CHEVROLET RACING IN NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION
CHEVROLET PERFORMANCE U.S. NATIONALS
LUCAS OIL RACEWAY IN INDIANAPOLIS
SECOND-DAY QUALIFICATIONS NOTEBOOK
SATURDAY, SEPT. 1, 2018

Chevrolet Drivers Finding Speed through Three Rounds of ‘Big Go’ Qualifying
Courtney Force is first female Funny Car driver to enter Countdown as No. 1 seed

INDIANAPOLIS (Sept. 1, 2018) – Courtney Force checked off her first objective in the 64th Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals and now can focus on hoisting the Wally in the winner’s circle Sept. 3 at Lucas Oil Raceway.

Force, driving the Advance Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro SS, clinched the No. 1 Funny Car spot for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Countdown to the Championship during qualifications for the “Big Go.” She has sat atop the driver standings since May 6 in the 17-race regular season that has been punctuated by – so far — four victories and 10 low qualifier honors.

Since the Countdown began in 2007, Courtney Force is the first female Funny Car driver and the second overall (Erica Enders was No. 1 in 2015 on the way to the Pro Stock title) to be No. 1 in points at the completion of the 18-race regular season. She’ll start the six-race playoff with a 20-point advantage over the second-place driver.

“This is an incredible feeling for our Advance Auto Parts Funny Car team. To be in the No. 1 spot for the Countdown and really take the pressure off for the rest of the weekend is huge,” said Force, who is seeking her first trip to the winner’s circle at Lucas Oil Raceway. “Your name goes down in the history books and it’s always been a dream of mine to win the U.S. Nationals since I was a kid watching my dad race.”

Through three of five qualifying sessions at Lucas Oil Raceway, Force is sixth in the 18-car field. Her 3.959-second pass at 325.69 mph was the quickest of the third round to pick up four bonus points.

“I think we struggled a little bit the last few runs but really did some damage on that run. It felt really good to get it from A to B for the Advance Auto Parts team,” she said.

Sixteen-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force, a four-time winner of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, sits eighth. Reigning Funny Car champion Robert Hight, driving the Auto Club of Southern California Chevrolet Camaro SS, is 10th.

Brittany Force, the reigning Top Fuel champion, is 14th in the PEAK Coolant & Motor Oil Chevrolet dragster with a pass of 3.836 seconds/318.62 mph that collected four bonus points for lowest of the second round.

Tanner Gray, who laid down the quickest elapsed time of the first Pro Stock session at 6.601 seconds in the Gray Manufacturing Technologies Chevrolet Camaro SS, retained the top spot after the two subsequent qualifying rounds.

Bo Butner, the 2017 Pro Stock champion, made the quickest pass of the class in the afternoon heat and humidity at 6.621 seconds in the Jim Butner Auto Sales Chevrolet Camaro SS to move to third on the qualifying list.

“The car is getting better. This is our home track and have a lot of fans and family here, so we’d like to keep making consistent runs,” said Butner, of Floyd Knobs, Indiana.

Greg Anderson (Summit Racing Equipment Chevrolet Camaro SS), a six-time winner of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals in Pro Stock, is second-quick in qualifications. He entered the event with a 20-point lead over second-place Gray in the standings.

“Today we kind of took the approach of doing what we would like to do on Monday race day,” Gray said. “Tomorrow will be big for us to see if we can learn some more things going into Monday. This is a big race and it means a lot to us to be running good here, but we have to be able to seal the deal on Monday. My dad (Shane) won it in 2014. To win would be something really cool to check off on resumé. Whether you win a championship or not, you could always say you won Indy.”
2017 champion Butner is playoff-focused

Reigning Pro Stock champion Bo Butner locked in a Countdown spot to complete a Chevrolet sweep of the 10 qualifiers. He entered the 2017 playoffs as the top seed but will be slotted in the bottom half heading to the first race of the playoffs at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania.

“Really, you just try to concentrate on the last six races and see if you can win the first one or two and then go from there,” he said. “I think our car is better now than it was at mid-season so we’ve got that going for us. Counting this race, there are seven left and I know we’ve got what it takes to win a few of them. That’s my goal.”

Butner won at Maple Grove Raceway last fall.

Chevrolet COPO Camaro drivers aim for SAM Tech Showdown win

Drivers of the Chevrolet COPO Camaro will seek a third victory Sept. 2 in the School of Automotive Technicians (SAM Tech) Factory Stock Showdown series.

Stephen Bell at Gainesville and Arthur Kohn at Charlotte have claimed wins this season. The Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals is the fifth of seven races in the series. The other two races are at St. Louis later this month and Dallas in October.

David Barton of Robesonia, Pennsylvania, the 2017 champion, is among the competitors this weekend in his 2018 COPO Camaro.

“We were a little more conservative on our tune-up before, but now since the competition is really stepping up their game we — like every other class — try to get every hundredth out of the car you can get, which means a lot of it is in the first 60 feet,” Barton said. “That’s the toughest part. You have to strategize how aggressive to get off the line every round because the track can be from one extreme to the other from one round to the next. That’s always the biggest battle with this class, especially with a small tire. It’s the equalizer in the class. It’s not just horsepower but who can get off the line sand cut a good light.”
On location from Chevrolet Performance display

FS1 will telecast from the Chevrolet Performance display on race day Sept. 3 with interviews of Chevrolet drivers. The set will include the PEAK Coolant & Motor Oil Chevrolet dragster of Brittany Force and John Force’s Funny Car show car. … The 1978 Chevrolet Corvette Funny Car that Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen drove to victory over Don Prudhomme at the U.S. Nationals is on display at the Chevrolet Performance display. The matchup was named the most memorable moment in U.S. Nationals history by fans at the 50th anniversary celebration of the “Big Go” in 2004.