St. Louis: Cory McClenathan final report

MCCLENATHAN ADVANCES TO QUARTERFINALS IN ST. LOUIS

MADISON, Ill. (May 3, 2009) - Cory McClenathan advanced to the quarterfinal round at the NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Int'l Raceway today after defeating Chris Karamesines in the opening round of Top Fuel eliminations.

Driving the FRAM Tough Guard Top Fuel dragster, McClenathan faced Antron Brown in the second stanza without lane choice. The pair launched with nearly identical reaction times, but it was Brown who was first over the finish stripe by a winning margin of eight feet or .0177 of a second. McClenathan's solid 3.885-second run at 301.81 mph was unable to beat Brown's 3.864/312.35. He remains in fourth place in the class rankings.

"Lane choice played into Brown's team's hands a little bit," said McClenathan. "We knew we had to be aggressive, we knew we had to run a good ET, the car responded to everything (crew chiefs) Todd (Okuhara) and Phil (Shuler) are doing and it shows that.

"They still have to go from A to B to beat us. And it's one of those things where we pushed the left lane as much as we could, but it still spun the tire a little bit down there and that's what got us and they drove around us. That's all there is to it.

"My hat's off to the FRAM Tough Guard guys. They have done a great job with this car. I'm just so very proud and I think Todd has done a great job being the crew chief and obviously Phil's right there with him.

"Everyone on the FRAM Tough Guard team is doing an excellent job of keeping me safe and the car running good. We're just a win waiting to happen."

Next up is the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway, May 15-17.

-credit: dsr