C. FORCE SETS PACE AT NORTHWEST NATIONALS ON FRIDAY
KENT, WA – Courtney Force opened up qualifying at the Northwest Nationals outside of Seattle with a 4.161 second pass at 294.88 mph which put her in the No. 6 position to kick off racing at the Pacific Raceway. In the second session, the Traxxas Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car driver improved with a 4.063 second elapsed time at 306.40 mph and jumped up to the No. 5 position going into Saturday’s qualifying attempts.
“Our Traxxas team laid down two solid passes today. Our first 4.16 run put us in the top half of the field. Our mile per hour was down and we had some problems down track. We got it fixed up for Q2 and ran a 4.06 which was a great number to put on the board.
“It’s always exciting to get a good number in on Q2 and get in the top half of the field. That run put us No. 5 and moved us up so we’re excited. We’re going into tomorrow with some confidence after today’s qualifying. We’ll see if we can tweak it a little bit and get it to run even harder tomorrow. Obviously consistency is important out here and Q3 and Q4 are probably going to be pretty typical race day conditions so we’re going to see how far we can push this car. All in all, we’re really excited about our qualifying sessions today and hopefully we can stay in the top half by the end of it,” said Force.
Right behind the youngest Force sits defending Northwest Nationals champion John Force in the No. 8 spot. After the first session the winningest driver in NHRA history was in the No. 11 spot with a 4.411 second pass and his Blue Def Peak Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car stepped up in the night session. Running on the left lane Force’s Chevy Camaro launched hard and thundered down the track with a solid 4.084 second run that will have him in the No. 8 provisional qualified spot going into Saturday.
The final JFR Funny Car driven by Robert Hight will transfer into the last day of qualifying in the provisional No. 10 spot. Hight was in the No. 8 position after the first qualifying run when his Auto Club Chevy Camaro Funny Car tripped the finish line beams with a time of 4.22 seconds at 267.22 mph. The 2009 Funny Car champ made that run mostly on seven of eight cylinders. In the final session of the day his Mike Neff tuned Funny Car improved with a 4.093 second run at 310.91 mph. The 34-time Funny Car winner is looking forward to tomorrow’s additional two qualifying runs to build on the improvement of today.
In Top Fuel Brittany Force and the Monster Energy dragster ran to the No. 9 provisional spot in a tight Top Fuel field. Force was sitting No. 4 after a strong opening run on a green race track this afternoon with a 4.052 second pass. In the second session track temps cooled and then there was a considerable delay due to an oil down two pairs in front of the 2013 Auto Club Road to the Future award winner. The delay did not bother Force but did let the track further cool off and give the remaining Top Fuel dragsters a chance to take a shot at the No. 1 spot. Force improved dramatically from her first qualifying run posting a 3.809 second run at 320.13 mph and is satisfied with the improvement heading into Saturday.
Brittany Force and her father John started the day with the Seattle Seahawks observing training camp and meeting a few players before heading to the track. The duo watched practice from the sidelines and then met superstar quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Pete Carroll.
All the JFR race cars will get two more chances to improve on their respective qualifying positions beginning at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.