"What kind of odd coincidence is that with the irony being an oildown cost us a top-10 position and my dad owns an oil company."— Morgan Lucas on the 15-point deduction hereceived after oiling the track for the second time this weekend in his opening-round win over David Grubnic. The penalty put him nine points behind 10th-place finisher Hillary Will.
"My rookie season is over, my first full season in Top Fuel is over and we have much to look forward too next year. Our goal was to finish in the top five and we accomplished that. I feel really awesome about our season.”— Rod Fuller after falling to Schumacher in round two, on driving to a fifth-place points finish with two victories and five final-round appearances this year
“Unfortunately we dropped a cylinder early in the final round and it ended up kicking the rods out of it.”— Troxel on her runner-up pass against Schumacher
"What can you say about Alan Johnson? He's simply the best crew chief and tuning mind ever, period. No one comes close. To pull off what he just did should end all discussion on the subject. He's the best."— Schumacher offering well-deserved accolades to his crew chief
"Austin Coil, Bernie Fedderly, Jimmy Prock, John Medlen, all the guys, if we don't have the best team in motorsports, I don't know who does. I'm the lucky guy for all these years, but they're the brains and the guys who do the work. They deserve all the bonuses they're gonna get. This championship probably will cost me a fortune by the time I pay all the bonuses, but I don't care. They deserve it."— Force sharing the credit after taking out Jack Beckman with a holeshot in the final round
"It just blew up down there, and there was no way to get my hand to the parachute lever, so I was pretty much along for the ride. The body had buckled so much, I really couldn't see anything, so I didn't even know where I was or where I was headed. When it hit the sand, it dug in, I guess, and that's when it vaulted up in the air. I knew I was in the air, because it got totally quiet, for what seemed like a long time. When it came down, it hit hard and at that point I was just trying to keep my arms in tight so nothing would be flailing around. I was mostly worried about getting my arms broken, so I kept them in tight. When it finally stopped tumbling, I just got out and walked away from it, already mad about what had happened. Here we are, still the number-one qualifier and we're running great, and this has to happen. My tail bone is sore, so we're just going to take it easy and see how I feel. Right now, I'm just really bummed out about all of this.”— Del Worsham on the spectacular end-over-end crash he suffered after going off the top end of the racetrack in Friday’s qualifying session
|
Ken Skulte photos |
"[In] the dragsters you just breathe on the steering wheel, and [in] the Funny Car it's a Winnebago with a flat front tire in a 60-mph crosswind on some runs."— Beckman again, on the difference between driving a Top Fuel car and a Funny Car
"It's complicated, but the clutch just didn't wear the way we wanted it to. Actually, it wasn't wearing enough. It rattled the tires a few times down there and when it tried to lock the clutch up it rattled the tires. Any time you do that you lose elapsed time.”— Ron Capps on what kept him from qualifying any better than sixth for raceday
"Lane choice could be a factor here. It might be just a little difference, but it could still be a difference. Getting in the top half of the field was big.”— Tommy Johnson Jr. after qualifying seventh
ADVERTISEMENT
