Aussie Tucker has Auzmet Camaro primed for success in Texas eliminations
DALLAS, TX – Shane Tucker has a unique plan to make his Auzmet Architectural Camaro a player in Sunday’s elimination rounds at the 29th 
annual AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals.
“We ran a bigger set of tires today,” Tucker said. “Most of the teams run a smaller tire through qualifying because they’re a little bit quicker and help you put a better elapsed time on the scoreboards, but we made the call to run a big-tire setup because that’s what we’re going to be running tomorrow.
“Sure, we might have given up a little bit in the qualifying order, but as far as the setup for Sunday, I think we’re in a good position. I’m thinking we’ve put ourselves in a good position to race well in this heat and humidity.”
Tucker will have a familiar foe in the first round of eliminations as he’ll square off against Dave Connolly, who beat him in the postponed elimination rounds from the Charlotte race on Friday. The good news is his Elite Performance-powered race car has made up a bunch of ground on Connolly since that race, making Sunday’s tilt a virtual “pick ’em.”
“As it turned out, the first session, we kind of missed it a little bit on the setup,” Tucker said. “The second session, when we raced Dave for the Charlotte race, we blew through the clutch. (The clutch) wasn’t dead square, so it needed resurfacing. We pulled that clutch out and put a new one in for today.
“We figured we’d turn the car around completely. We had our issues but we immediately fixed everything. We sent the shocks back to Penske and put another set of tires on it. We’ve kind of been questioning the tires we were running all year, and we made a change that really seems to be working.”
On Friday, Connolly ran a 6.592 at 209.95 mph to Tucker’s 6.661 at 208.88 mph. By the end of qualifying, the gap had closed to almost nothing, with Connolly earning the seventh place with a 6.592 at 209.95 mph and Tucker the 10th slot with a 6.606 at 210.18 mph.
“We know we are heading in the right direction,” said Tucker, who lives in Gold Coast, Australia. “We just need to have a little faith that everything’s going to come around our way. We’ve jumped over a few of the hurdles that have come our way, and I think we’ve got a race car that can run on Sunday, that’s for sure.”
