Qualifying report

NHRA

Rain delay shakes up field on Brainerd Saturday

Edited: Aug 19, 2012, 4:03 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

John Force

Brainerd,MN --- A two hour rain delay two-thirds of the way through the final Funny Car qualifying session gave the fans that hung around a tremendous performance show and shook up a tight Funny Car field on Saturday at Brainerd International Raceway.

John Force

Photo by: Michael C. Johnson

John Force and the Castrol GTX HIGH MILEAGE Mustang Funny Car will go into Sunday’s race as the No. 6 qualifier, 4.067 seconds, followed by Mike Neff in the Castrol GTX Mustang in the No. 7 spot, 4.072 seconds.

The final eight cars in the fourth qualifying session with the exception of Jeff Arend averaged elapsed times of 4.057 seconds as the track cooled to 88 degrees to close the session.

With all the shuffling going into the session Mike Neff was facing a first round match-up with teammate Courtney Force and at the end of the session he will face an equally tough race against Funny Car point leader and teammate Robert Hight. Neff will be looking to avenge two losses this season to the Auto Club Mustang team.

“All in all, we went down the track every run in qualifying so that’s always encouraging. We made some changes coming into this race so we were just trying to walk our way through it and make some full passes and learn more. I feel like we’ve done that. We improved a little bit the last three runs. So I feel good about that,” said Neff.

“Unfortunately we have to race my teammate Robert tomorrow. That’s never good. Especially when they can run as good as anybody. That’s unfortunate, but all in all, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

“We did have a good opportunity tonight after the rain. The track cooled off; coolest track temperatures of the weekend,” said Neff. “We definitely thought we could run better than we did tonight, but it didn’t quite do it.”

Rookie of the Year front-runner Courtney Force and the Traxxas Mustang will square off with veteran Ron Capps in the first round. The 24 year-old Cal State-Fullerton graduate recently defeated Capps in the semi-finals of Denver to kick off the Western Swing. Force will go into race day as the No. 12 qualifier and two weeks ago Force won her first race from the No. 14 spot.

“We had a good day of qualifying; made some decent laps down the track. Our last run we were hoping to get a good run out of and move up into the top half of the field. We tuned the car to get it running quick, but before we even got a chance at it, we had a crack in our fuel line and they made us shut the car off right on the starting line,” said Force.

“We feel good going into tomorrow. We have (Ron) Capps first round and we’re just going to have to do the best we can to go some rounds and earn those points to get us locked into the Countdown. Our Traxxas Ford Mustang has been running good all weekend. We just gotta keep it consistent and outrun Capps in the first round.”

If Courtney wins two rounds of racing tomorrow she will clinch a spot in the Countdown to the Championship. Facing a veteran like Capps in the opening round will give the rookie a strong test to start the day.

John Force will go after his 12th win at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals tomorrow and he will be battling to hold onto his Top Ten spot. He moved up from 9th to 8th in the Full Throttle point standings with a strong qualifying performance. A couple round wins tomorrow could go a long way to extend the 15-time champion’s Top Ten finish streak to 28 years in a row.

“Alexis (DeJoria) is doing a great job. Her car is as good as mine. We really need this bad, but so does she, and there are a bunch of us jammed up; (Tim) Wilkerson, (Bob) Tasca (III). I don’t know who (Matt) Hagan runs, but it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow I just think the good Lord will make a decision and whichever one he makes is the one I’m going with,” said Force.

The Drivers

John Force, 63, Castrol Gtx High Mileage Ford Mustang

Final Qualifying: 6th At 4.067 Seconds, 311.85 Mph

Bonus Qualifying Points: +2 (2nd Quickest Of Q2)

First Round Opponent (W-L): Alexis Dejoria (3-2)

Mike Neff, 45, Castrol Gtx Ford Mustang

Final Qualifying: 7th At 4.072 Seconds, 313.15 Mph

Bonus Qualifying Points: +2 (2nd Quickest Q3)

First Round Opponent (W-L): Robert Hight (5-8)

Robert Hight, 42, Auto Club Ford Mustang

Final Qualifying: 10th At 4.090 Seconds, 310.98 Mph

Bonus Qualifying Points: 0

First Round Opponent (W-L): Mike Neff (8-5)

Courtney Force, 24, Traxxas Ford Mustang

Final Qualifying: 12th At 4.100 Seconds, 308.99 Mph

Bonus Qualifying Points: 0

First Round Opponent (W-L): Ron Capps (1-4)

Race Schedule:

Sunday, August 19

Final Eliminations 11 A.M.

Source: John Force Racing

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

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Lucas sees good fortune ahead for GEICO dragster in Brainerd

Next article Lucas Oil's Morgan looking to solve mystery before Brainerd eliminations

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

LIVE: F1 Mexico GP updates - Can Kimi Antonelli seal the title?

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

LIVE: F1 Mexico GP updates - Can Kimi Antonelli seal the title?

What does Yamaha’s shock MotoGP boycott mean for F1 in Qatar and Abu Dhabi?

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Qatar GP

2 h

What does Yamaha’s shock MotoGP boycott mean for F1 in Qatar and Abu Dhabi?

Why lap times in Mexico have been so much closer to the previous F1 era

Formula 1

Mexican GP

Why lap times in Mexico have been so much closer to the previous F1 era

Valtteri Bottas "pretty confident" of staying for F1 2027 amid Colton Herta rumours

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

4 h

Valtteri Bottas "pretty confident" of staying for F1 2027 amid Colton Herta rumours

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