Commerce: Tony Bartone Friday summary

BARTONE PUSHES LUCAS OIL FUNNY CAR TO THE NO. 14 POSITION

COMMERCE, Ga. (April 27) -- The Jim Dunn-owned Lucas Oil/Torco Funny Car driven by veteran, Tony Bartone is presently in the No. 14 provisional starting position for the 27th annual Summit Racing Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway after the completion of the first of two days of qualifying.

In the opening session on Friday, the Lucas Oil team lost traction, but prevailed in the night qualifying event rallying with a 4.792 elapsed time at a speed of 310.13 mph.

"Yeah, we were running pretty well, but our clutch is goofed up," said Dunn. "So we put in a whole new clutch system in for tomorrow. We're slow the first 180 feet, so if we can pick up around three-hundredths (of a second) that would have given us a 4.74, which would be very good for us.

"On our first run, we overpowered the track and smoke'em because the clutch was too much. Tonight we slowed the clutch down and figured it would run a low 4.80, but ran a 4.79 because the air was so good."

-credit: lor