Jim Whiteley slowed almost immediately.

Eddie Krawiec snagged the Pro Stock Motorcycle pole away from teammate Andrew Hines late in the final session of qualifying with a 6.783, only to have Hines take it back two pairs later at 6.781-seconds.

The Gateway Motorsports Park has welcomed a sellout crowd here today to witness the final two rounds of qualifying. (Click to view full-size)

A number of oildowns in the nitro ranks and an incident in the Factory Stock Showdown pushed this evening’s final session of Funny Car qualifying well beyond the scheduled hour, giving the crew chiefs prime conditions to once again swing for the proverbial fences and gain qualifying bonus points toward the Countdown the Championship. That, of course, included performance front-runner-of-late Robert Hight, whose Jimmy Prock-tuned Camaro nabbed the pole last night with a 3.83. But Hight, like the rest of the field, found the conditions to be less conducive to the big numbers, as he smoked the tires early and coasted to a 7.4 elapsed time. Only three three-second runs were recorded in the session, led by Jonnie Lindberg’s 3.87.

Brian Stewart switched to this colorful new Ford Mustang body for the final session, but it did’t bring him any luck, as he banged the blower while on a stellar run, coasting to a 4.23 at just 232 mph. He will start tomorrow from the 15th spot and will race John Force in round one.

Leah Pritchett vaulted her way up to No. 2 in the Top Fuel field in today’s final session with a huge 3.67-second blast.

During a brief downtime before his final qualifying run, Tony Schumacher spent some time visiting with troops trackside.

There may be no more hard-working an individual at an NHRA national event than announcer Brian Lohnes, who switches attire throughout the day for his various track and television announcing roles and covers the action from staging lanes to shutdown area and back again.

Saturday Recap Courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster