<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/j_arend07_343561.jpg" alt="j_arend07_343561" align="left"borders="0"/>
Jeff Arend, driving the "Madman Murray" Impala, joined nearly the entire class by smoking the tires on his first run, but then came back with a solid 4.810 during the late evening run to land 14th after one day of qualifying.
"It was running okay, but then I guess it put a cylinder out around 1,000 feet, and I could instantly sense and hear the difference," Arend said. "I went ahead and clicked it off a little early, because problems down there can be big and bad, and I wanted to bring the race car back to the pit still looking like it did when we left.
"We were definitely shooting for something better than that, but now we'll just have to see what the weather does on Saturday. It's supposed to be sunny, so that will slow us down a bit, but the key will be the temperature and the humidity. If it stays cool, we should be able to improve. If it heats up, you may be looking at the best the field can do. Our goal is going to be to come out here and step up, whether that's just in comparison to everyone else or literally on the qualifying sheet. We want to step it up a bit and see how that stands up."
AREND RUNS 4.810, HOLDS 14th SPOT OVERNIGHT
Jeff Arend, driving the "Madman Murray" Impala, joined nearly the entire class by smoking the tires on his first run, but then came back with a solid 4.810 during the late evening run to land 14th after one day of qualifying.
"It was running okay, but then I guess it put a cylinder out around 1,000 feet, and I could instantly sense and hear the difference," Arend said. "I went ahead and clicked it off a little early, because problems down there can be big and bad, and I wanted to bring the race car back to the pit still looking like it did when we left.
"We were definitely shooting for something better than that, but now we'll just have to see what the weather does on Saturday. It's supposed to be sunny, so that will slow us down a bit, but the key will be the temperature and the humidity. If it stays cool, we should be able to improve. If it heats up, you may be looking at the best the field can do. Our goal is going to be to come out here and step up, whether that's just in comparison to everyone else or literally on the qualifying sheet. We want to step it up a bit and see how that stands up."
