NHRA

Indianapolis: Dave Connolly final summary

Dave Connolly Leaves with Runner-up at U.S. Nationals Monday was, as Dave Connolly said, "an interesting day" at NHRA's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. He advanced to the finals from the No. 11 starting position; defeated POWERade Series Pro Stock ...

Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:15 AM

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Dave Connolly Leaves with Runner-up at U.S. Nationals

Monday was, as Dave Connolly said, "an interesting day" at NHRA's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

He advanced to the finals from the No. 11 starting position; defeated POWERade Series Pro Stock leader Jason Line in the quarterfinals; had two of his rivals foul out; and then left 17-thousandths of a second too soon against Greg Anderson in the title round at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

"It really wasn't a bad day because we got to the finals at Indy," Connolly continued. "Greg had a performance advantage on us and we needed him to screw up . . . and he gave us plenty of room, but I didn't take advantage of it.

"I let the clutch pedal up a little (at the starting line in the finals) and it almost came up all the way. It was almost a rolling red light. We probably would have been in good shape if I'd kept it all the way in."

As it was, Anderson had a mediocre .089-second reaction but notched his fourth 6.6-second elapsed time of eliminations, 6.687 at 206.83 mph to Connolly's 6.725 at 205.38.

"I thought we did a good job getting to the finals," said Connolly. "The crew worked hard and at times they were (forced) to hurry up to get ready. They did a great job giving us a shot at it."

Connolly's .017 light against Line and ensuing 6.707-second run resulted in a winning margin of .three-thousandths of a second. Line ran 6.682 seconds with a .045 reaction.

Dave Howard began with day with a red-light start against Connolly, who recorded his quickest time of the weekend, 6.689 seconds, at 205.85 mph.

Next up for Connolly and crew is the Toyo Tires Nationals at Reading, Pa., Sept. 15-17.

-credit: dcr

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