Prior NHRA US Nationals Champion, Duane Shields, and the Muscle Milk team didn't have the weekend they were expecting at the Dodge SRT NHRA US Nationals held at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis. Duane qualified for the "Big Go" but lost in the first round of both the Jegs All Stars race and in the final eliminations. Duane qualified 14th out of 19 cars that were in attendance for the big show with a 5.40 at 275 MPH.
JEGS All Stars Race
During the special JEGS All Stars race held during qualifying, Duane lost to part-time Top Fuel racer, Mike Bucher. Duane's Muscle Milk entry lost traction and smoked the tires while Butcher made a clean run and took the win light.
Final Eliminations
Before the rain set in on Saturday, Duane raced Jasmine Salinas in the Scrapper's A/Fuel Dragster in round one. As the lights came down on the tree, Duane was off to a good lead with a .055 reaction time to Salinas' 0.105. As the cars moved down the track, Duane began to experience hard tire shake which affected his elapsed time. At the finish line, Salinas overcame her deficit at the starting line to get the win with a 5.21 at 282 MPH over Duane's 5.37 at 276 MPH. "We are obviously disappointed. We came into Indy with high hopes. We needed to upgrade so we tried some new parts this weekend but maybe this wasn't the best race to do that" Duane regrettably said.
Next, the team moves on to Maplegrove Raceway in Reading, PA for the NHRA Express Lane Nationals. "We really struggled in Indy but we won't have to wait long for Maplegrove where we will try a different strategy. We have quite a few races coming up where we can try different tune-ups and get back to where we need to be." Duane said.
Duane and the crew would like to thank Muscle Milk, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods, Clean Boost, SRI, and Brad Anderson Enterprises for their support of Shield's Racing in 2021.
