NHRA
Joliet: Jerry Toliver preview
Performance of Toliver's ROCKSTAR Energy Drink Toyota Catching Up with Rest of Funny Car Field Jerry Toliver spotted the Funny Car field four races before his new ROCKSTAR Energy Drink Toyota Solara was ready to drive into the NHRA POWERADE ...
Published: Jun 7, 2007, 3:33 PM
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Performance of Toliver's ROCKSTAR Energy Drink
Toyota Catching Up with Rest of Funny Car Field
Jerry Toliver spotted the Funny Car field four races before his new ROCKSTAR
Energy Drink Toyota Solara was ready to drive into the NHRA POWERADE Series
fracas. It was a daunting task but Toliver's gritty crew appears to be
getting a competitive foothold after just four races.
He's qualified at the last two events and, Sunday in Topeka, Toliver came within a few ticks of earning his first 2007 round win. In the process, Dale Armstrong, his crew chief and highly acclaimed tuner, has hunkered down and come up with a combination that is almost capable of consistently winning rounds.
"We have to get the car to 60-foot better," said Toliver. "Our problem is
the car isn't launching like it should. We should've won our race Sunday
(against Tim Wilkerson in the first round at Topeka). We were pulling on him
on the big end, trying to catch him.
"We will address those issues before we get to Joliet (Ill., site of the
Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway, Friday through
Sunday). "I hate to sound like a broken record, but we're right there. We just
need to make more laps. We are testing more stuff and learning on every lap,
at every race. We just need to win some rounds."
Toliver qualified 12th at Topeka with a run of 4.903 seconds at 317.05 mph. Most impressive, however, was the fact he was the first Funny Car to go down the marginal racing surface. He added two more qualifying runs of 5.336 at 4.994 seconds.
Against Wilkerson, Toliver stopped the clocks in 4.974 at 305.15 to 4.984 at 302.55.
Toliver believes the upcoming schedule of six straight races will benefit his team. "I'm really happy to have all these races in a row," he said. "We have great group of guys who stay on top of things. They are focused and our morale is high. We'll get this thing figured out. I have some pretty smart guys.
"It's not like Dale Armstrong fell on his head and can't figure out how to
run a race car. His head is in it. Some good things should be coming our
way very shortly."
-credit: jtr
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