Championship Drag Racing

O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals
Bristol, Tenn.
(April 30-May 2)

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Kenny Koretsky Nitro Fish Wear Pro Stocker

Reports: Sunday Saturday Pre-race

Bristol, Sunday: Jim Yates not only left Ron Krisher standing at the starting line long enough Monday to take an opening round victory in the rain-delayed O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals on a cold, overcast day at Bristol Dragway, he fought his way back into the top 10.

The win was all in the reaction time for Yates, who had a .045 start to Krisher's .151. Yates got to the finish line in 6.825 seconds at 200.65 mph, followed by Krisher's quicker 6.816 at 201.16. The winning time was second quickest in the right lane in the first and second rounds of Pro Stock. Yates, who lost to Kurt Johnson in the second round, went 6.847 to K.J.'s 6.801.

"It wasn't a bad weekend for us," Yates said. "We continue to make progress with the car's tune-up. Jamie (Yates, crew chief and son) came up with a good combination on race day. We adapted to the conditions. He went back through all of our volumes of notes, found the combination he thought would work and it did."

Bristol, Saturday: Kenny Koretsky and crew chief Eddie Guarnaccia decided to fine-tune the Nitro Fish Wear Dodge Stratus Saturday during qualifying for Sunday's O'Reilly's Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway and the strategy paid off in a the No. 16 starting position.

Koretsky, who has missed the starting line-up by one-thousandth of a second, turned the tables this time and nosed out Rickie Smith by that margin, 6.880 seconds to 6.881.

"It's always exciting to qualify for an NHRA event," said Koretsky. "We made a pretty good run on our first attempt (Saturday) with that 6.880. We did hope to run a hundredth quicker. Eddie did a good job on the tune-up."

"When you're hanging on by one-thousandth, you can't breathe until you know for sure you're qualified," Guarnaccia said. "Kenny did a good job driving and the car went straight down the track."

Greg Anderson, the series leader who qualified No. 1 with a 6.790, has won four of the first five series races this year and has been low qualifier at each event.

Bristol, pre-race: In this era of instant messaging and immediate results, it's sometimes difficult to take a slower approach to reach a goal. But there isn't much time available when the focus is on Pro Stock drag racing.

Ken Koretsky and Eddie Guarnaccia knew there would be a learning curve when it came time to find a competitive combination for the Nitro Fish Dodge Stratus. They're now five races into the 2004 campaign and still haven't found one. Koretsky, the driver, and Guarnaccia, the crew chief, realize the project is taking a little longer than expected, but they aren't about to give up.

There's plenty of time. Eighteen races remain in POWERade Series, and next up is the O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway2.

"We're still searching for the right combination," said Koretsky. "I'm ultra-competitive. I think we should be qualifying better than we are. Eddie has been working hard trying to get this thing figured out. It's just a matter of us getting down the track consistently."

Sometimes other factors get in the way. Two weeks ago, for example, the team decided not to change motors before its first Saturday qualifying run at Houston. It turned out the engine wasn't 100 percent, so it was changed before the final attempt.

Koretsky wasn't qualified at the time, and he wound up missing the starting line-up because he couldn't run quicker than 6.778 seconds. His best was 6.790. He was seventh-quickest in the afternoon sunshine, however, as the new Larry Morgan-built motor ran well.

"We could've tuned-up the motor and got in the show if we'd had one more run, or we'd changed motors before our first run Saturday," said Guarnaccia. "But hindsight is always 20-20. We learned another lesson that day."

To which Koretsky added, "From now on we aren't going to second-guess ourselves."