With the race run on his birthday, Summit Racing Pro Stock driver Jason Line came into Sunday’s final eliminations of the Mopar Mile-High Nationals looking to reward himself with the perfect present – his first win at Bandimere Speedway. However, in order to do so, the former champion knew they would need to better match their race car to the difficult conditions on the Centennial State quarter-mile.
The KB Racing crew got off to a good start, bettering their qualifying performance with the fourth-quickest pass of the round, a 6.991-second, 196.30 mph effort to trailer 2010 championship runner-up Greg Stanfield. This set the stage for a second-round meeting with Mike Edwards, who had been one of the quickest cars all weekend.
Running in the less-preferred right hand lane, Line knew he would need a near perfect run to advance to the semifinals, and responded with his best effort of the weekend, combining a .017 reaction time with a 6.984-second, 196.16 mph pass. However, it was not enough to hold off his opponent’s 6.966-second, 197.31 mph effort, putting a premature end to the Mooresville, NC driver’s day.
“My Summit Racing Pontiac was definitely better today than it was in qualifying, but as the second round showed, we still had room for improvement,” said Line. “Naturally, we would have liked to make runs like that yesterday to put us in a better position for today, but we were just off on our set-up all weekend.
“Naturally, it’s disappointing, because we know we are better than we showed here this weekend. I’m not making excuses, but racing here on the mountain is certainly a challenge, and my hat’s off to the guys who got it done this weekend. I know some people say this is the only time we’ll race in this type of conditions, but we still want to win every race we enter, so we’re not pleased with our performance. Still, we’ll put this weekend behind us and head to Sonoma, where our Summit Racing Pontiacs should be back at the top of the page. The first round of qualifying at Infineon Raceway can’t come soon enough.”
The KB Racing crew got off to a good start, bettering their qualifying performance with the fourth-quickest pass of the round, a 6.991-second, 196.30 mph effort to trailer 2010 championship runner-up Greg Stanfield. This set the stage for a second-round meeting with Mike Edwards, who had been one of the quickest cars all weekend.
Running in the less-preferred right hand lane, Line knew he would need a near perfect run to advance to the semifinals, and responded with his best effort of the weekend, combining a .017 reaction time with a 6.984-second, 196.16 mph pass. However, it was not enough to hold off his opponent’s 6.966-second, 197.31 mph effort, putting a premature end to the Mooresville, NC driver’s day.
“My Summit Racing Pontiac was definitely better today than it was in qualifying, but as the second round showed, we still had room for improvement,” said Line. “Naturally, we would have liked to make runs like that yesterday to put us in a better position for today, but we were just off on our set-up all weekend.
“Naturally, it’s disappointing, because we know we are better than we showed here this weekend. I’m not making excuses, but racing here on the mountain is certainly a challenge, and my hat’s off to the guys who got it done this weekend. I know some people say this is the only time we’ll race in this type of conditions, but we still want to win every race we enter, so we’re not pleased with our performance. Still, we’ll put this weekend behind us and head to Sonoma, where our Summit Racing Pontiacs should be back at the top of the page. The first round of qualifying at Infineon Raceway can’t come soon enough.”
