Darlington Romine First Day Qualifying Story

Romine qualified 8th after day one of the IHRA Prolong Winter Nationals

DARLINGTON, S.C. (March 12, 1999) -- It was not the best session in IHRA history, but 2-time IHRA Top Fuel Champion Paul Romine is qualified after day one of the Prolong Super Lubricants Winter Nationals at Darlington International Dragway.

Only 8 cars made qualifying passes in session one of qualifying and a starting line malfunction caused the CARQUEST dragster to lose traction immediately with Romine costing to a 15.575/77.45 qualifying time.

"We had a problem on the starting line that cause us to lose traction immediately," Romine said. "Tomorrow we'll rectify the problem and knock on wood, we'll move up into the program."

The IHRA Prolong Super Lubricants Winter Nationals continue Saturday with two additional qualifying session with final eliminations set for Sunday. ESPN2 will provide tape delayed coverage of the Winter Nationals at a later date.

Coverage of the event can be obtained on the World Wide Web at the IHRA Web Page(WWW. IHRA .COM). For more information about Paul Romine and CARQUEST Racing, please visit the CARQUEST Racing homepage (WWW.CARQUEST.COM/MOTORSPORTS.HTM)