Bristol: Doug Herbert Saturday notes

Herbert in Top Half of the Field at First Race of the Season

In his first race of the 2009 season, Doug Herbert qualified in the top half of the field at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn. The veteran driver, who qualified eighth, will face No. 9 qualifier Doug Kalitta in the first round of eliminations.

"I'm really happy with how we're doing this weekend," said Herbert, a 10-time NHRA event winner. "I think we did a great job. We haven't raced since November and we put a crew together at the last minute, but we still came out and ran well."

"Since we're not running a full season this year I've only been able to keep two of my crew guys, so we had to enlist a little help this weekend," added Herbert. "We called some friends and brought some of the guys from my parts shop, Doug Herbert Performance. They had never crewed together but they all worked really hard, they didn't make any mistakes and they worked well together, and it paid off."

The team used a recent exhibition pass made during "PINKS All Out" as a baseline run for the first round of qualifying. While wheeling the dragster in front of a sold out crowd at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, Herbert ran a solid 3.98.

"We wanted to set the car up like it was for PINKS because we thought that would give us a good starting spot for the night session," explained Car Chief Scott Gaddy. "We were going for it in the third session today. We wanted to see what we could get away with in the middle of the day Sunday. We'll just keep doing what we've done all weekend and try to focus on going from point A to point B."

"I really want to thank all the folks at Food City, as well as Bruton and zMAX," Herbert said. "It's awesome to be out here again. I owe a big 'thank you' to everyone who made it possible for us to be racing in Bristol this weekend!"

-credit: dhr