TODD WILL THUNDER IN ST. LOUIS

MADISON, Ill. – J.R. Todd, driver of the Torco/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster, stepped up his racing program on Saturday and qualified in the No. 7 position on the 16-car roster with an elapsed time of 4.537 seconds, 318.39 mph for Sunday’s running of the O’Reilly Midwest Nationals at Gateway International Raceway.

It was on his last pass in qualifying that crew chief, John Stewart and company put it all together to produce his 4.53 pass and has been consistent all race weekend.

“Yeah, it throws us a bone every now and then and hopefully we can build off that,” said a positive thinking Todd. “With kind of effort, we would like nothing more than to parlay that into four rounds for tomorrow. The car has been trying to run for a long time and when everything comes together it hits on all the things like it should. Those are kind of numbers that get you pointed in the right direction and offer us good things for race day.”

The temperatures dropped overnight and when the drag racers arrived on Saturday, they were greeted with cold unlike anyone has ever seen before in St. Louis ranging in the mid-50s. That offered an excellent chance for improvement with the sea-level conditions and all the teams took full advantage of it.

“We’ve never seen conditions like this in St. Louis ever before and everyone said it the weather is right we would see some big numbers. It didn’t disappoint and shows how good the track is and how good NHRA is preparing the track. We should thunder tomorrow.”

Starting at 11 a.m. EDT, ESPN2 will air NHRA Race Day presented by Lucas Oil Products and later in the day will air the final rounds of eliminations beginning at 7 p.m.