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Jeff Arend had a nagging feeling after having to shut off early during the Friday night run. With a hot and sunny forecast calling for toasty track temperatures on Saturday, he knew the odds of busting back into the field were slim, though he thought he could certainly do it. In today's Q3, Arend was nearing the finish line, with his right hand up on the parachute levers, when the car dropped two cylinders on the right side and shot him over toward the wall. He did make slight contact with the concrete wall, though most of the damage to his CSK Impala was cosmetic. On his final lap, in Q4, he posted a solid 4.944, during a session when he was one of only seven drivers to dip below the 5.00 mark. Unfortunately, it wasn't quick enough to move him above the cut line, and Arend's qualifying streak was over.
"The worst deal was that we were up there trying to bump in, and had we done it we would have bumped our teammates out, because Del was sitting in the 16th spot," Arend said. "We made a nice lap, but it was pretty hard to run 4.89 out there on Saturday afternoon. On the first run, it was trucking along pretty well, and it was actually drifting to the left a little, so as I reached for the 'chute levers with my right hand I was steering a little to the left with my left. For whatever reason, it put two holes out at once on the right bank, and it just shot to the wall. I had very little leverage to steer left because I was driving one-handed at the time. It didn't feel like much, no more than a pat on the side, and I was hoping we'd just folded up the header pipes over there but not made contact with the body. Not so, unfortunately.
"We patched it up and put some blue duct tape on it, and still thought we might be able to run the number on the last run. As it turned out, nobody did, so I guess it wasn't meant to be. We just had one of those weekends, and every other team in the class can know say the same thing. We had a huge run going Friday night, but the car was hunting the center line and I had to lift, so we went into Saturday unqualified and tried to get over that hurdle. We've joined an all-inclusive club now! Every single team out here has at least one DNQ on their record."
AREND FINALLY DNQ's, DESPITE SOLID LAP IN SESSION 4
Jeff Arend had a nagging feeling after having to shut off early during the Friday night run. With a hot and sunny forecast calling for toasty track temperatures on Saturday, he knew the odds of busting back into the field were slim, though he thought he could certainly do it. In today's Q3, Arend was nearing the finish line, with his right hand up on the parachute levers, when the car dropped two cylinders on the right side and shot him over toward the wall. He did make slight contact with the concrete wall, though most of the damage to his CSK Impala was cosmetic. On his final lap, in Q4, he posted a solid 4.944, during a session when he was one of only seven drivers to dip below the 5.00 mark. Unfortunately, it wasn't quick enough to move him above the cut line, and Arend's qualifying streak was over.
"The worst deal was that we were up there trying to bump in, and had we done it we would have bumped our teammates out, because Del was sitting in the 16th spot," Arend said. "We made a nice lap, but it was pretty hard to run 4.89 out there on Saturday afternoon. On the first run, it was trucking along pretty well, and it was actually drifting to the left a little, so as I reached for the 'chute levers with my right hand I was steering a little to the left with my left. For whatever reason, it put two holes out at once on the right bank, and it just shot to the wall. I had very little leverage to steer left because I was driving one-handed at the time. It didn't feel like much, no more than a pat on the side, and I was hoping we'd just folded up the header pipes over there but not made contact with the body. Not so, unfortunately.
"We patched it up and put some blue duct tape on it, and still thought we might be able to run the number on the last run. As it turned out, nobody did, so I guess it wasn't meant to be. We just had one of those weekends, and every other team in the class can know say the same thing. We had a huge run going Friday night, but the car was hunting the center line and I had to lift, so we went into Saturday unqualified and tried to get over that hurdle. We've joined an all-inclusive club now! Every single team out here has at least one DNQ on their record."
