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It does get old, but Jeff Arend isn't about to let it get him down. Driving the bright yellow Murray's Discount Auto Impala, Arend once again met up with stout opponent in round one, and once again come up just a bit short, this time dropping a side-by-side race to Kenny Bernstein.
Simply getting to that match-up with Bernstein took some doing, as the now world-famous "DNQ Bug" made its presence felt here in an enormous way. With what turned out to be a field almost completely set on the Friday night run, Arend claimed the No. 14 spot with a 4.810 under the lights. In that session, Robert Hight (No. 2 in points entering this race,) and Mike Ashley (No. 3 in points and the most recent winner on the tour,) both failed to make a full pull, and that put them in a very tough spot.
"These Friday night hero sessions are neat for the fans to watch, but there really are some problems with how it works out," Arend said. "If you don't get on the board Friday night, it's pretty easy to get backed into a corner you can't get out of, and that happened to both Robert and Mike, because the weather was just so different between that one session and all three of the other ones. I'm glad we got down there on Friday night, and kept our streak alive."
That qualifying streak now stands at 10 consecutive races, and if the current state of Funny Car competition needed any better example of how difficult it is to qualify these days, it can be found in that modest streak of 10 races. By making every field so far this year, Jeff Arend now holds the second-longest consecutive qualifying streak in the class, as only Gary Scelzi has made more than 10 in a row.
"10 straight races and we have the second-longest streak in the class, that's pretty crazy," Arend said. "Just a few months ago, you had Force with a streak going back to the late 1980s, and you had other guys way up there near 100 races in a row. Robert Hight came in here with zero DNQs in his career, and now just about everyone has one. It's so tight out here, so tough to do, you really can't make a mistake, and we've done very well keeping our mistakes to the bare minimum.
"Going into the fourth session, we thought we were pretty much a lock with the 4.81 because the sun was out and the track was at about 120-degrees, but then the Top Fuel cars had a bit of oil-down festival ahead of us, and the Pro Stock bonus race had to be settled right in the middle of that, so our last run kept getting pushed back farther and farther. We just watched the track temperature drop, minute by minute, and we were getting to where it was going to be real dicey whether our number would hold up. As it ended up, it did and we made the field while some serious big boys didn't."
The 14th slot earned Arend a first-round date with Kenny Bernstein, one of the true legends of the sport making his Funny Car comeback this season. After a rough start, Bernstein's machine has been running well of late, and the veteran driver has obviously found his groove behind the wheel.
"When Kenny announced his comeback, there were some people who were more than happy to get on the internet and proclaim that they were sure he was beyond his prime and couldn't do it," Arend said. "You'll notice none of those comments came from fellow racers, because we all knew better. It took Kenny and his team a while to get it together, but they're on a roll now and he's driving like the legend he is."
Driving like a legend, Bernstein did something in round one that almost no one else has done all year. He left first in a race against Jeff Arend. From that point forward, the two cars roared down the track to one of the best races of the opening round, but Bernstein was never behind in this one and he held on to take the win, with a 4.870 to Arend's strong 4.929.
"They just flat beat us, and that's that," Arend said. "We went down the track, we gave them a battle, and we lost another close one. Houston, Las Vegas, St. Louis, and Topeka were all side-by-side deals, and we came up anywhere from a few feet to a few yards short. My crew chiefs, Chris (Cunningham) and Marc (Denner) told me to hang in there, because we're going down the track almost every Sunday, and if we keep doing that we're going to win.
"So, as bad as it feels right after the run, when you just want to go back in time and try to do it again, you have to get over it and look forward. We're already doing that, and there's a lot to look forward to. We're going to stay here and test tomorrow, and then get everything ready for the summer marathon. We'll make a lap of the U.S.A. over the next couple of months, and we'll have a lot of chances to get on a roll and start making these close ones go our way."
And meanwhile, Arend and his team will continue to work on that stunning consecutive qualifier streak. 10 and counting...
AREND SUFFERS YET ANOTHER NARROW LOSS
It does get old, but Jeff Arend isn't about to let it get him down. Driving the bright yellow Murray's Discount Auto Impala, Arend once again met up with stout opponent in round one, and once again come up just a bit short, this time dropping a side-by-side race to Kenny Bernstein.
Simply getting to that match-up with Bernstein took some doing, as the now world-famous "DNQ Bug" made its presence felt here in an enormous way. With what turned out to be a field almost completely set on the Friday night run, Arend claimed the No. 14 spot with a 4.810 under the lights. In that session, Robert Hight (No. 2 in points entering this race,) and Mike Ashley (No. 3 in points and the most recent winner on the tour,) both failed to make a full pull, and that put them in a very tough spot.
"These Friday night hero sessions are neat for the fans to watch, but there really are some problems with how it works out," Arend said. "If you don't get on the board Friday night, it's pretty easy to get backed into a corner you can't get out of, and that happened to both Robert and Mike, because the weather was just so different between that one session and all three of the other ones. I'm glad we got down there on Friday night, and kept our streak alive."
That qualifying streak now stands at 10 consecutive races, and if the current state of Funny Car competition needed any better example of how difficult it is to qualify these days, it can be found in that modest streak of 10 races. By making every field so far this year, Jeff Arend now holds the second-longest consecutive qualifying streak in the class, as only Gary Scelzi has made more than 10 in a row.
"10 straight races and we have the second-longest streak in the class, that's pretty crazy," Arend said. "Just a few months ago, you had Force with a streak going back to the late 1980s, and you had other guys way up there near 100 races in a row. Robert Hight came in here with zero DNQs in his career, and now just about everyone has one. It's so tight out here, so tough to do, you really can't make a mistake, and we've done very well keeping our mistakes to the bare minimum.
"Going into the fourth session, we thought we were pretty much a lock with the 4.81 because the sun was out and the track was at about 120-degrees, but then the Top Fuel cars had a bit of oil-down festival ahead of us, and the Pro Stock bonus race had to be settled right in the middle of that, so our last run kept getting pushed back farther and farther. We just watched the track temperature drop, minute by minute, and we were getting to where it was going to be real dicey whether our number would hold up. As it ended up, it did and we made the field while some serious big boys didn't."
The 14th slot earned Arend a first-round date with Kenny Bernstein, one of the true legends of the sport making his Funny Car comeback this season. After a rough start, Bernstein's machine has been running well of late, and the veteran driver has obviously found his groove behind the wheel.
"When Kenny announced his comeback, there were some people who were more than happy to get on the internet and proclaim that they were sure he was beyond his prime and couldn't do it," Arend said. "You'll notice none of those comments came from fellow racers, because we all knew better. It took Kenny and his team a while to get it together, but they're on a roll now and he's driving like the legend he is."
Driving like a legend, Bernstein did something in round one that almost no one else has done all year. He left first in a race against Jeff Arend. From that point forward, the two cars roared down the track to one of the best races of the opening round, but Bernstein was never behind in this one and he held on to take the win, with a 4.870 to Arend's strong 4.929.
"They just flat beat us, and that's that," Arend said. "We went down the track, we gave them a battle, and we lost another close one. Houston, Las Vegas, St. Louis, and Topeka were all side-by-side deals, and we came up anywhere from a few feet to a few yards short. My crew chiefs, Chris (Cunningham) and Marc (Denner) told me to hang in there, because we're going down the track almost every Sunday, and if we keep doing that we're going to win.
"So, as bad as it feels right after the run, when you just want to go back in time and try to do it again, you have to get over it and look forward. We're already doing that, and there's a lot to look forward to. We're going to stay here and test tomorrow, and then get everything ready for the summer marathon. We'll make a lap of the U.S.A. over the next couple of months, and we'll have a lot of chances to get on a roll and start making these close ones go our way."
And meanwhile, Arend and his team will continue to work on that stunning consecutive qualifier streak. 10 and counting...
