Phoenix: Larry Dixon Saturday summary

DIXON QUALIFIES SECOND AT FIREBIRD RACEWAY

CHANDLER, Ariz. (Feb. 25, 2006) – Larry Dixon drove his Miller Lite dragster to the No. 2 qualifying position Saturday at Firebird International Raceway as qualifying concluded for the 22nd annual CSK Nationals. Dixon's best run of qualifying came on Friday's first attempt when he blasted to a r! un of 4.501 at 329.91 mph.

After posting the second quickest pass on Friday, Dixon drove his Miller Lite rail to a performance of 4.541 seconds at 324.83 mph on Saturday's first qualifying effort to record another solid 4.5-second elapsed time on a sunny Firebird Raceway quarter mile. On his final qualifying attempt of the weekend, the Miller Lite dragster lost traction and slowed to a 6.941-second pass. It was Dixon's best qualifying effort since the Reading, Pa. race last September where he also qualified second.

"We qualified second, how can I not be happy?" Dixon said. "I thought qualifying went great. We fired that shot on our opening run and got solidly in the show and that gave us the opportunity to push hard and try a few things during qualifying."

The 1995 Firebird Raceway winner looks for his second career win at the Phoenix-area track when he faces off against No. 15 qualifier Cory McClenathan in the opening round of Top Fuel eliminations at 11 a.m. (MT). Dixon is 28-15 in his career versus the veteran rail pilot from California.

-www.snakeracing.com