Funny Car’s Blake Alexander Struggles at Atlanta
COMMERCE, GA – Young Funny Car driver Blake Alexander suffered another first round loss at the rain-delayed Summit Racing 
Equipment Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway this weekend. The driver of the Auto Service Plus powered by Auto-Plus Funny Car was unable to qualify in the Top 8, putting him in an unfavorable lane for Saturday’s first round of eliminations.
Rain storms during last weekend’s attempt at race completion prompted NHRA officials to bump back competition to this weekend, beginning with abbreviated two rounds of qualifying on Friday and eliminations on Saturday. Going from four qualifying sessions to two had a noticeable effect on Alexander’s Paul Smith-led team. Though the Auto Service Plus car was consistent, running 4.26 and 4.21, it was only quick enough to rank Blake No. 15, lining him up with Ron Capps first round.
“We struggled in qualifying. Having only two sessions really didn’t help us. Your mistakes are multiplied when there are only two qualifying sessions, so we were hurt by that,” Blake said.
As first round of eliminations neared, the team learned they would be running in the left lane, in which Alexander ran his quickest run in qualifying. Despite that fact, veteran tuner Paul Smith took a calculated approach to the tuning calls.
“We were trying to run better than we did in qualifying, but saw teams having trouble around 300 feet. We had to make some changes to make sure we made it down the race track so we could learn about the changes we’ve been making. Unfortunately Ron ran low E.T. of eliminations and that was that,” Blake said after the run.
“When you struggle in qualifying you end up racing in the less-favorable lane,” Alexander claimed. “We’ve seen this weekend that the left lane wasn’t as good as the right lane. He ran good enough, but you would think if someone was in the other lane they couldn’t have run that number, so it had a big effect.”
Blake Alexander and the Auto Service Plus Funny Car team will have a short break before their next event, the Summernationals at historic Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, May 30-June 2.
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