Reading Paul Romine Final Note

ROMINE MISSES KEYSTONE NATIONALS FIELD BY ONE POSITION

READING, PA (Sept. 19, 1998) – On the bright side, the CARQUEST Top Fuel dragster didn’t smoke the tires all weekend, but that wasn’t good enough for Paul Romine as he missed the second quickest Top Fuel field in NHRA history (4.748) by one position.

Romine’s 4.781 from Friday evening qualifying was 17th best in a 16-car field.

"Yesterday we had .78 and .79 passes to work with, but on our first pass today we lost a cylinder at the hit of the throttle because of a mechanical error," Romine said. "That put us a run behind and when we went back out in the final session, all 8 were lit, but we didn’t have enough on the front end to keep the car on the ground."

The CARQUEST dragster rode the wheelie bar until almost the half-way point of the track when Romine realized the front-end wasn’t coming back to earth.

"It’s disappointing not to qualifying, but it’s part of the sport and we all have our good and bad weekends," he said. "Unfortunantly our time came this weekend, but at least we leave with data we can work with at Memphis."

The CARQUEST team will next compete, Oct. 8-11, at the NHRA Pennzoil Nationals in Memphis, TN, then travel to Shreveport, La., Oct 16-18, for the final IHRA national event of the season, where Romine is currently second in points and fighting for his second IHRA World Championship.