Columbus: David Baca Saturday summary

David Baca's 4.568-second Run Holds for No. 4 Starting Position

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 20, 2005 --.David Baca opened qualifying Friday with his quickest run, 4.568 seconds at 324.83 mph, in the Baca Motorsports Top Fuel dragster and it put him fourth on the starting ladder for Sunday's Pontiac Performance Nationals at National Trail Raceway.

The evening run was one of a few quality performances on a suddenly uncooperative quarter-mile track. Weather conditions had gone from rainy to damp to nearly ideal from afternoon to night.

"We learned a lot last weekend at Atlanta (where he finished second) that we were able to apply here," said Baca, of Brentwood, Calif. "That was a great way to start qualifying. We're learning something new on every run. We skipped the Friday night run because we didn't feel we could learn anything.

"We want to go some rounds Sunday. We were tuning to the warmer weather conditions to see what the car would do in the heat on our two Saturday runs. On our last run, the car was running well but the blower belt broke and that took care of that."

Baca, 10th in POWERade Series points, squares off against Jack Beckman in Sunday's first round of eliminations.

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