Las Vegas: Cory McClenathan Saturday summary

McClenathan will go after Top Fuel title from the 13th spot.

LAS VEGAS (April 5, 2003) -- In an uncharacteristic qualifying outing, Cory McClenathan, driver of the Darrell Gwynn Racing NY Yankees/Berryman Products Top Fuel Dragster, qualified 13th for this weekend's fourth annual NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals.

Friday was not the best of days for the Darrell Gwynn Racing team. After smoking the tires in the opening session, the team did not make Friday's evening session. A mechanical problem that developed in the staging lanes, that was of safety concern to the team, caused the team to return to their pit area and regroup for Saturday.

Saturday started out with McClenathan once again losing traction although he made the field in 15th spot. In the final qualifying session, the veteran driver traversed The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 4.812 seconds at 292.39 mph.

McClenathan will face Brandon Bernstein, who qualified 4th with a run of 4.557 seconds at 325.77 mph, in tomorrow's first round of eliminations. The pair have split their two previous meeting this year.

McClenathan, from Riverside, Calif., reflected on qualifying: "It's been an awfully difficult and weird weekend. We're just happy to be in the show. Today I knew we had to just gather it up and go after it. I had to do my normal deal and not worry about where we were qualified. It that final run it came loose down there, but there was no way I was going to shut this Yankees/Berryman Products car down I might have hurt it a little bit here and there but I think it was well worth it.

"At Pomona, the last time I qualified this far back, I had Brandon Bernstein in the first round and won, going on to the final round. I can only hope history repeats itself tomorrow, although this time I want to win."

About Darrell Gwynn Racing:
Returning to Darrell Gwynn Racing in 2003 is an impressive contingent of continuing marketing partners including the New York Yankees (currently celebrating their 100th anniversary in baseball), GMC, Mac Tools, MBNA Bank N.A., and Winnebago Industries. These fine companies will be joined this year by an array of new team and driver marketing partners including Berryman Products, Centennial Batteries, Don Steves Chevrolet, Dyn-O-Mat, Fabtech Motorsports and Negley Electric.

About Berryman Products:
Berryman Products, Inc., a privately held company based in Arlington, Texas, manufactures and distributes the highest quality professional automotive chemical products throughout the US and internationally. With warehouse facilities in Alabama, Texas and California, Berryman products are sold to major auto parts chains, mass merchants and wholesale suppliers, independent automotive repair shops and car dealers. To learn more visit their website at www.berrymanproducts.com or contact the company at 800-433-1704.

-dgr-