Scott Palmer, Dom Lagana put CatSpot drivers in top half of Bristol Top Fuel field
BRISTOL, TN – CatSpot Organic Cat Litter Top Fuel dragster drivers Scott Palmer and Dom Lagana put on a great 
show in qualifying for the Fitzgerald USA NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway, with each car getting in the top of the field for the Father’s Day race.
Palmer posted his best qualifying effort of the season in the No. 4 spot (3.863 seconds at 319.82 mph), while part-time teammate Lagana slid into the No. 7 position during a hot two days of qualifying. Both are poised for a good race day.
“Obviously, Q1 was great,” said Palmer, who sat in the No. 1 spot after that session. “Got down the track No. 1 qualifier for that session. That was a good test for a hot track. Friday night Q2, we made a pretty stout run for anyone, so we ended up No. 4 for Friday.
“Today, since we ran 3.99 in Q1, we got to try some things for Sunday in the heat. First one didn’t work. Second one went further down the track. We are just trying to manipulate the bump in the track and track prep.
“It gave us two runs to try something different where if we hadn’t tested on those two runs, we may or may not have tried whatever we did on those two runs tomorrow on race day but now, we won’t. Now, we’ll take that information and go into race day with two more runs in the heat.”
The east Tennessee heat and humidity could make final eliminations a crapshoot.
“You never know, it could be anybody’s game out there tomorrow.” Lagana said. “Really, the goal tomorrow is going to be if you can go A to B under power, you are probably going to win the round. It’s going to be a driver’s race too: keep you reaction times quick. That’s what our goal is, whether it be a high 3.90 run, I think that’s all that is going to hold out there.
“We are geared up for it. We’ve got enough runs on match races on bad tracks, it can actually play in our favor, and we kinda go back on that data and see what we can do.”
Lagana’s best pass also came in Friday night’s Q2, making a run of 3.886 seconds at 321.19 mph. Lagana smoked the tires in Q3 and then decided to sit out the final qualifying session, with their goals already met.
“We slowed it down and made some progress with the car early (in Q3), (but) just smoked the tires out at a second and a half,” Lagana said. “We know the changes we need to make and we just sat out (Q4). It’s so hot and we aren’t going to learn much more.
“We just need to come up with a good game plan for tomorrow. It’s hot, it’s tricky, it’s exciting and it can play in your favor, but even us guys, we are having trouble getting it past there. You are always pushing that fine edge to run as quick as you can so we’ll see. We’ll see how hot it gets tomorrow. It’s going to be an interesting day tomorrow, for sure.”
Lagana will face No. 10 qualifier Pat Dakin, whose best pass was 4.002 at 306.53 mph, in the first round Sunday. Palmer races No. 13 Bill Litton, who had a top run of 4.111 at 302.82 mph.
“We actually got to experiment for a change and try to figure some stuff out,” Palmer said of qualifying. “We did figure some stuff out. Now we have a better idea of where to take power away on the hot race track. You know the 3.99 run may be what it takes tomorrow; it just depends on the conditions.
“Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. This is going to be whoever can figure out these conditions best.”
Racing on Father’s Day will be special for Palmer, whose son Tyler will be at the track with him.
“It’s cool having Tyler out here for with me for Father’s Day,” Palmer said. “There’s nothing better. There were a few years there where I wasn’t cool, but now he’s old enough, I’m cool again. I love it. He turned 27 at the last race and I walked him across the stage like a little kid. It’s nice to have him out here and he’s doing a great job.”
