Charlotte: Cory McClenathan Friday report

MCCLENATHAN SECURES PROVISIONAL POLE GOING FOUR-WIDE IN CONCORD

CONCORD, N.C. (March 26, 2010) - Driving the FRAM Top Fuel dragster, Cory McClenathan secured the provisional pole position for the Inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals tonight running against Tony Schumacher, Doug Kalitta and Larry Dixon in the final match-up.

McClenathan posted a track-record-setting 3.790-second elapsed time at 315.93 mph, and if this holds through two more qualifying sessions on Saturday, McClenathan will have collected his second No. 1 of the season and the 35th of his career. His first lap today was a 3.855/315.34.

"FRAM just likes Charlotte, that's all there is to it," said McClenathan, the defending Top Fuel event champion. "Last time we were here we did well. Todd (Okuhara, co-crew chief with Phil Shuler), right when we started, said again, 'We're pushing it, we're going to push it and see what it will hold.' And we knew the right-hand lane was really good. They've all been fantastic all day long. There were a couple of spots that we were trying to negotiate, so we came on the inside of that lane a little bit.

"We're going to see how everything stacks up on Sunday. I'd love to go three rounds here and win this this again. Two years in a row for us would be great.

"Any time you go somewhere and you have a good weekend you want to keep going back there. This is one of those places.

"We kind of understood the staging process and everybody's really good about it. I knew the cars that we were running against and I know all the drivers very well. I was very comfortable with that. Once I kind of figured out the light thing, [it was] not a big deal. Watching a couple of cars run before us helped. Crew chiefs were thinking low E.T. all the time. That's the kind of mode they were in."

-source: dsr