Top Fuel pro Scott Palmer hopes win on the water translates to success on the drag strip
POMONA, CA – The victory Top Fuel pilot Scott Palmer has been chasing all year finally came last weekend at the 
season finale of the Lucas Oil Drag Boat Racing Series event in Phoenix. Now he’s hoping his team’s success on the water translates to the concrete and asphalt racetrack of Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, site of this weekend’s 54th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals.
Palmer and his main sponsor and friend Tommy Thompson co-own a Top Fuel Hydro boat named Liquid Voodoo, which like Palmer’s dragster, promotes CatSpot Organic Cat Litter. With good friend Kebin Kinsley in the cockpit, Liquid Voodoo blew away the competition at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park on numerous occasions.
“Our boat set the speed record four times clocking more than 265 mph,” Palmer said. “And that was pretty impressive because the competition is really tough in that series. The two guys running for the championship both ran in the teens (between 3.13-3.19 seconds) and one of them set the E.T. record so it was an historic weekend.
“Mike Robbins closed out the season by winning the championship and we won the World Finals, so we were all really happy. It was nice to see such good competition in boat racing. We really haven’t had that in the last few years. It’s good for the sport.”
Because his own race rig was on hand, Palmer decided to get out his CatSpot Organic Cat Litter Top Fuel dragster and thrill the boat race fans with a special treat.
“Saturday night we actually made a run in the dragster,” Palmer said. “We did it for a few reasons. One was for the fans. Plus, we knew we could use it for a test run.
“The staff at Wild Horse Pass did an incredible job of prepping the track for us and there was a beautiful sunset in the background when we made our pass. It was crazy fun. The car went straight down the track and we were all super pumped about that. We actually didn’t have any clocks because they weren’t planning to run a car so they never set the clocks up but our onboard computer yielded some really good data.”
Between the information he gained in Phoenix, the tune-up teammate Dom Lagana used in Charlotte and the info he shares with the CAPCO team, Palmer feels very bullish about his chances in Pomona.
“We’ll try to make a really good first run that will secure a spot in the field and then tune from there,” Palmer said. “We’re going to try to win the race. Our teammate Steve Torrence and the CAPCO guys already won the championship and I know they want to win six in a row, which would be historic in itself. But if he can’t win for whatever reason, then we want to take his place.
“Our goal is to go out there and try to run some career-best numbers when we roll up there. If we run career best numbers, we’ll go some rounds. We learned a lot at the last race and ran a 3.76 using the information off of Dom’s car when he ran a 3.71 and 3.73 in Charlotte. Our 3.76 from Vegas was comparable to that because of the differences in conditions. We expect everything to be really good in Pomona so we’ll be ready to run hard.”
