Bristol: Chip King Friday report

BRISTOL, Tenn. - Don't let the "plain vanilla" appearance of Chip King's Dodge R/T fool you. The Semora, NC driver and his crew, led by Hemi magician Bill Barrett, have been making some pretty fancy moves out on the track so far this season. In March, King qualified second for the rain-shortened Mac Tools Gatornationals, posting a best-of-four 6.243/211.06 effort to earn the spot. Now back at the Mac Tools Thunder Valley Nationals for round two, King had his Indy Cylinder Heads Mopar flying once again.

After the first day of qualifying for the exhibition category, he posted two deadly consistent runs of 6.359/222.51 and 6.350/223.21, demonstrating just how good a handle this team has on their prototype blown Hemi powerplant. King's strong performance was good enough to peg him in the number four qualifying spot after day one.

King admits that he would be set if this was bracket racing.

"We do have the consistency factor working to our advantage," explained King. "Tomorrow, we will enhance our tune-up and try and step this thing up. I think we'll do just fine."

King will have two more qualifying attempts to improve on his position tomorrow.

-Brian Wood