Pomona II: Johnny Gray Friday summary

Gray takes Wonder Wagon to No. 16 after two qualifying rounds in Pomona

POMONA, Calif. (Nov. 12, 2004) - Johnny Gray didn't make the field in the first round of Funny Car qualifying for the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals yesterday in Don Schumacher's Wonder Wagon Dodge (7.885/104.11). In today's second session, however, he made a straight pass down the quarter-mile and qualified on the bump spot, in No. 16.

"Naturally, we're not as happy as we'd like to be, but we're happy," he said. "The thing went down the race track. Dan (Olson, crew chief) has something (data) to look at now. It was a little soft down low. He and Zippy (Mike Neff, Gary Scelzi's crew chief) looked at it. They think they know how to step the thing up and put it right up in the middle of the field tomorrow.

"We're excited. I understand it's going to be overcast tomorrow, so we should have a real good race track to play with. I'm going to run my first 4.7-second lap tomorrow," he smiled.

Nine cars qualified with 4.7-second laps, from Del Worsham in No. 1 (4.737) to Cruz Pedregon in No. 9 (4.796). Two more qualifying rounds are scheduled for Saturday before final eliminations begin on Sunday.

-dsr-