Gainesville: Jason Line Saturday summary

Line qualifies No. 2, seeks second consecutive win at Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 18, 2006) -- With qualifying over at the 37th annual NHRA ACDelco Gatornationals, Jason Line drove his KB Racing LLC, Summit Racing Equipment Pro Stock Pontiac GTO to the No. 2 position on the final qualifying ladder for the 37th annual NHRA ACDelco Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Fla.

On Friday, Line, the defending champion from last year's event, was not happy with either of his runs. In the opening session he ran an elapsed time (E.T.) of 6.693 seconds, good for No. 2 at the time, but felt he had more in his Summit Pontiac. On the second pass of St. Patrick's Day, the car shot left when he pulled second gear and he wisely shut down.

After seeing 80-degree temperatures on Friday, Saturday turned out a few degrees cooler. Line was hot though and lowered his E.T. to 6.648 seconds and upped his speed to 207.51 mph in the opening qualifying session of the day. On his final qualifying pass, Line spun the tires and shook right off the starting line, but recovered to run a 6.699.

"All in all so far a good weekend," said Line.  "It
would have been nice to get a record here but we just missed it.  We do
have top speed for the weekend so far.  Our cars are one-two and
that's the way we diagram it.  I couldn't be happier."

Tomorrow, Line takes on Erica Enders in the first round of eliminations. Enders recorded a run of 6.697 seconds at 206.56 mph which qualified her No. 15. The pair has met three times in eliminations with Line winning all three.

Line begins his quest for the Gatornationals Pro Stock title on Sunday with eliminations for all classes beginning at 11 a.m. All times are local Gainesville time (ET) and subject to change at anytime.

-kbr