Baytown: Hillary Will Saturday summary

Will qualifies No. 8 after rains cancel Saturday's qualifying at Houston
Looks forward to eliminations and birthday tomorrow

BAYTOWN, Texas (March 31, 2007) -- A frog-choking rain hit Houston Raceway Park on Saturday first causing havoc with the schedule for the 20th annual NHRA O'Reilly Spring Nationals today, then canceled the two professional qualifying sessions that were scheduled. That officially sets the field with only two of four qualifying sessions run.

Hillary Will placed her KB Racing LLC-owned, Kalitta Motorsports-managed Top Fuel dragster in the No. 8 position (4.630/310.41) on the final qualifying ladder for eliminations tomorrow. She will face Joe Hartley (4.631/312.42), who qualified No. 9.

"The two qualifying passes that we got on Friday put me in both the left lane and the right lane and enabled me to get a feel for the track that should help me during eliminations," said Will on Saturday after NHRA called the day activities. "I'm ready for race day.

"A whole lot of fans stayed around to the end today.  We have a lot
of diehard fans here in Houston.  I think race day will make up for what
they missed today.  It should be exciting."

Crew chief Jim Oberhofer said he would have liked to have the two sessions as he changed some things at the last race in Gainesville and would have liked to have the extra sessions to improve on the results they showed. But all in all he feels the KB Racing team is ready for eliminations. The only uncertainty is the weather. Sun and temperatures around 80 degrees are forecast, conditions the teams have not seen all weekend.

"We feel confident on our runs from Friday that we are heading in the right direction," said Jim O. "Tomorrow's forecast is an unknown factor. If it's warm and sunny the race track will be hotter than anything we've seen on the two runs we did have. So it will make it more difficult."

Drag racers are always into number and stats and this race is what many would call a numbers race for Will. The Houston race will be Will's 27th start as a professional driver in the NHRA POWERade drag racing series. Also, tomorrow, April 1, is her birthday and she will turn 27-years-old. Her younger twin brothers, Austin and Kevin, were born on the 27th day of the month. Happy Birthday Hillary, and hopefully, Sunday will be the first of more than 27 wins for the KB Racing team.

ELIMINATIONS: Final eliminations for all teams begin at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Time is local Houston time (CT) and subject to change.

-credit: kb racing