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Gainesville: Larry Dixon Friday summary

Dixon Sits In No. 9 Position After Friday Qualifying In Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 19, 2004) -- Larry Dixon powered his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned Miller Lite dragster to a run of 4.799 seconds at 248.55 mph on Friday's second ...

Published: Mar 20, 2004, 9:58 PM

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Dixon Sits In No. 9 Position After Friday Qualifying In Florida

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 19, 2004) -- Larry Dixon powered his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned Miller Lite dragster to a run of 4.799 seconds at 248.55 mph on Friday's second qualifying pass at Gainesville Raceway to qualify his Miller-backed rail in the No. 9 position after the first day of qualifying at the 35th annual Mac Tools Gatornationals.

The two-time defending NHRA POWERade champion broke a throttle cable on his first pass of the weekend, before driving his Dick LaHaie-tuned dragster to the 4.799 pass on Friday's second qualifying effort. Dixon's dragster was clocked at 263 mph at half-track, before the three-time Gatornationals winner lifted near the 1,000-foot mark after the engine dropped two cylinders.

"You can hear and feel when the car drops a cylinder," Dixon said. "If you figure our dragster's engine makes 8,000 horsepower, and you lose two cylinders, that's 25-percent of the engine's power. If you suddenly take away 2,000 horsepower, you can feel it.

"It's a brand new surface on this race track and it doesn't have a lot of rubber on it. The weather is warm also. If it was 10 or 15 degrees cooler, some guys would probably be running 4.40s, but it's not and they're not."

Dixon and the Miller Lite team will look to move into the top half of the Top Fuel order when qualifying continues at noon and 3:30 p.m. (ET) on Saturday, March 20.

ESPN2 will televise two hours of qualifying highlights from the Mac Tools Gatornationals beginning at 2:30 a.m. (ET) on Sunday, March 21 and show two hours of final eliminations at 11:30 p.m. (ET) on Sunday, March 21.

-www.snakeracing.com-

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