Too much horsepower results in early exit from Atlanta Dragway for Shane Gray

ATLANTA – After logging his best qualifying effort of the season, Shane Gray and his Valvoline/Nova Services Chevrolet Camaro race team were ready for a long day at Atlanta Dragway, but the group got a little greedy in the opening round of eliminations, overpowering the racetrack at the launch and gift-wrapping a win for Kenny Delco.

“No one to blame but ourselves,” Gray said. “We just went into immediate tire shake and that was all she wrote. Kenny ended up having trouble himself downtrack and was certainly there for the taking, but that’s the difference between losing your momentum at the starting line and just losing a bit of steam at the top end. He won easily.”

After outqualifying Delco by nearly a tenth of a second, a huge chasm of time in drag racing, Gray certainly was up for his race, leaving the starting line a hundredth of a second ahead of his opponent, but almost instantly his car was in trouble, and Delco was able to drive by him and away for the victory.

The final numbers showed Delco crossing with a late-shutoff 7.299 at 148.38 mph to Gray’s drifting 11.690 at 76.83 mph.

“We’re upset that we overestimated the track conditions,” Gray said. “It was nice and cool this morning and the heat started kicking in right as Pro Stock got ready to run. The guys saw what the fuel cars were running and tuned to what they thought the track could hold. We just missed it by a touch.

“It’s hard to be too upset about this weekend as a whole. Adding Dave Connolly as crew chief alongside Jim Yates and Craig Hankinson made a world of difference. We have a good race car now and we are working hard to make it a great race car.

“I’m actually really excited we have a race next weekend so we can get back out there and show everyone what we can do. Our spirits are high.”

The 28th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals run May 20-22 at Heartland Park Topeka.

Today’s race will air from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. ET. on FOX Sports 1.