Pomona 2 Goodyear notes

** National Hot Rod Association: Jeg Coughlin Jr. used a marathon test session to prepare a chassis and tire combination for the NHRA Pep Boys 50th Anniversary Nationals at Pomona Raceway. The result was his third Pro Stock victory of the 2001 season.

Coughlin's team spent a full day testing the Goodyear D1239 drive tire recently. They pushed their 2001 Cavalier through nine passes during that session and got a feel for how the new tire could relate to their race cars.

At Pomona, Coughlin established the lowest elapsed time for the division during the weekend, then beat Mike Edwards in the final round.

"We had the new tire on this week," Coughlin said. "It really performed for us."

Goodyear-equipped cars won five divisions at Pomona. In addition to Coughlin's win, Doug Herbert won the Top Fuel final, John Force won in Funny Car, Andy Manna took the Competition Eliminator title and Ken Etter won in Stock Eliminator. The event gave Goodyear 80 final round victories for the season, the best total in the industry.

Herbert's victory over Scelzi came after Scelzi set the lowest elapsed time for the event, 4.551 seconds. Andrew Cowin's 321.12 mph run was the highest speed of the weekend.

-Goodyear Racing