Bristol: Dave Connolly final report

Dave Connolly Upset in Semifinals at Bristol

Dave Connolly came four-thousandths  of a second from racing Jeg Coughlin,
his Victor Cagnazzi Racing teammate, in  the O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals
Pro Stock finals Sunday at Bristol  Dragway.

But those small fractions were Kenny Koretsky's margin of victory in the upset decision.

Connolly, at the controls of  Evan Knoll's Torco Racing Fuels Chevy Cobalt,
qualified third and had the  second-quickest elapsed time in his first-round
win over Steve Schmidt (6.794  seconds at 203.16 mph to 6.837 at 201.97) and the
low run of quarterfinals  (6.800 at 203.43) in beating Allen Johnson's 6.816
at  202.64.

Koretsky gained his deciding margin with a near-perfect  .006-second reaction
time to Connolly's .032.  At the finish line,  Koretsky's 6.827-second time
was four-thousandths better than Connolly's  6.805.

"Well, Bristol still hasn't been very good to us," said a dejected Connolly. "We were trying to get both Cagnazzi Racing cars into the finals, but unfortunately there is only one."

Coughlin defeated Koretsky in the finals by two-thousandths of a second.

Connolly has  851 NHRA POWERade Series points and remains third going into
the next race at  Denver, Friday through Sunday.  It is the fourth of six
straight  races.

-credit: dc/jls