Qualified: No. 3
The Competition:
No. 6 Doug Kalitta
No. 11 Mike Salinas
No. 14 Richie Crampton
The Results:
Q1: 6.027 E.T. at 114.18 MPH
Q2: 3.719 E.T. at 331.77 MPH (One bonus point for third quickest of the session)
Q3: 6.322 E.T. at 109.63 MPH
Q4: 3.880 E.T. at 291.01 MPH (One bonus point for third quickest run of the session)
Bonus Points: Two
Quotable:
“We are getting better every day and that has been our focus. The conditions were tricky today. It got hot and it was nasty out there and our Matco Tools/U.S. Army boys led by (crew chiefs) Mark (Oswald) and Brad (Mason) made big moves. We had to make big moves to get down that race track. When the track is hot and slimy, we know we are comfortable and confident to get down the track. We were running on a really good pass in that last session and it just spun right before halftrack. I just shut it down and we still ran a 88 (3.880 seconds). You could have put a marginal back end to it and we would have been quickest in that round. I like where we are going right now. We know things will be different tomorrow. The sun will be out, but they are predicting the ambient temperature to be about 10 degrees cooler. It’s going to get interesting tomorrow.”