Chicago Century 21 Racing Team Post Qualifying Update

The challenge to qualify at this weekend's Prestone Route 66 Nationals was made even greater by conditions that seemed to change with every session. Although cool temperatures were ideal for making horsepower, a tricky Route 66 Raceway surface put a premium on handling. On every run Tom Martino and the CENTURY 21 Pro Stock Firebird Racing Team worked to find the proper balance that would get their racecar down the track. Their best effort came on Friday night, when Martino recorded a 6.893-second elapsed time with a top speed of 198.93 mph. This placed the CENTURY 21 Firebird 10th on Sunday's final eliminations ladder. Martino's first round opponent will be seventh qualifier Terry Adams, whom Martino has defeated in their previous two encounters. "Although naturally we're happy to be in the show, there is definitely room for improvement on our runs. We made some changes to try and better our Century 21 Firebird after yesterday (Friday) that it obviously didn't like. We'll be burning some midnight oil tonight, going over the data from our qualifying runs and trying to decide exactly what set-up we'd like to use tomorrow. We know that to go rounds on Sunday we'll have to be consistent and fast, and somewhere in our notes is the answer we're looking for - it's just up to us to find it."