Brainerd: Jerry Toliver Saturday notes

Toliver Turns in Season-Best Qualifying Effort at Brainerd

BRAINERD, Minn., August 15, 2009 - Qualifying was completed today for the 28th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway, and Jerry Toliver drove the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil Chevy Funny Car to his best qualifying position of the season with a 4.209-second elapsed time at 296.50 mph to claim the ninth qualifying spot on the Funny Car grid. Toliver's speed was second-fastest in the class for the weekend, only being bested by No. 1 qualifier Mike Neff. Neff had a 4.126 e.t. at 304.46 mph.

"We got better with each qualifying run," Toliver said, "and it's nice to see the hard work put in by Jim (team owner /crew chief Dunn) and the team start to show on the track. The next step is to carry it over into consistent runs on Sunday so hopefully we can do that."

After yesterday's two qualifying sessions, today's qualifying was rain-shortened to just one round, and Toliver will face No. 8 qualifier Del Worsham in the first round of eliminations.

"We would've liked another round to try and move up into the top half of the field, but I don't think lane choice is going to be that big of an issue here at Brainerd. We just need to build some momentum from qualifying and get some round wins."

-credit: canidae