Englishtown: David Baca eliminations summary

David Baca slowly picking up points

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. (May 18, 2003) -- Having run a career best speed during Saturday's qualifying, David Baca, driver of the Henkelman & Baca American Racing/Waterloo Tool Storage/Skill Clean Top Fuel Dragster, faced off against Scott Weis in the opening round of eliminations at the 34th annual NHRA K&N Filters SuperNationals presented by Pep Boys.

Yesterday, with team owner/partner Rick Henkelman back at the track after a brief visit to a local area hospital to treat a bout of food poison, Baca climbed into the top half of the field in the final qualifying session when he ran the Old Bridge Township Raceway Park quarter-mile in 4.552 seconds at a career best speed of 322.96 mph.

Today against Weis in the first round of eliminations, Baca gained a .032 second advantage at the green light and held on to take the win light by one hundredth of a second. Baca ran 4.621 seconds, Weis 4.599 seconds.

In the second round, Baca lost traction, got sideways, and wisely coasted to the finish line. His opponent Paul Romine raced to the win, albeit in a ball of fire. It was a 5.133 second pass for Romine and 5.235 seconds for Baca.

"We're a little down on ourselves. It just wasn't our day," recapped Baca. "We really thought we could make a move in the points. Fortunately, we get to go after it again in four days. According to (crew chief) Johnny West, he's not sure right now why it smoked the tires. It shouldn't have done what it did."

Although he is slowly picking up points at each race, unofficially Baca remained in seventh in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel point standings after eight of 23 events. He now has 407 points only 12 points behind sixth.

It back-to-back races for Baca and the Henkelman & Baca Motorsports/American Racing/Waterloo Tool Storage/YP.net Top Fuel Dragster as the 15th annual NHRA O'Reilly Summer Nationals unfolds next weekend (May 22-25) at Heartland Park Topeka in Topeka, Kan.

-h&bm-