Memphis: Rod Fuller Friday notes

FULLER OPENS MEMPHIS QUALIFYING IN NO. 11 SPOT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Sept. 14, 2007) -- Rod Fuller, who scored his first career Top Fuel victory at Memphis Motorsports Park two years ago, earned the No. 11 provisional qualifying position with a 4.608-second pass in his Caterpillar dragster to open qualifying at the 20th annual O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals.

Fuller, who enters the second race in the Countdown to Four ranked third in the POWERade Top Fuel standings, opened the Memphis event with a solid pass of 4.668 seconds at 319.75 mph to finish sixth in the order following the first of four scheduled qualifying passes. Under the lights at the multipurpose racing facility, the five-time NHRA winner blasted his Rob Flynn-tuned Caterpillar rail to a run of 4.608 at 317.34 to finish 11th in the order. Three drivers, including teammate Whit Bazemore, clocked 4.608-second elapsed times on Friday evening. Fuller earned the pole at the Memphis race last August.

"Something seems off with our car," Fuller said. "Saturday is a new day and we'll go through the entire car and figure it out. We qualified and that's important. We'll run better tomorrow and go win this race on Sunday."

-credit: dpm