National: Tony Bartone Pomona Friday report

CAREER BEST ET AND SPEED VAULT BARTONE TO POLE POSITION

Pomona, Calif. - Rick Jackson Racing and driver Tony Bartone recorded a career best elapsed time and mile per hour in the final qualifying session today and will enter eliminations tomorrow in the number one qualified position, at the Auto Club NHRA World Finals contested at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif.

The Centre Pointe Collision Center Ford Mustang entered today's final two qualifying sessions after recording a very solid 5.548 second elapsed time at 264.18 miles per hour on day one of qualifying yesterday. The run gave the Santa Clarita, Calif. based team a solid base line tune-up for the weekend, a philosophy which the Jackson Racing team has embraced for years.

"The idea is to get down the track solid in the first session and fine-tune it from there," noted Tony Bartone, the winner of 31-NHRA National Events in his very successful career. "When we line up in Q-1 and can get the car down the track, Steve Boggs is magic at turning up the wick and getting our Centre Pointe / FireIce.com Mustang to improve during the weekend."

Bartone called his shot, as in the second qualifying session earlier today Boggs tuned the Jackson Racing Mustang to an improved 5.513 ET. However, the effort still trailed Stamford, Conn. driver Mickey Ferro, who set the pace with a solid 5.489 during Q-1 on Thursday. The team however did set low ET of the session and was eager to see what they could pull out of the hat for the final session.

The final qualifying session yielded several severe improvements to the qualifying sheet, yet arguably the most impressive run of the weekend was delivered by the Centre Pointe / FireIce.com team. An amazing 5.448 ET at 266.00 mph gave the Long Island City, NY based driver another number one qualifier position and momentum heading into eliminations tomorrow. It also gives the Centre Pointe team the opportunity to walk out of the final event of 2010 with a World Record.

"The car flat out hauled the mail on that pass," Bartone said. "We are doing the math right now, and it looks like we'll have to run a 5.502 or better sometime this weekend in order to end the year with a world record. Our first priority will be to win each round, starting tomorrow in our first round. But, we will do the best we can to set that record. Nothing would make (car owner) Rick happier than to have the world record going into the off season."

The current world record a 5.454 was set by TAFC kingpin Frank Manzo in October of 2006. The mile per hour record of 265.74 also held by Manzo would be eclipsed by the Centre Pointe team as their prior 264.18 is within the required 1-percent back up. The speed record will not be official until the end of the event.

Bartone will face Sean Bellemeur in round one tomorrow afternoon.

-source: rick jackson racing