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COMMERCE, Ga., April 26, 2008 - As NHRA hits a milestone this weekend with the 600th Pro Stock race in the drag-racing series' illustrious history, Ron Krisher turned in a newsworthy performance himself with the Pro Stock No. 1 qualifier for tomorrow's eliminations at the 28th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. He drove his Valvoline Chevy Cobalt to an elapsed time of 6.644 seconds at 207.69 mph to edge Jason Line's Summit Racing Pontiac GXP at a 6.650 e.t. at 207.53 mph. It was Krisher's 14th pole of his career but his first in more than five years. The veteran Pro Stocker last sat in the top spot at the end of qualifying at Dallas in 2002.
"There's a lot of emotion qualifying No. 1 here," Krisher said. "We had a qualifying streak of 77 straight races in 2003 and this was the 78th race, and we missed the field by one thousandth of a second. Maybe this track owes me something, I don't know. We had some time to play today and try some different things, and we had a whole different setup in the car motor-wise on the last run. We're pretty comfortable going into tomorrow; real comfortable and excited, both. We'll see what happens, of course, but it's been a good day.
"We've been running strong ever since we got the new car. The car isn't such a big deal, but the crew chief that has worked with these (Todd) Bevis cars for two years is. Tommy Utt knows what to do with that Valvoline Cobalt and how to make it work. He really understands them and if we tried and raced our other car, he would have had a whole new learning curve. I didn't think at that point in time we could afford to do that. Our Haas car wasn't a bad car, either; it was just a different setup and a different way to race. So I've got a good crew chief, good power, and good people to work with. I don't know what else you could say."
Justin Humphreys made four strong runs and turned in his best qualifying effort of the season when he qualified his RaceRedi Pontiac GXP in the No. 3 position with an elapsed time of 6.655 at 207.24 mph.
"We've had the new-car blues for awhile, and we've been struggling ever since we got it," Humphreys said. "We really hadn't made a decent run at all, but I had my buddy Frank Gugliotta come over and he made four or five little changes on the car. Counting two runs in testing, we've made six back-to-back runs and they've all been fast. He runs IHRA Pro Stock, but I might not let him back over; I might have to steal him and keep him here.
"It's such a change to go out there, let the clutch out and know you're going to go from A to B smoothly and not shake and blow the tires off. It's a whole lot more fun. I think we've finally got a fast hot rod and hopefully we'll get this GXP in the winner's circle."
Defending event champion Greg Anderson has driven his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to the Pro Stock finals in six of the last seven years with wins in 2004-05 and 2007, and runner-up finishes in 2001-03. The three-time POWERade champ will try to add Atlanta win No. 4 to his resume from the seventh qualifying position.
"This is a Summit race and we all get excited for them," Anderson said. "I can think of no better place than to win at my sponsor's race. I've got a lot of laps on this racetrack myself, not necessarily all as a driver but also as a crew chief for Warren (Johnson). I've always liked this racetrack, it's very familiar to me and I've won a few races here. The Summit guys are excited and have had a good weekend so far, so I can't wait for tomorrow. I don't have a car that's going to dominate, but I've got a car that will run with the top guys out there. It should be a great race."
In Funny Car, Tim Wilkerson in the Levi, Ray, & Shoup Chevy Impala SS held on for his third No. 1 qualifier of the season with an elapsed time of 4.774 seconds at 325.92 mph to lead six Chevy drivers into the top 6 on the Funny Car qualifying grid. In fact, Chevy drivers have now claimed the top spot in qualifying in five of the first six races to start this season. Cruz Pedregon, who was No. 1 qualifier at Houston, qualified the Advance Auto Chevy Impala SS No. 2 with an elapsed time of 4.812 seconds at 314.53 mph, followed by Tony Bartone, Gary Densham, Tony Pedregon and Del Worsham, all in Chevys.
"It's a good feeling to be first, no doubt about that," Wilkerson said. "Hopefully I can get myself together tomorrow, the track will do what we want it to do and we can win some rounds. It would sure be special going into St. Louis with the points lead. With this recent success, Mr. Levi's just beside himself. He has stood behind me for the last three or four years when we couldn't do anything right and God bless him for that. But it's not for a lack of effort because we work hard at what we do and try our best on every run. Sometimes it just gets ahead of you and I'm telling you, you can't catch up without testing. That's our biggest problem with being a single-car team; you can't go out there and test. I'm not really under-financed, I'm just lower-financed, let's put it that way.
"Teaming up with Don Prudhomme Racing this year has been invaluable. Snake's really helping us out more than you know. Every cylinder head I've got came from him; they're all used parts off of his Funny Car (driven by Tommy Johnson Jr.) from last year. And I spent all day Friday and some of the day on Saturday last week running clutches and blowers again. We're still learning, and I think we have a lot more to learn. Hopefully, it's going to keep going."
Cory McClenathan is a three-time winner at Atlanta Dragway (2004, 1998, 1995) and hopes his No. 1 qualifying effort in his FRAM/GMC Top Fuel dragster translates into a good showing on race day. McClenathan posted his 31st career No. 1 qualifier with an elapsed time of 4.562 at 327.03 mph.
"I'm not sure what it is about this track, but when you go out and win at a track like Las Vegas where you haven't done that great in the past, and then head to a track where you have done well, it puts you in a pretty good mood," McClenathan said. "I definitely had a spring in my step last week coming in here, and I think we have a very good race car.
"We have a teammate in Tony Schumacher and his crew chief Alan Johnson, and all of the guys that work back at Don Schumacher Racing. With that kind of backing, it's kind of hard to go out there and strike out. We really just apply smart things, and Mike's (Green, crew chief) not a guy who's going to take giant steps. The smartest thing we can do is keep going A to B doing the same thing, and hopefully Mike does his job on Sunday, I do my job and we can come out of here with some more round wins. We're not trying to win a bunch of races in a row. We're trying to go rounds and gather 20 points at a time. One round win at a time, that's how we're going to look at it. But qualifying No. 1 is a good stop for us and hopefully we can carry it on tomorrow."
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 77 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 266,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2007, nearly 9.37 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling. GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at General Motors | Corporate Website | GM.
Krisher Ends Drought with No. 1 Qualifier in NHRA Pro Stock Race No. 600
Wilkerson Leads Six Chevy Drivers into the Top 6 in Funny Car Qualifying
COMMERCE, Ga., April 26, 2008 - As NHRA hits a milestone this weekend with the 600th Pro Stock race in the drag-racing series' illustrious history, Ron Krisher turned in a newsworthy performance himself with the Pro Stock No. 1 qualifier for tomorrow's eliminations at the 28th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. He drove his Valvoline Chevy Cobalt to an elapsed time of 6.644 seconds at 207.69 mph to edge Jason Line's Summit Racing Pontiac GXP at a 6.650 e.t. at 207.53 mph. It was Krisher's 14th pole of his career but his first in more than five years. The veteran Pro Stocker last sat in the top spot at the end of qualifying at Dallas in 2002.
"There's a lot of emotion qualifying No. 1 here," Krisher said. "We had a qualifying streak of 77 straight races in 2003 and this was the 78th race, and we missed the field by one thousandth of a second. Maybe this track owes me something, I don't know. We had some time to play today and try some different things, and we had a whole different setup in the car motor-wise on the last run. We're pretty comfortable going into tomorrow; real comfortable and excited, both. We'll see what happens, of course, but it's been a good day.
"We've been running strong ever since we got the new car. The car isn't such a big deal, but the crew chief that has worked with these (Todd) Bevis cars for two years is. Tommy Utt knows what to do with that Valvoline Cobalt and how to make it work. He really understands them and if we tried and raced our other car, he would have had a whole new learning curve. I didn't think at that point in time we could afford to do that. Our Haas car wasn't a bad car, either; it was just a different setup and a different way to race. So I've got a good crew chief, good power, and good people to work with. I don't know what else you could say."
Justin Humphreys made four strong runs and turned in his best qualifying effort of the season when he qualified his RaceRedi Pontiac GXP in the No. 3 position with an elapsed time of 6.655 at 207.24 mph.
"We've had the new-car blues for awhile, and we've been struggling ever since we got it," Humphreys said. "We really hadn't made a decent run at all, but I had my buddy Frank Gugliotta come over and he made four or five little changes on the car. Counting two runs in testing, we've made six back-to-back runs and they've all been fast. He runs IHRA Pro Stock, but I might not let him back over; I might have to steal him and keep him here.
"It's such a change to go out there, let the clutch out and know you're going to go from A to B smoothly and not shake and blow the tires off. It's a whole lot more fun. I think we've finally got a fast hot rod and hopefully we'll get this GXP in the winner's circle."
Defending event champion Greg Anderson has driven his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to the Pro Stock finals in six of the last seven years with wins in 2004-05 and 2007, and runner-up finishes in 2001-03. The three-time POWERade champ will try to add Atlanta win No. 4 to his resume from the seventh qualifying position.
"This is a Summit race and we all get excited for them," Anderson said. "I can think of no better place than to win at my sponsor's race. I've got a lot of laps on this racetrack myself, not necessarily all as a driver but also as a crew chief for Warren (Johnson). I've always liked this racetrack, it's very familiar to me and I've won a few races here. The Summit guys are excited and have had a good weekend so far, so I can't wait for tomorrow. I don't have a car that's going to dominate, but I've got a car that will run with the top guys out there. It should be a great race."
In Funny Car, Tim Wilkerson in the Levi, Ray, & Shoup Chevy Impala SS held on for his third No. 1 qualifier of the season with an elapsed time of 4.774 seconds at 325.92 mph to lead six Chevy drivers into the top 6 on the Funny Car qualifying grid. In fact, Chevy drivers have now claimed the top spot in qualifying in five of the first six races to start this season. Cruz Pedregon, who was No. 1 qualifier at Houston, qualified the Advance Auto Chevy Impala SS No. 2 with an elapsed time of 4.812 seconds at 314.53 mph, followed by Tony Bartone, Gary Densham, Tony Pedregon and Del Worsham, all in Chevys.
"It's a good feeling to be first, no doubt about that," Wilkerson said. "Hopefully I can get myself together tomorrow, the track will do what we want it to do and we can win some rounds. It would sure be special going into St. Louis with the points lead. With this recent success, Mr. Levi's just beside himself. He has stood behind me for the last three or four years when we couldn't do anything right and God bless him for that. But it's not for a lack of effort because we work hard at what we do and try our best on every run. Sometimes it just gets ahead of you and I'm telling you, you can't catch up without testing. That's our biggest problem with being a single-car team; you can't go out there and test. I'm not really under-financed, I'm just lower-financed, let's put it that way.
"Teaming up with Don Prudhomme Racing this year has been invaluable. Snake's really helping us out more than you know. Every cylinder head I've got came from him; they're all used parts off of his Funny Car (driven by Tommy Johnson Jr.) from last year. And I spent all day Friday and some of the day on Saturday last week running clutches and blowers again. We're still learning, and I think we have a lot more to learn. Hopefully, it's going to keep going."
Cory McClenathan is a three-time winner at Atlanta Dragway (2004, 1998, 1995) and hopes his No. 1 qualifying effort in his FRAM/GMC Top Fuel dragster translates into a good showing on race day. McClenathan posted his 31st career No. 1 qualifier with an elapsed time of 4.562 at 327.03 mph.
"I'm not sure what it is about this track, but when you go out and win at a track like Las Vegas where you haven't done that great in the past, and then head to a track where you have done well, it puts you in a pretty good mood," McClenathan said. "I definitely had a spring in my step last week coming in here, and I think we have a very good race car.
"We have a teammate in Tony Schumacher and his crew chief Alan Johnson, and all of the guys that work back at Don Schumacher Racing. With that kind of backing, it's kind of hard to go out there and strike out. We really just apply smart things, and Mike's (Green, crew chief) not a guy who's going to take giant steps. The smartest thing we can do is keep going A to B doing the same thing, and hopefully Mike does his job on Sunday, I do my job and we can come out of here with some more round wins. We're not trying to win a bunch of races in a row. We're trying to go rounds and gather 20 points at a time. One round win at a time, that's how we're going to look at it. But qualifying No. 1 is a good stop for us and hopefully we can carry it on tomorrow."
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 77 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 266,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2007, nearly 9.37 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling. GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at General Motors | Corporate Website | GM.
