MONSTER MATCH-UPS HIGHLIGHT FIRST ROUND OF SOUTHERN NATIONALS

COMMERCE, GA – Funny Car points leader and Houston race winner Courtney Force raced her Traxxas Chevrolet Camaro SS to a No. 3 starting spot for Sunday’s eliminations at the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals. She recorded a weekend best 3.946 ET to take hold of the top three position and will have lane choice over competitor Jeff Diehl tomorrow. Her Funny Car teammates will face formidable first round match-ups as John Force races Ron Capps and Robert Hight will square off against Cruz Pedregon.

“I am really excited going into race day tomorrow. We’re feeling good. We feel like we have a really fast race car after picking up seven bonus points throughout qualifying,” said Force, who broke her points tie with veteran Tim Wilkerson. “This Traxxas Chevy has been really consistent so far this weekend so that makes me feel good, especially since we’ve been consistently in the 3.0s in the heat. That’s pretty hard to do and I’m just proud of my crew chiefs Dan Hood and Ronnie Thompson and my guys.”

Entering the weekend, the winningest female Funny Car driver was tied with veteran Tim Wilkerson for the lead in in Funny Car point standings, but on Friday she opened up qualifying with a 3.971 ET at 305.01 mph. It was the first official three-second run at Atlanta Dragway and was a track record for the time being. She followed up with a 3.946 ET at 324.67 mph and gained four qualifying bonus points for being quickest of the first session and third-quickest of the second.

On Saturday, Force made the quickest pass in Q3 and the only three-second run in Funny Car with a 3.991 ET at 318.24 mph. She added another three bonus points to her allotment. Finally in Q4, the Traxxas Chevrolet Camaro posted a clean 4.013 ET at 318.09 mph.

“It’s really showing how we’ve progressed as a team together and I’m excited that we were able to pick up those bonus points. That was huge for us. We definitely needed to push a little to get ahead and stay up in the No. 1 points position. I’m happy with the direction we’re going. We qualified third and we’ll be running Jeff Diehl on race day tomorrow. We’re going to see what we can do. We’ve been to the final round here in Atlanta before (2014) so hopefully we can seal the deal tomorrow and stay up there in the points. That’s our main goal,” said Force.

Force’s No. 3 qualifying position is the highest starting spot for the Traxxas Chevy Camaro team at this race track. In 2014 Force went to the final round at this track after qualifying No. 8. It was her ninth career final round in Funny Car. She has never raced Jeff Diehl in eliminations. He is her 32nd different opponent in Funny Car.

While Force will be battling Diehl in the first round teammate Robert Hight and his Auto Club Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car will be trying to set up an all JFR second round match-up with the most recent winner. Hight, the No. 6 qualifier, will face two-time world champion Cruz Pedregon in the opening session.

Hight has raced Pedregon twice at the Southern Nationals since 2005 picking up a second round win in 2006 on his way to a runner-up finish and losing in the first round in 2011. The Auto Club Camaro was consistent today in the heat posting qualifying times of 4.007 seconds and 4.029 seconds.

“We were consistent today but we aren’t where we want to be. We are getting information every run and Mike Neff is trying a couple things. We have a tough match-up with Cruz Pedregon in the first round. We’ll have lane choice but we’ll have to be at the top of our game,” said Hight who has raced to six final rounds at Atlanta Dragway. “I have had some success here but tomorrow will be a brand new race. I have a lot of confidence and hopefully I’ll be racing my teammate Courtney Force in the second round.”

John Force and the Advance Auto PEAK Camaro showed significant improvement with every run down Atlanta Dragway on Friday and Saturday but had to settle for the No. 9 qualifying position. The seven-time Southern Nationals winner will race long-time foe Ron Capps in the first round. The last time Force faced Capps at this race he bested him in the final round in 2000 and the 143-time Funny Car winner is 2-0 versus Capps in Atlanta. Force is 6-2 against Capps since the start of the 2013 season.

“Good man that Ron Capps. I love to race him and I get up for him,” said Force. “It doesn’t matter who you have you race your lane. My car got faster every run it ran quicker. We went from a 4.04 to a 4.01 and we have been learning about a few things. We are taking baby steps in qualifying. The fans will love seeing us race in the first round. We’ll be OK.”

Force was impressed with the standing room only atmosphere of Atlanta Dragway. During the first qualifying session NHRA announced Saturday as a sell-out, their second Saturday sell-out in the past three events.

“Today was unbelievable. The NHRA has done a great job. There is so much to pick from and our fans want to come out here and watch us race. I have to thank Coca-Cola for everything they have done,” raved Force. “I love seeing all these fans out at Atlanta Dragway and we love to put on a good show. They brought in Mello Yello and we are with Monster but we are all in the entertainment business. I want to make a point to thank Gary Azar with Coca-Cola. I met him over fifteen years ago when this deal was getting started and he is still pitching this deal.”

The Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster will head into eliminations with the momentum of knowing they took a chance in the last qualifying session to find “the edge.” Heading into the last session crew chief Brian Husen knew that conditions were similar to potential final round conditions so he tuned up Force’s dragster to see how aggressive his tune-up could be throughout the day on Sunday.

No one on the Monster Energy team is looking past veteran Clay Millican but the mindset of the team is prepare for success.

“You always want as many good qualifying runs as you can get. The struggles we had the last two days will be worth it if we go four rounds tomorrow,” said Force, the only two-time Top Fuel winner in 2016.

“We struggled a little bit this weekend in qualifying. Usually we make four solid passes down the track but this weekend we only got two. The last run we were trying to be pretty aggressive. How we ran in qualifying doesn’t mean we can’t go out there tomorrow and win this whole race. We qualified No. 6 which is top half of the field and we’ll have lane choice first round. That is a good place to be. I am confident the Monster Energy team will put a good number up on the scoreboard against Clay Millican.”

Force is 1-4 versus Millican with her lone win coming at the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals in first round of 2013.