Herbert, McCulloch Phoenix test notes

Herbert, McCulloch happy with preseason test results.

PHOENIX, Feb. 11, 2004 - The activity surrounding Doug Herbert's Snap-on Racing Top Fuel dragster wasn't as hectic Wednesday as it had been the past five days, and that was by design.

Herbert and Ed "Ace" McCulloch, his new tuner/team manager, were very pleased with the car's performance during testing at Firebird Raceway. So much so, they decided to begin preparing for the upcoming NHRA Winternationals, Feb. 19-22, at Pomona, Calif. It's the traditional opener of the 23-race POWERade Series and they want to be among those battling to get the campaign off on a winning note.

Herbert, who made 18 runs from Friday through Tuesday, was impressed with the fact "we didn't hurt one engine part."

"We ran a 4.57 (seconds) once even though I shut it off early," said Herbert. "We ran as good as anybody else here, so we are looking forward to going to Pomona and getting things started. We also had our best 330-foot time and things are looking real good. We were able to learn something on every run."

"I feel good about what we did, what we learned, and what I learned," added McCulloch, who tuned Funny Cars for the past three-plus years. "We made some respectable runs. I think everything will be just fine when we get to Pomona."

The team had been scheduled to test at Tucson this weekend.

-dhr-