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Brainerd: Dave Connolly Saturday notes

Connolly Qualifies Eighth, Races Richie Stevens in First Round Before the start of Saturday's Pro Stock qualifying for Sunday's Lucas Oil Nationals, Dave Connolly was doing the math necessary to provide what his first qualifying time may ...

Published: Aug 10, 2008, 9:05 AM

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Connolly Qualifies Eighth, Races Richie Stevens in First Round

Before the start of Saturday's Pro Stock qualifying for Sunday's Lucas Oil Nationals, Dave Connolly was doing the math necessary to provide what his first qualifying time may be.

"We should run a 6.70 (seconds)," he said. "Hopefully that's good enough to get into the top half of the field" when eliminations begin.

It was mission accomplished on both counts. He drove the Cagnazzi Racing Charter Communications/LifeLock Chevy Cobalt to a time of 6.708 seconds at 205.35 mph on his first quarter-mile run and it was good enough to put him eighth overall. He races Richie Stevens (ninth, 6.710 at 205.44 mph) in the first round.

"We were soft on the starting line on our run this morning and we thought we could've run a little better, but not much," said Connolly, who hopes to solidify his hold on 10th place in the POWERade Series top 10 Sunday. "The car shook the tires a little bit (on the hotter afternoon run) in the heat of the day.

"I think we have a good race car for Sunday. As I've said before, it really doesn't matter where you qualify. We race Richie, whose running pretty good, in the first round, so it's going to be a tough battle from round one for as long as we get to go. Eighth is where we started in Sonoma (where he won for the second time this season). Hopefully we're the first pair of Pro Stock cars out and the last the last ones standing."

Connolly, who bumped into the top 10 with the Sonoma victory, is 52 points ahead of 11th place (682-630) and he trails ninth-place Ron Krisher (his Cagnazzi Racing teammate) by 46 points.

-credit: vcr

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