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Atlanta GMC Racing Saturday Notes

SPITZER AND JONES BOTH SNARE FIRST ROUND WIN COMMERCE, Ga. (May 15, 1999) - Pro Stock Truck final eliminations for the 19th annual Advance Auto Parts Southern Nationals began today at Atlanta Dragway. In the first round of eliminations Rick ...

Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM

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SPITZER AND JONES BOTH SNARE FIRST ROUND WIN

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 15, 1999) - Pro Stock Truck final eliminations for the 19th annual Advance Auto Parts Southern Nationals began today at Atlanta Dragway. In the first round of eliminations Rick Jones upset No. 3 qualifier Brad Jeter on a "holeshot" posting a reaction time of .420 seconds to Jeter's .445 reaction time. That enabled Jones' slower elapsed-time of 7.659 seconds to edge out Jeter's 7.641 elapsed time at the finish line by seven thousandth's of a second. It was the first round win in eliminations by a GMC Sonoma Pro Stock truck. "First of all we were pretty excited by qualifying for our first event," Jones said. "It's our third outing in the GMC Sonoma Pro Stock Truck, we've been working pretty hard over the least couple of months to get to where we are now and we're just happy that we got it in the field. I think maybe we're starting to see some results. I have to thank John Lingenfelter, all the guys on the race team, Jeff Charles, Kevin, Donny and everybody at the shop. It's a big uplift for us to get in the field. "I was pumped up for the first round. We changed the truck around last night, and worked on the transmission and the clutch. We did a lot better on Thursday, and took a look at our notes after yesterday's final run. We switched the truck back around and it ran pretty good in the first round. Even though we had an advantage at the starting line, we still needed everything we had to beat him. It was pretty tight at the end. We knew we could run in the top-half with this new motor if we made a clean run -- and that's what we did there." David Spitzer upset No. 2 qualifier Bob Panella on a holeshot in the first round. Spitzer left Panella on the starting line with a .424-second reaction time making his 7.711 elapsed-time good enough to beat Panella's track-record 7.582-second run. It was Spitzer's first round win in professional competition. Panella had a reaction-time of .563 seconds. "It feels great - just awesome really," Spitzer exclaimed! "We needed all of that 7.71 we could muster. We could have run faster than that, but it was stuck in fourth gear for about a second-and-a-half too long. I couldn't get it into fifth and I was hammering on the stick trying to get it to go. I still didn't see him and it finally popped into gear probably about 100 yards before the finish line. We really just hung on. I saw Panella just going into the finish line so I may have had a fender on him if that. I felt like I had won but he went by me pretty quick and sometimes that can be a little deceiving down there at the other end. In the second round, Rick Jones and David Spitzer both went down to defeat; Jones to Randy Daniels and Spitzer to Craig Eaton. Jones second-round performance numbers were 7.724ET/176.05MPH to Daniels 7.634ET/176.67MPH. Spitzer's numbers were 7.732ET/175.55MPH to Eaton's 7.677ET/175.68MPH. The next stop is the 30th annual Mopar Parts Nationals on May 20 - 23. It is the sixth race on the 14-event Winston Pro Stock Truck tour. Same day television coverage of final eliminations can be seen on ESPN2 on Sunday, May 23, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. Qualifying highlights can be seen on ESPN2 on Sunday, May 23, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.

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