EXCITING MATCH-UPS FOR JFR AT SPRING NATIONALS

BAYTOWN, TX – The rain moved over Royal Purple Raceway this morning but by the time the first qualifying session was scheduled it was blue skies and a warm track for the John Force Racing Chevrolet Camaro Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragster. At the end of the day all four JFR entries were qualified and ready for some exciting first round match-ups with long-time rivals and tough competitors.

Brittany Force and the Next Generation Top Fuel dragster will face off with Leah Pritchett for the fourth time in her career in the opening session tomorrow. Force will give up lane choice as the No. 9 qualifier but Pritchett does not have a huge performance advantage as the No. 8 quickest dragster on the property. The Next Generation dragster posted a best time of 3.779 seconds to Pritchett’s Gumout dragster’s 3.775 seconds. This kind of tight performance difference is both a blessing and a curse.

“It is always really difficult when you qualify No. 8 or No. 9 because the person you are running has an ET that is so close to yours. We wanted to step up a little bit but it was a tough weekend. We were battling the rain and then the heat. We only really got one good pass but that is all we need tomorrow to get that first round win. We’ll try and get that first good run and then we will hopefully go from there,” said Brittany Force, who equaled her quickest ET of the season with the 3.779 second run from Friday.

In the Funny Car category Robert Hight and the AAA Texas Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car leads the trio of JFR nitro floppers into eliminations. Hight posted the 7th quickest ET of qualifying and will face Chad Head in the first round. The lanes have been even at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals but Hight’s quicker 4.058 second run will give him lane choice over Head’s best ET of 4.106 seconds.

“I am confident in this AAA Texas Chevy Funny Car team. We figured a couple things out here in the heat today. You don’t know what kind of weather we will get tomorrow but I know Mike Neff will give me a good race car. I will need to do my job on the starting line. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and be ready to hopefully get some round wins tomorrow,” said Hight.

While Hight will be facing relative Funny Car newcomer Chad Head in the first round John Force will race veteran Del Worsham. Force had a tough two days of qualifying as his Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car team battled to put a consistent race car underneath the most recent Funny Car winner.

In the first round Force was hit with a ten point oil down penalty and in the second round his hot rod was trucking towards an impressive run when it hazed the tires at the top end and crossed the finish line with a time of 4.272 seconds at 249.67 mph.

“You race your lane and you race what your car will give you tomorrow. If my race car runs I can beat anybody out here but if it doesn’t we aren’t going to win. We’ll be ready with this Chevrolet hot rod for the first round. Del has been out here a long time and it should be a good race,” said John Force.

Courtney Force and her Traxxas Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car team improved on their qualifying efforts today and made a pass in the fourth and final qualifying session to go to the No. 12 spot in the 16-car Funny Car field. The Ron Douglas-tuned Chevy went straight down the hot race track to put a 4.137 ET on the board.

“We’ve continued to make improvements in this Traxxas Chevy Camaro SS Funny Car. We had a solid pass in Q4 with a 4.13. It still through a spark plug out at the end, but it’s definitely getting our guys a little bit more motivated. We’re trying some new things to see if it’s going to work for our team and we’re just working out the kinks right now. I think we’ve got some good potential here so I’m looking forward to tomorrow and staying confident in myself and my team,” said Force.

The fourteen-time finalist and seven-time NHRA event winner went to her first ever final round in Funny Car from the No. 12 spot in 2012 at Chicago during her rookie season.

“We’ve improved since yesterday, but we’re excited about it today because we made the improvement in the heat. We didn’t have the greatest conditions like yesterday in the second session, but I think we definitely made the best of it and made a solid pass in the final session to get us moved up. We continued to improve on our ET’s throughout the day. We finished on a high note so we were excited to get qualified and get it in the show,” said Force.

The 26-year-old driver will line up beside veteran Funny Car driver Tim Wilkerson in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday morning. This will be the tenth time the pair have met up on race day, the seventh time they have met in the opening round of eliminations and the first time they have raced at Houston. It is also their first match-up in 2015.

“My guys have worked hard on this car and we’re trying out some things that will hopefully make this car run a little bit quicker. Last night I think was our shot at getting into the top half. I knew we’d have a little bit of a hard time running a great number in this heat, but I’m excited that this car got down there. I’m thankful that I get to run one of the fastest Chevrolets out there in this Camaro and it’s a lot of fun. I’m very thankful for the job that I have because of Traxxas and all our great sponsors. We get to race tomorrow so we’ll see what we can do and hopefully do some damage,” said Force.

Force is currently 7-2 to Wilkerson in previous events. Their last meeting was Englishtown of last year.