Delayed by track troubles from its original date in May, the 7th annual NHRA O’Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals finally were completed July 6-8, before a sold-out crowd at Bristol Dragway. The big news coming out of the east-Tennessee speed factory was John Force finally breaking into the Funny Car win column this season, while Brandon Bernstein earned his fourth Top Fuel title in 2007 and Jeg Coughlin Jr. scored his second Pro Stock win of the year. And of course the whole story can be told with quotes included in NHRA and team press releases.
FUNNY CAR
“The greatest kid in the world was Eric Medlen—heart as big as Tennessee. I didn't think I ever was gonna’ get the win for him, but this trophy is going to go to his dad and it's gonna’ go to a place for Eric Medlen, because he was our heart and he still is."
— John Force after beating Cruz Pedregon to secure his 123rd career victory and his first since teammate and protégé Medlen died following a crash during testing at Gainesville, FL, in the spring
"We went out there with the intention of running a high .90 and the track got a hold of our car and explained to us that we were dumber than we thought.” — Tim Wilkerson, who ended up as the number-one qualifier, on his first qualifying attempt on Friday afternoon
"We got rushed to go up there for second round and they didn't scrape the track and we assumed that they would. I don't know why we assumed it, but we did. And I was getting in the car back in the pits when we found out that all they were going to do was drag it. We were screwed. We didn't have any time to pull any nuts off or make any changes.” — Gary Scelzi on blowing the tires off against Wilkerson in the second round
“I saw Jim Head smoke the tires in front of me, so I backed it off a little. I probably shouldn't have done that. And then I shut it off early because I saw Force ahead of me. But that's okay. We're trying not to make mistakes. That's a better approach than smoking the tires.”
— Wilkerson on his semi-final loss to Force
