Las Vegas: Jerry Toliver final summary

Jerry Toliver Pleased with Results from First Funny Car Event

Jerry Toliver and his new ROCKSTAR Energy Drink Toyota Funny Car delivered a 4.859-second qualifying run Saturday at the SummitRacing.com Nationals to officially launch his return to NHRA competition.

Not only that, but the time came close to putting the Temecula,  Calif.-based
team into the starting 16. And it gave their confidence a  boost.

"We had a great weekend," Toliver said. "It was our first weekend back. This team has been working hard trying to get things together. We finally got on a good race track where could actually put the power to it and we had good results. We didn't qualify and that was disappointing but, looking at the big picture, we have the information from that good run and we can tune from that."

Toliver was listed in 18th place with the 4.589 at 298.40 mph.

"These other teams have had four races and three test sessions, 50-some laps more than we do so we can't expect to waltz in here and be No. 1 qualifier," he said "That was a very satisfying run. I actually shut it off early because I felt it hump up near the finish line. (Crew chief Dale) Armstrong told me that if it goes to the finish line, make sure I shut it off right at the line because we hadn't run it that far and we wanted to make sure everything was right.

"We did very well, and I'm very pleased."

The team will continue its test mode, preparing for the next POWERade Series race in Atlanta (April 27-29).

-credit: jtr