Las Vegas II: Tom Hammonds Friday summary

Strong start in Vegas places Hammonds 4th on Friday.

Tom Hammonds dealt himself a strong opening hand during the first day of qualifying for the ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals.  On his first attempt, Hammonds covered the quarter-mile in 6.975 seconds, which was fourth quickest among the thirty-four entrants.

Coming back for the crucial evening session, Hammonds knew improvement would be required to maintain his spot on the eliminations ladder.  In fact, by the time Hammonds came to the line for his second qualifying run, he found himself in the precarious fifteenth position.  Responding to the challenge, Hammonds recorded the third quickest elapsed time of the round at 6.951 seconds, with a top speed of 197.86 mph, which returned the Winnebago/GM Vehicle Care Cavalier to the fourth position at the qualifying midpoint 

"Today was a really good effort for the Winnebago/GM Vehicle Care team.  Although I haven't had a chance to review the computer data from our second run, it seems as if we picked up some wheel speed, which helped us down low.  Under the conditions we had today, a 1.02 sixty-foot time is pretty good, so it's obvious Eric (clutch specialist) Luzinski did a great job of getting the clutch and the gear ratios just right.

"We're working really well together as a team right now.   Certainly, we've had our struggles this year, from the engine guys to my crew, but we've never stopped working as a team, and it's starting to come together.  We're looking forward to having a strong year-end finish, starting with this race.

"We've got two more qualifying sessions tomorrow, so we'll keep fine-tuning our Cavalier to get it ready for Sunday."

-j2r-