Baytown: Larry Dixon final summary

DIXON DRIVES MILLER LITE DRAGSTER TO ROUND-TWO FINISH AT HOUSTON BAYTOWN, Texas (April 10, 2005) -- Two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Larry Dixon used two solid passes to drive his Miller Lite dragster to a second-round performance at Houston ...

DIXON DRIVES MILLER LITE DRAGSTER TO ROUND-TWO FINISH AT HOUSTON

BAYTOWN, Texas (April 10, 2005) -- Two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Larry Dixon used two solid passes to drive his Miller Lite dragster to a second-round performance at Houston Raceway Park on Sunday during the O'Reilly Spring Nationals.

Dixon qualified his Miller Lite rail in the fifth position with an elapsed time of 4.515-seconds at H.R.P. on Saturday afternoon. The two-time Houston Raceway Park-winner opened eliminations by edging Kalitta Motorsports driver David Grubnic. Dixon needed all of his 4.536-second, 326.71 mph tune-up to hold off the hard-charging No. 12 qualifier and earn the trip to round two.

Dixon, the 1995 NHRA Rookie of the Year, blasted his Miller-backed rail to the second quickest elapsed time of the second round of eliminations, but it wasn't enough to knock off rival Doug Kalitta. Dixon raced to a run of 4.538 at 326.24, while Kalitta used a run of 4.500 at 328.38 to earn the round-two victory.

"We thought the car would run a 4.50 or 4.51 in that round and it didn't," Dixon said. "I know everyone on the Miller team was disappointed that we didn't pick up the performance. We're still working on the consistency of the race car. We've got a pretty strong race car, it just hasn't shown on race day."

The next NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event is the Sixth annual Summitracing.com Nationals, April 14-17, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Dixon has collected three of his 35 career NHRA victories at The Strip.