Consistent qualifying effort has Tucker confident heading into final sessions

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – With three rounds of qualifying complete at the 60th running of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway, Pro Stock driver Shane Tucker feels confident that he will be in the top half of the field when qualifying concludes Sunday.

“I think we’re making strides in the right direction this weekend,” Tucker said. “Between Q2 and Q3 today we changed a bunch of things on the car purely because we were a little lost on where to go.

“We are definitely headed in the right direction after that last qualifying session. Hopefully, we can get two more rounds in tomorrow and keep moving forward. It’s a tough field but I think we can handle it.”

Improving with every pass it has made so far at Lucas Oil Raceway, Tucker’s Auzmet Chevrolet Camaro motored to its best time in the third qualifying session Saturday night. Posting a time of 6.649 seconds at 208.20 mph, Tucker currently sits in the 14th position, just hundredths off from the fastest time posted so far.

“The motor we have is good enough to be in the top five, and that’s where we want to be,” Tucker said. “Right now we’re 14th but that doesn’t really reflect how we are running. If we were just two-hundredths quicker in that last round, we would have been up in the top five at the end of it.

“Tomorrow we just need to sneak up on the guys in front of us a little bit. We need to try not count ourselves out and race the racetrack.”

The final two sessions of qualifying are scheduled for 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Sunday with eliminations starting at approximately noon Monday. Both qualifying and elimination action will be broadcast on ESPN2.