Sonoma: Doug Herbert Friday summary

Herbert racing through California wine country

SONOMA, Calif. (July 29, 2005) --When Doug Herbert's Snap-on Tools Top Fuel dragster makes a less-than-perfect pass and still turns in the best qualifying run in five NHRA events, that's a good thing.

With two more sessions on Saturday, it can only get better.

Herbert drove the Snap-on dragster to a 4.562-second pass at 314.75mph to earn the No. 5 spot in qualifying after two of four sessions for the 18th annual FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals Friday at Infineon Raceway.

The first qualifying session resulted in a 4.665 pass.

"It's a top five run and that's what we were looking to do," Herbert said. "It's great that we got the car to make two respectable runs today knowing that there was a lot left it the setup. Getting down the track in the first session put us in a good position for the second time up."

The second run -- his quickest pass in qualifying since a 4.530 at Chicago -- has its flaws.

"The car was hauling and then at about 1,000 feet, it spun the tires and the car fishtailed a bit," Herbert said. "I think we had the low E.T. snatched away from us at that point. We're still happy with being fifth with two sessions left."

The NHRA POWERade Series starts pro qualifying with sessions on Friday at 3:45 and 6:45 p.m. Qualifying continues Saturday at noon and 3 p.m. before final eliminations start at 11 a.m. Sunday.

ESPN2 will air coverage of this weekend's event starting with qualifying at 8 p.m. (ET) on Saturday. Final eliminations can be seen on ESPN2 at 9 p.m. (ET) on Sunday.

-nhra-