NHRA
Pomona: Thursday qualifying report
Defending POWERade World Champs Schumacher and Force Open 2005 Season With Qualifying Lead at Carquest Auto Parts Winternationals POMONA, Calif. -- Defending NHRA POWERade Series world champions Tony Schumacher and John Force opened the 2005 ...
Edited: Feb 13, 2005, 3:35 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Defending POWERade World Champs Schumacher and Force Open 2005 Season With Qualifying Lead at Carquest Auto Parts Winternationals
POMONA, Calif. -- Defending NHRA POWERade Series world champions Tony Schumacher and John Force opened the 2005 season by racing to the qualifying lead in their respective categories Thursday at the CARQUEST Auto Parts Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.
The $2 million race is the first of 23 events in the $50 million NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
Schumacher clocked a run of 4.487 seconds at 321.04 mph to lead the Top Fuel field in his U.S. Army dragster.
"It's a long season and that's just one run, but it was a great run," Schumacher said. "Now we just have to stay focused for the next 200 runs. The surface here is great; it's going to be fast. We even dropped a cylinder on that run, so we'll take what we learned here and run even faster on our next runs. It wouldn't surprise me to see mid- to low-40s over the next couple of days."
Force powered his Castrol Start Up Ford Mustang to a 4.697 at 329.26 to set the pace in Funny Car.
"We know this car knows how to run 4.60s," Force said. "We weren't really trying to do it that time, maybe just a low 4.70, but it just went down there. The new concrete they poured is nice and smooth. It used to be that I'd always rattle the tires a little at the hit (of the throttle) but this time it didn't. I could see for the first time ever here. Whatever (Pomona Raceway) spent to fix it was worth it."
Mike Edwards led Pro Stock in his Young Life Pontiac Grand Am with a performance of 6.732 at 205.13.
"This is a great way to start the season and the year," Edwards said. "I realize a lot of good cars didn't get down the track that time but we all had the same chance. I think with the rumors of the weather turning on us tomorrow that it got on people's minds that we might lose a round. I know we were thinking about it. Maybe some folks were too aggressive.
"For us, this is really just the product of burning a lot of gas this off-season in the dyno room and in testing. This is the same car we had and we really didn't need to do much to it. We just kept Frank in the dyno room chasing horsepower."
Defending Pro Stock champ Greg Anderson, the 2004 Driver of the Year, had mechanical problems in his Grand Am and didn't post a run quick enough to make the 16-car lineup.
Qualifying continues Friday with a session at 2:30 p.m.
-nhra-
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Pomona: Warren Johnson Thursday summary
Next article Pomona: Erica Enders Thursday summary
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Tony Schumacher
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
NHRA
NHRA
Bristol
Capps, Schumacher score their first wins of 2018
Schumacher unconcerned by new crew chief’s lack of Top Fuel experience
NHRA
NHRA
Schumacher unconcerned by new crew chief’s lack of Top Fuel experience
Hagan, Brown, Enders lead first day of NHRA Spring Training
NHRA
NHRA
Hagan, Brown, Enders lead first day of NHRA Spring Training
Latest news
Christian Horner admits that F1 rivalry with Toto Wolff became "theatre"
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1 10 min
Christian Horner admits that F1 rivalry with Toto Wolff became "theatre"
Spire, Chris Gabehart reject Joe Gibbs Racing premise on deleted texts
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
6 h
Spire, Chris Gabehart reject Joe Gibbs Racing premise on deleted texts
Ricky Stenhouse explains his side of Michael McDowell conflict
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
10 h
Ricky Stenhouse explains his side of Michael McDowell conflict
Barnes: Why IndyCar’s updated licensing system fails its own integrity test
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 11 h
Barnes: Why IndyCar’s updated licensing system fails its own integrity test
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe