Memphis: Jerry Toliver Friday notes

Toliver Qualifies ROCKSTAR/AutoZone Toyota Eighth; Overcomes Interference from Black Widow Spider

Friday was not one of those "regular days" at the track for Jerry Toliver and the ROCKSTAR/AutoZone Toyota Solara Funny Car team.

Most important was the official welcoming of ROCKSTAR partner AutoZone to the team prior to qualifying for Sunday's Mid-South Nationals at Memphis Motorsports Park.

And then there was the black widow spider incident. It could be said Toliver was "bitten" by the unwelcome spider, but only figuratively. He was denied an elapsed time by the spider that inadvertently crawled onto one of the starting line timing lights. The timer didn't begin when Toliver left the starting line, but at the 330-foot mark. His elapsed time was 3.80 seconds . . . and was disallowed.

However, the ROCKSTAR/AutoZone Toyota rebounded on the second run, posting a time of 4.887 seconds at 304.80 mph, good enough for eighth place in the top 16.

"That was a good lap," said Toliver, "but we lost a little (time) because we were overcautious on the tune-up. But we went down the racetrack for the second straight time and now we have a pretty good race car."

-credit: jtr