Pomona II: Rod Fuller Thursday notes

FULLER OPENS CHAMPIONSHIP RUN IN NO. 15 SPOT AT POMONA

POMONA, Calif. (Nov. 1, 2007) -- NHRA Top Fuel points leader Rod Fuller raced his David Powers-owned Caterpillar dragster to the No. 15 qualifying position Thursday afternoon at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona with a time of 4.643 seconds.

Coming off of the biggest weekend of his brief professional career, where the hometown hero won both the Technicoat Shootout and ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals pocketing nearly $200,000, he placed the CAT dragster in the No. 15 position. Fuller used a tune-up from Rob Flynn to power the Caterpillar dragster to a pass of 4.643 seconds at 265.85 mph. The engine on the CAT dragster had problems near the end of the run causing the elapsed time to fall off.

"It was on a good run, we just had a mechanical malfunction," Fuller said. "It gives us good data for tomorrow. Our teammate (David Baca) made a great run at 4.52 and we would have run a mid-4.50. It's better to happen today then on Sunday."

-credit: dpm