Toliver is No. 15 in Bristol qualifying
DON SCHUMACHER RACING 2008 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES Round 8 of 24 NHRA THUNDER VALLEY NATIONALS Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway May 16-18, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Bill Walters, 561-964-2195; cell 561-632-5713; plus320@aol.com Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501; cell 203-243-2438; jstropus@earthlink.net TOLIVER NO. 15 IN BRISTOL QUALIFYING BRISTOL, Tenn. (May 17, 2008) Jerry Toliver squeaked into the tight Funny Car field on Saturday at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway, the eighth stop on the 24-race 2008 POWERade Drag Racing Series schedule. Toliver qualified the Rockstar Energy Drink Dodge Charger R/T in the No. 15 position after making three full qualifying runs. Toliver posted his quickest pass of the weekend, a 4.901-second result at 298.80 mph, in today's third qualifying round. His final attempt produced a 4.943/314.09. Funny Car qualifying began under cool and cloudy conditions late Friday afternoon. Toliver blasted to a solid 4.848/308.57 run, moving him into No. 6. Then, in the night session the Rockstar Energy Drink Dodge made a spectacular wheelstand near half-track and Toliver expertly brought the car back to the ground. He crossed the centerline, however, and his 5.854/163.24 pass was disqualified. He finished the day No. 15 and out of the top 12 in the field. Therefore, his weekend-quickest 4.848/308.57 was erased under the new NHRA qualifying rules and he had to re-qualify in the 16-car field on Saturday. "We started out the weekend nice," said Toliver. "We ran a 4.84 right out of the box and went into the night session No. 6. We had high hopes for the evening session, but we had a malfunction in the clutch department and it rotated the car over and started picking the car up about 200 feet. It started going for the centerline and it wouldn't come back and it caught me by surprise. It was exciting. I haven't done a wheelstand like that in a long time. Unfortunately we didn't get that pass in because it would have been a great run. The car was fine afterward. "Today on our first run we ran a 4.90 flat and spun the tires in the left lane again," explained Toliver. "We figured if it would have been in the right lane it probably would have run an .87 or a .86. We were happy with that but we we're a little disappointed with our run in the fourth round. We only ran a 4.94 and the car was just a pooch. "The Rockstar boys are working hard and the good thing is that we're in the show tomorrow. We have Jim Head in the first round and anything can happen on race day. The Rockstar car is here and we're happy about that." ***