Event: 12th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals
Location: The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Nevada
Day/Date: Sunday, April 3, 2011
Summit Racing Pro Stock driver Jason Line had lofty aspirations entering Sunday’s final eliminations of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. After qualifying second, he looked to extend his two-race winning streak and widen his lead in the Full Throttle championship standings, an assignment made slightly more difficult by the cooler conditions at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, requiring teams make drastic changes to the tune-ups they had used throughout qualifying. This made little difference to Line and his KB Racing crew, as they used a solid 6.720-second, 204.82 mph pass to eliminate veteran Larry Morgan in the opening round.
Unfortunately, Line’s time fell eight thousandths of a second shy of keeping lane choice for his second round match-up against last year’s championship runner-up, Greg Stanfield. This relegated the 23-time winner to the less-preferred right hand lane, which produced only four wins throughout eliminations. Despite making the quickest run of the round in that lane, Line’s 6.733-second, 206.10 mph effort fell shy of overcoming his rival’s 6.696-second, 205.04 mph pass, putting a premature end to his day.
“Today just was not our day,” said Line. “My Summit Racing Pontiac wasn’t happy all weekend, and never ran as well as we liked, but it certainly could have been worse. We qualified well, we won a round, and will leave here with the points lead. The important part is that we learn something from this race, and use it to move our program forward.
“To be honest, our biggest mistake of the weekend was not running well enough to keep lane choice. At this track, lane choice is often the difference between winning and losing, and we saw that again today. It’s unfortunate, because Bruton Smith’s tracks, including this one, are by far the best on the circuit, but that right lane has had issues for as long as I’ve been racing here.
“But that’s not why we lost. We lost because we didn’t do a good enough job to stay in the other lane. We were all over the map, never getting our car to where it was consistent, and that is what we are going to work on between now and Charlotte. Since I’m obviously not going to win them all this year, I guess I’ll just have to shoot for 21 out of 22.”
NHRA Pro Stock Points Standings (After 3 of 22 races):
Jason Line 289
Greg Stanfield 222
Greg Anderson 214
Mike Edwards 201
Vincent Nobile 178
Location: The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Nevada
Day/Date: Sunday, April 3, 2011
Summit Racing Pro Stock driver Jason Line had lofty aspirations entering Sunday’s final eliminations of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. After qualifying second, he looked to extend his two-race winning streak and widen his lead in the Full Throttle championship standings, an assignment made slightly more difficult by the cooler conditions at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, requiring teams make drastic changes to the tune-ups they had used throughout qualifying. This made little difference to Line and his KB Racing crew, as they used a solid 6.720-second, 204.82 mph pass to eliminate veteran Larry Morgan in the opening round.
Unfortunately, Line’s time fell eight thousandths of a second shy of keeping lane choice for his second round match-up against last year’s championship runner-up, Greg Stanfield. This relegated the 23-time winner to the less-preferred right hand lane, which produced only four wins throughout eliminations. Despite making the quickest run of the round in that lane, Line’s 6.733-second, 206.10 mph effort fell shy of overcoming his rival’s 6.696-second, 205.04 mph pass, putting a premature end to his day.
“Today just was not our day,” said Line. “My Summit Racing Pontiac wasn’t happy all weekend, and never ran as well as we liked, but it certainly could have been worse. We qualified well, we won a round, and will leave here with the points lead. The important part is that we learn something from this race, and use it to move our program forward.
“To be honest, our biggest mistake of the weekend was not running well enough to keep lane choice. At this track, lane choice is often the difference between winning and losing, and we saw that again today. It’s unfortunate, because Bruton Smith’s tracks, including this one, are by far the best on the circuit, but that right lane has had issues for as long as I’ve been racing here.
“But that’s not why we lost. We lost because we didn’t do a good enough job to stay in the other lane. We were all over the map, never getting our car to where it was consistent, and that is what we are going to work on between now and Charlotte. Since I’m obviously not going to win them all this year, I guess I’ll just have to shoot for 21 out of 22.”
NHRA Pro Stock Points Standings (After 3 of 22 races):
Jason Line 289
Greg Stanfield 222
Greg Anderson 214
Mike Edwards 201
Vincent Nobile 178
