Pritchett, Papa John’s team rocket to No. 2 at Gateway near St. Louis

DSR teammate Capps, NAPA Brakes Dodge holds Countdown lead

MADISON, IL – Leah Pritchett led a strong day for Don Schumacher Racing’s dragsters Powered by Pennzoil by moving up to the No. 2 qualifying spot with her last run Saturday of 3.670 seconds and 329.10 mph in the NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis.

Right behind the driver of the Papa John’s Pizza dragster led by crew chief Todd Okuhara with assistant Joe Barlam is Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team with crew chief Mike Green in third. Five-time Gateway winner Antron Brown and the Matco Tools ‘Tools for the Cause’ team with crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald improved four spots to No. 6 heading to Sunday’s championship eliminations that will start at 11 a.m. (CDT).

Pritchett’s last three runs were in the 3.6-second range and she saved her best for last.

“In qualifying, you can have your own victories, and we’ve had a strong presence on the track this weekend in very good conditions,” she said. “The strength we’ve showed gives us confidence that we can run in warm conditions. Our qualifying effort gives us some momentum going into Sunday.

“We want to end this season the way we started it,” said Pritchett, who is seventh in the Countdown to the Championship standings after two of six playoff races. She started the season by winning the first two titles and has added two more.

The three DSR dragsters, however, are on the same side of the 16-car eliminations bracket so at best only two can advance to the semifinals.

In Funny Car, DSR’s quartet is spread evenly on the bracket with No. 3 qualified Ron Capps and the NAPA Brakes Dodge Charger R/T and No. 6 Jack Beckman in Terry and Doug Chandler’s Infinite Hero team with crew chiefs Dean Antonelli, John Medlen and Neal Strausbaugh potentially meeting in the second round.

On the other side of the ladder, No. 8 Matt Hagan and the Sandvik Coromant team with crew chief Dickie Venables is paired in the first round against Tommy Johnson Jr. and the Chandlers’ Make-A-Wish team with crew chief John Collins.

Capps and crew chief Rahn Tobler had a good Saturday even if they dropped from second to third in qualifying. The NAPA Brakes Dodge was quickest in the day’s opening session to earn three bonus points while pole winner Robert Hight of John Force Racing was shutout in both sessions.

“I feel good. Coming off the win (Sunday at Reading, Pa.) we gained a bunch of confidence like we had earlier this year. We unloaded and had two great runs  here on Friday.

“It’s been fun this weekend, because you go up there with confidence again that you can go up and call pretty much within a couple hundredths of a second what the car is going to run.

“We take nothing for granted, nobody for granted. We’re going to go up every round and try to just  do what we did all year long.”

The six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff will reach its midway point after Sunday’s eliminations and have a week off before the Mello Yello Series resumes at the Texas Motorplex near Dallas.