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ELIMINATION ROUNDS RECAPS

TOP FUEL ROUND 1 (Sunday 7:20 p.m.): After an eight-hour rain delay, Brittany Force laid down low e.t., 3.723, on the first pass down the track -- an incredible tip of the cap to the NHRA Safety Safari -- to beat Richie Crampton. She’ll take on Steve Torrence, who ran 3.734 at 333.25 (the 10th fastest speed in class history) but won't get lane choice against her. Torrence’s dad, Billy, also ran 3.734 and will get lane choice over Terry McMillen. Six of the eight first-round winners ran in the 3.70s, which also included Doug Kalitta (3.774), Clay Millican (3.780), and Tony Schumacher (3.781).

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Doug Kalitta vs. Clay Millican; Tony Schumacher vs. Leah Pritchett; Brittany Force vs. Steve Torrence; Billy Torrence vs. Terry McMillen

FUNNY CAR ROUND 1 (Sunday 7:22 p.m.): The recurring theme in the first round of Funny Car eliminations under the lights was missed opportunity. Cruz Pedregon missed his chance to take out reigning champ Robert Hight when his throttle cable broke after both cars smoked the tires. Rookie Richard Townsend also got into a pedal-fest against Courtney Force but the low qualifier prevailed despite a coasting 5.323. Jonnie Lindberg also caught a break when he coasted to the win after opponent Jim Campbell red-lighted by two-thousandths of a second. Bob Tasca III entered eliminations with one of the quickest and most consistent cars in the field but his chances for victory ended when his engine seized an idler pulley at the hit of the throttle, allowing Jack Beckman to stumbled his way to a tire-smoking 4.776 victory. The best run of the round went to Matt Hagan, who used a 3.942 to take out Tim Wilkerson while teammate Tommy Johnson Jr. also found the three-second zone with a 3.950 in his win against John Force. Hagan also set top speed of the round at 326.79 mph in his Mopar Dodge.

Second round pairings (lane choice first): J.R. Todd vs. Jack Beckman; Tommy Johnson Jr. vs. John Force; Shawn Langdon vs. Jonnie Lindberg; Matt Hagan vs. Courtney Force

PRO STOCK ROUND 1 (Sunday 7:52 p.m.): The fading sunlight at Heartland Motorsports Park helped contribute to a wild round of Pro Stock where two of the favorites; Vincent Nobile and Jeg Coughlin, lost via red-light starts. Nobile, the winner of the most recent race in Atlanta, left the starting line .007-second too soon and lost to Drew Skillman while Coughlin fouled by five-thousandths against Houston champ Matt Hartford. Rookie Will Hatcher nearly won his first round of Pro Stock competition against his car owner, Deric Kramer. Both cars were loose, but Kramer recovered for a 7.595 to 7.616 victory. The best run of the round came from Greg Anderson with a 6.596 while Summit teammate Jason Line was also quick with a 6.611 in his win against Alex Laughlin. Erica Enders was just a thousandth slower than Line with a 6.612. Enders will now take on rival Tanner Gray in the most anticipated battle of the weekend. Ender’s car owner, Elite Performance boss Richard Freeman, put together the biggest upset of the round when he got past Chris McGaha, who shut off early.

Second round pairings (lane choice first):  Matt Hartford vs. Deric Kramer; Jason Line vs. Richard Freeman; Erica Enders vs. Tanner Gray; Greg Anderson vs. Drew Skillman

TOP FUEL ROUND 2 (Sunday 9:05 p.m.): Steve Torrence powered to a 3.684, low e.t. of the meet, to beat Brittany Force and advance to his fifth semifinal in eight events (three wins), but father Billy won’t be there to race Steve-o in the semifinals after losing to Terry McMillen’s 3.78. Low qualifier Clay Millican ran 3.72 at 334.90, the third fastest pass in class history, against Doug Kalitta and will take on Tony Schumacher, who advanced with a 3.93 after Leah Pritchett smoked the tires.

Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Steve Torrence vs. Tony Schumacher; Steve Torrence vs. Terry McMillen

FUNNY CAR ROUND 2 (Sunday 9:10 p.m.): Performances improved dramatically in the second round of Funny Car where Robert Hight leading the way with a 3.924, 330.23 in his impressive win against Tommy Johnson Jr., who wasn’t far behind with a 3.986, 327.98. Hight’s teammate, Atlanta winner Courtney Force was involved it he most thrilling race of the round when she left on noted starting line ace Matt Hagan and then raced to a 3.934 to 3.936 victory in her Advance Auto Parts Chevy. Kalitta Motorsports teammates J.R. Todd and Shawn Langdon also moved on to the semifinal round with wins against Jack Beckman and Jonnie Lindberg, respectively.

Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Courtney Force vs. J.R. Todd; Robert Hight vs. Shawn Langdon

TOP FUEL SEMIFINALS (Monday 11:07 a.m.): Terry McMillen and Clay Millican will battle it out in the final round of Top Fuel for the right to take home a trophy for the first time this year. They both earned their first Top Fuel Wallys last season and that makes it tough to pick an “underdog favorite” in the Monday Morning Final round. It appeared Steve Torrence put a hole out and that gave McMillen just enough room to squeeze by the points leader and reach the final. Meanwhile, Millican blew past Tony Schumacher with a 3.676 and will pick his lane.

FUNNY CAR SEMIFINALS (Monday 11:13 a.m.): To quote the great superhero Iron Man, “if anyone else has any fantastic, secret powers, go ahead and disclose those now.” They’re going to need them to slow down Courtney Force and the Advance Auto Parts team. She absolutely unloaded a 3.895-second pass to topple J.R. Todd in the semifinals and booked herself a meeting with teammate Robert Hight. The defending champ has a shot at winning his first race of the season, but he’s going to have his hands full. Hight ran a 3.911 and will have to crank it up a little bit more to beat Force in the final.

PRO STOCK ROUND 2 (Monday 11:18 a.m.): Erica Enders got the best of both ends of her much-anticipated matchup with Tanner Gray, killing the tree with a .005 reaction time and then running the best elapsed time of the event with a 6.550. Gray was no slouch (.014 light and a 6.574 pass), but that wasn’t enough to defeat the two-time champ. Greg Anderson got past Drew Skillman despite the Indianan’s holeshot advantage – the same couldn’t be said for Matt Hartford, who was toasted by Deric Kramer via a holeshot. Jason Line picked up another round victory in what’s quickly becoming a get-healthy weekend for the driver of the blue Summit Chevrolet, meaning three of four K.B. racers reached the semi’s.

Semifinal matchups (lane choice first): Erica Enders vs. Greg Anderson; Jason Line vs. Deric Kramer

Steve Collier's Top Alcohol Dragster blew over during eliminations on Monday. You can see the full video of the incident, which occurred during the second round of eliminations. 

FUNNY CAR FINAL (Monday 12:30 p.m.): Courtney Force earned her third Wally of the season and second in as many races. Force and teammate Robert Hight left the starting line nearly as one but the Advance Auto Parts Chevy Camaro made up the difference down track and the team, led by co-crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Danny Hood, extended its Funny Car points lead.

TOP FUEL FINAL (Monday 12:33 p.m.): Clay Millican is now a two-time NHRA national event winner. He made a smooth run down the strip to defeat Terry McMillen in their first meeting in a final round. Millican’s 3.727-second pass toppled McMillen as the Indianan smoked the tires through the middle of the race track.

PRO STOCK SEMIFINALS (Monday 12:39 p.m.): Deric Kramer is headed to the first two-lane final of his career on the back of a holeshot, the second of the event for the driver of the American Ethanol Camaro. He defeated fellow K.B. Racing driver Jason Line to get to the final and he’ll have his hands full in the final round as Erica Enders also used a holeshot to beat rival Greg Anderson by a narrow margin. Enders unleashed a .003 light on Anderson to win by .004 second. There are holeshot wins and then there are holeshot wins so tight you can barely see them by the naked eye. Kramer will have lane choice in the final, for what that’s worth.

PRO STOCK FINAL (Monday 2:03 p.m.): Deric Kramer left first on the best leaver in the Pro Stock category and then drove to victory while Erica Enders shoved the clutch back in for his first national event victory. Kramer’s win was the culmination of an offseason move to K.B. Racing power and a brand swap to a Camaro that has paid dividends for the Denver driver. He’s the second first-time winner in the Pro Stock category this season.

PRO MOD FINAL (Monday 2:02 p.m.): Rickie Smith became the first two-time Pro Mod winner of the season, as he made Chad Green his latest on a long list of victims. Green got loose at about half track and had to get off the gas while Smith rode smoothly to the finish line. Smith opened the season with a win in Gainesville and looks to be on the right track for another fine season.

TOP FUEL HARLEY FINAL (Monday 2:07 p.m.): Defending Mickey Thompson Top Fuel Harley world champion Jay Turner got back into the winner’s circle for the first time in 2018 by defeating his teammate, Tii Tharpe. He got off the line first (.010) and ran a great pass to turn on the win light, keeping Tharpe from winning for the third time this season.

LUCAS OIL DRAG RACING SERIES FINALS: In addition to the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series action at Heartland Motorsports Park, champions were also crowned in eight classes of the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

Top Alcohol Dragster
Shawn Cowie def. Monroe Guest

Top Alcohol Funny Car
Shane Westerfield (pictured) def. Doug Gordon

Super Stock
Michael Mans def. Gary Stinnett

Stock
Tyler Wudarczyk def. Marion Stephenson

Super Comp
Danielle Jaramillo-Miller def. Don Nichols 

Super Gas
Kevin Theobald def. Bob Fuller

Top Dragster
Phil Unruh def. Steve Will 

Top Sportsman
Dusty Meyer def. Phil Dion 

PRE-RACE FEATURES

Steve Torrence has his eyes on his first career Top Fuel win in Topeka. He was runner-up last season to good pal Antron Brown but hasn’t hoisted a trophy at Heartland Motorsports Park since he did it in 2005, en route to the Alcohol Dragster world championship.

Torrence, with three wins already this season, felt that he might have let No. 4 slip away from him two weeks ago in Atlanta, where he was upset by Blake Alexander. The good news for Torrence is that, with points rival Tony Schumacher’s first-round loss, he held onto his points lead.

“We let that one get away,” Torrence said, “and I hate that but that’s why we hit the gas. You never know what’s going to happen. We started to spin (the tires) and that gave Blake the opening he needed. I just wish he’d have gone ahead and taken out Leah [Pritchett] in the final. Still, we left with a bigger lead than we had coming in here and we know we’ve got a bad-ass race car.”

Topeka marks just the one-third spot of the season, but Torrence, who’s held the points lead since the second race of the season, isn’t counting any Countdown chickens just yet.

“The only time it’s important to be No. 1 in points is after the last race,” he said. “We led most of the way last year, too, but on that last day, we didn’t get it done. That’s a great motivator but it’s a long season. We just need to stay focused.

“We’re racing with confidence. [Crew chief Richard] Hogan is making great adjustments, the crew is bad-ass and knowing I’ve got a car that can win every race, the driver’s doing his part, too. It’s fun right now, but you can go from a hero to a zero pretty quickly in this sport.”

Over the last 34 races spanning a season and a half, Torrence has gone to the final round in almost every other start (16 times) and has won every third time out (12 times, most recently in Charlotte). Surprisingly, he’s only qualified No. 1 three times in that timespan and every time he claimed a green hat (which he didn't here), he failed to even reach the final.

“That’s just a credit to the Capco guys being able to adapt on the fly,” Torrence noted. “We may not be the [quickest] at every race, but we usually figure things out by race day -– and that’s how you win championships.”

When you have two team cars qualified in the field, the ideal outcome, of course, is to have them meet in the final round. Kalitta Motorsports Top Fuel drivers Doug Kalitta and Richie Crampton have been like metal and magnet this year, facing one another at six of the season’s first seven events; the problem is that those races have all happened in the first round. Kalitta has typically qualified in the No. 5-7 range while Crampton has floated between 10th and 14th, locking them into those first-round showdowns.

Kalitta has won five of the six (in Pomona, en route to the event win, as well as in Las Vegas, Houston, Charlotte, and Atlanta) while Crampton has grounded “Air Doug” just once, in Gainesville, on the way to an event victory. He also did it on a holeshot, 3.776 to 3.769.

(The duo have actually raced one another seven times this season, squaring off twice (with two other drivers) in the four-wide event in Las Vegas. Kalitta and Crampton finished 1-2 in their first-round quad ahead of Brittany Force and Terry Haddock, but Crampton finished third behind Kalitta and Antron Brown in the semifinals.)

"It's been pretty incredible," said Crampton in Atlanta, "I am not sure how we keep drawing our teammate. I know we both have cars capable of going rounds, so it stinks that one of us will have to be done early."

The two entered the final qualifying session here fated for another first-round clash, with Kalitta No. 5 and Crampton No. 12, but Crampton moved up to No. 10 and Kalitta dropped to No. 8, not only avoiding another duel but putting themselves on opposite sides of the ladder where they would definitely welcome another matchup … in the final.

The Top Fuel record for most first-round races against the same opponent in a season is seven, shared by Mike Dunn and Bruce Sarver in 1997 and Larry Dixon and Scott Weis in 2002.

Tony Schumacher had a forgettable Sunday in Atlanta two weeks ago, not only continuing the frustrating trend of having never won the race -– the only one on the current tour that has eluded him –- but also falling in the first round to nitro neophyte Bill Litton at the wheel of the Worsham family’s art-time dragster.

The upset continued a trend for the sport’s most successful Top Fuel driver as he has an unfortunate knack of being the guy on the opposite end of Top Fuel racers’ first career round win. Earlier this year in Phoenix, Greg Cariilo took down “the Sarge,” becoming the ninth driver to add Schumacher as the first notch on their safety belts. Cameron Ferre, Jenna Haddock, Mike Strasburg, Blake Alexander, Smax Smith, Alan Bradshaw, Rit Pustari, and Don Sosenka also have all lit their first career win lights against the Army driver.

Schumacher not only takes the ignominious stat in stride, he embraces it.

“It’s great when the youngsters, the newer drivers, come up and say they can’t wait to race you,” he said. “Seriously, it’s just an honor. I watch some of those guys and gals and I know they’re capable of being in the position I’m in someday. They’re going to be the champs and that is just cool. I never try to hold anybody back. In fact, I teach each kid as much as I can about how to do it right. My theory has always been that, when I beat somebody, I want them to have every advantage and I want to beat them in a fair fight. That’s what the fans pay for and that’s what competition truly is all about.”

And guess what? The duo were paired in the first round again here, and Schumacher got revenge.

After beginning the season with just one round win in the first four events, Tim Wilkerson has scored three in the last three, including a semifinal finish in Houston. In a pre-season conversation with National Dragster, Wilkerson predicted that smaller teams like his might thrive as the multi multi-car “big” teams beat up on each other. That’s certainly happened and Wilk is hanging on to a spot in the Top 10, but the plain-talking Illini will be the first to tell you it’s tough out there regardless of your budget.

“We knew this was going to be a tougher year than the last couple-three because the cars are all of a higher quality than they've ever been before,” he said. “I can almost compare this year to 2008, a year I did really well. There were a lot of good cars that year, sometimes 20-30 good cars, but we always seemed to run well. I think the level of competition, both tuning- and driving-wise, is better now than it's ever been. 

“There is a different level of competition that there hasn't been in a long time. The cars are a little different than they were 10 years ago, and there are a lot of electronics that didn't used to be there, a lot of widgets and gadgets. If you're not a widget and gadget guy, that could make it tough. The electronics take a lot of the driving and tuning pieces out of it, and they're a little more of a remote-control car than they used to be 10 years ago.

“There are a few crew chiefs that have been around the block, for lack of a better term, and they've made every team [that they've worked with] better. In the last three to five years, there have been a lot of people who have benefitted from that shared knowledge around the pit area. A single-car team like me, I haven't got that, and it's kind of showing. I'm a little behind the eight-ball, but I'm not an excuse guy. I'm trying my best to get back ahead of the curve, and I really think it's going to be OK.”

Former Funny Car world champ Ron Capps addressed head on the recent changes to track preparation in a solid post in his Facebook post that got a lot of attention for its tone and, of course, its author.

“Starting with a few races ago, NHRA made a decision to change the track preparation procedure (less percentage of sticky compound sprayed on the track prior to runs than in years previous) and lower the traction, or the grip of the lanes. 

“Trust me. Don’t panic. It’s going to be a good thing in the long run.

“I’ve bragged about these crew chiefs in our sport than take an eight cylinder passenger vehicle Hemi-designed engine and make it produce over 11,000 horsepower and catapult us pilots to speeds over 330 mph in less than 4 seconds, and all in just 1,000 feet. It’s truly amazing, right? You bet it is. 

“Well, in my opinion, we are going to get to watch these same crew chiefs have to go back to the drawing board and re-approach how to do that on a track with much less traction in the upcoming months, and it’s gonna fun. You’re gonna see which nitro drivers will rise to the occasion of having to be able to actually drive these race cars in these tricky conditions, and not just stab the pedal and hang on. And this also should excite you all, as passionate Drag Racing fans, ‘cause its gonna be fun to watch!”
 

Back on the NHRA Mello Yello tour for a third of a season, Bob Tasca III has made steady progress from his Ford-backed Funny Car team but the challenges he’s faced so far go far beyond the normal difficulties associated with assembling a new team from the ground-up. After buying parts and hiring crew members including crew chief Eric Lane, Tasca has also had to deal with the recent changes in track prep and a Funny Car class that is perhaps the most competitive in history.

After a series of near-misses, including a narrow 3.95 to 3.98 loss to Ron Capps in Gainesville, Tasca picked up his first-round win of the season two weeks ago in Atlanta when he out-pedaled Robert Hight in round one. Tasca knew going in that the assembling a new team in today’s competitive environment would be difficult, and that task became even more of a challenge due to the much talked about change in track prep. Still, Tasca believes his team’s best days lie ahead.

“To be honest I thought we’d be a little further along than we are now but when you consider everything that’s going on right now, I don’t think we’re doing badly at all,” said Tasca. “The car is getting there. We’ve made a lot of good runs lately and more importantly, we’ve got it to the point where it responds to the adjustments we’re making. That’s the key. If you know what the car is going to do, you can deal with any variable like track conditions. This is more than just a new team. I’ve never driven a car with a six-disc clutch and Eric had very little experience tuning one. That’s just one of the things we’ve had to deal with.

In qualifying, Tasca wasn’t able to match the 3.911-second pace set by low qualifier Courtney Force, but he did have the best average of any car in the field with four consistent runs of 4.091, 4.058, 4.041, and a 4.006 in Q3 that was good for three bonus points.

“Any one of those runs could have been in the threes but we’re still spinning the tires downtrack,” Tasca said. “That’s just a matter of adjusting to the track prep and we’re all in the same boat. I actually like it because it means the tuners have to tune and the drivers have to drive. I’m not sure how much of it we’ve seen yet but it is also supposed to save us money. I think that will be the case in the long run.

“I can also tell you that as a driver, I’ve never felt more comfortable in any car. Shallow staged my lights have been in the .050s and I couldn’t do that before. That’s also a product of having the car right and knowing for the most part what it’s going to do on any given run.”

Lane (pictured right with NHRA's Alan Reinhart teaching Nitro School to the fans), who joined Tasca after a long tenure at DSR as the car chief on Ron Capps’ NAPA team, has quickly adapted to his new role as a crew chief, but has also had the added responsibility of adjusting to the new track prep.

“We ran a 4.00 here and it’s not like we can just go back to our notes from five years ago and see what we did the last time we ran 4.00,” said Lane. “It doesn’t work that way. Everything is different. For years, we’ve been beating on these cars to get them to go 3.7s and now we’ve got to pull them back and that’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s not just a matter of pulling back timing or fuel. The whole combination has to be changed. I think we’ve done a decent job of adapting but there’s still a way to go. Thankfully, I worked with Rahn Tobler and we never had that all or nothing mentality. When the car wasn’t right; we looked at everything to determine what wasn’t right and we fixed it. We didn’t just throw everything at it and not worry about the consequences.”

Deric Kramer put his American Ethanol Camaro on the pole in Pro Stock for the second time this season and he’s already doubled his career round wins total thanks to his new engine leasing agreement with KB Racing. Now, Kramer figures that the last things left on his to-do list are his first final round appearance and ultimately, his first national event victory. Kramer’s path to the final will begin with a round one race against rookie Will Hatcher, a longtime family friend who is driving one of Kramer’s American Ethanol Dodges from last season. Kramer and Hatcher have not only raced in Comp Eliminator together, they also competed against each other in the Jr. Drag Racing League.

“That’s unfortunate that the ladder shook out that way; I would rather have raced someone else,” said Kramer. “The good thing is that there will be at least one American Ethanol car in the second round, and this race being in Kansas, that’s important to them.

Kramer’s pole-winning time of 6.613-seconds came on the final pair of the final qualifying session. Erica Enders, who had been the leader, improved to a 6.616, but was bumped back to the second spot by Kramer.

“We didn’t really think we were gonna go that fast,” Kramer said. “When Greg [Anderson] ran that 6.62, we thought we’d be running right there with him, but we didn’t think we had a 61 in it; we didn’t expect that at all. It was cool when I crossed the finish line and they radioed to me what I ran, and I could hear everyone celebrating. I really gotta thank all the American Ethanol and Poet people and all of our sponsors that help us get here.”

A quick recap of Greg Anderson’s 2018 season to date looks quite favorable with the four-time Mello Yello Pro Stock champion currently ranked in third place. Anderson has been the low qualifier in four of the first seven races and he’s not started eliminations any lower than fourth this season. With so much success, it’s hard to imagine that Anderson is not only seeking his first win of the season, but he’s yet to appear in a final round. With semifinal finishes in Houston and Atlanta, the tide does seem to be turning in favor of the 90-time national event winner.

In Topeka, Anderson is once again in the thick of the battle with a competitive 6.620 that was good for the No. 3 spot and a date with Mopar driver Alan Prusiensky in round one. Anderson is also encouraged by the eliminations ladder, which prevents a race against Summit teammate Jason Line until the final round. Anderson also grabbed four qualifying bonus points during Friday and Saturday’s four qualifying runs.

“We were good in qualifying, and we have gotten better with each run, said Anderson, a four-time winner in Topeka. “I keep saying that we're learning what we've done wrong, and I'm going to stick to my guns. I think we learned what we need to do, and we just need to go out and execute that plan tomorrow. There are a lot of fast cars that can win the race, but we certainly have two of them right here with our Summit Racing Chevys. That makes me feel pretty good, and it's going to be a knockdown, drag-out brawl tomorrow, but we're going to be right in the thick of it.”
 
Anderson also noted that he’s brought a secret weapon of sorts to Topeka; his uncle, Les Williams, who is back on site for the event. Minnesota-based Williams, known throughout the Pro Stock pits as “Uncle Les,” was a fixture within the KB Racing team for years, helping with any and every task possible, from checking gap on spark plugs to shopping and cooking for the crew. Williams retired from the volunteer position at the end of 2017.
 
“I think that's been the missing ingredient all year,” said Anderson. “I called him and said, ‘Dude, you've got to get back to the racetrack. I can't seem to win without you.’ So, he's here, and it's just a different feeling when he's around. Everyone's happy, everyone's smiling and having fun, and I think that's going to go a long way towards our success tomorrow.”

For the second time in the last three races, Bo Butner will start from the bottom half of the Pro Stock field after he registered a tenth-best 6.645 in his KB-powered Butner Auto Camaro. During his championship season in 2017, Butner qualified in the top half of the field in 23 or 24 events, with the lone exception being a No. 9 starting spot in Denver. He was also the low qualifier at five events.

So, what changed?

For one, the rival Elite team appears to have fixed many of their performance issues and there are four Elite drivers who are qualified higher than Butner in Topeka. The Gray Motorsports entries of Tanner Gray and Drew Skillman are also capable of running with anyone in the field and the same goes for Chris McGaha’s single-car effort. The increased level of competition hasn’t done much to dampen the spirit of Butner, who learned long ago that life in the Pro Stock class is never easy.

“I'm just happy just to go a couple rounds right now, and that's kind of how I looked at it last year,” said Butner, who won the first Pro Stock race of his career last season and steadily added to his pile of points to nab the championship in the last round of the last race of the year. “Go a few rounds, make it to some finals, and the points add up themselves. We've struggled this year for four or five races now, and I don't know why, but we'll get better. I'd like to win Topeka, it's one I don't have yet, but I'd like to get a win anywhere.”

Butner will have his work cut out for him in round one when he’s paired with Gray, the reigning rookie of the year. In eight prior meetings, Gray holds a 5-3 advantage over Butner including the Gainesville final round earlier this season.

PHOTOS

The crew for Winternationals Top Fuel champ Doug Kalitta prepped the Mac Tools machine for its first-round battle with Scott Palmer.

A few pit stalls down, crew chief Donnie Bender and driver Kebin Kinsley fired their Roger Hennen-owned Road Rage dragster in preparation for eliminations.

Early-morning rain led to an abbreviated pre-race ceremony that included the No. 1 qualifiers and a few dignitaries. Clay Millican accepted the cheers from the crowd after his fourth No. 1 spot in Top Fuel this season.

Courtney Force, who was collecting her fifth No. 1 of the year in Funny Car, shimmied her way past a door malfunction to accept the ;pole-position plaudits.

Deric Kramer, who had never been No. 1 in Pro stock before this season, earned his second of the season and shared the glory with his entire American Ethanol crew.

Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer and daughter Serena were welcomed to the stage by NHRA's Brian Lohnes. The governor has been a longtime supporter of Heartland Motorsports Park.

The governor also got a tour of some of the amazing machines of the NHRA. Driver Jim Campbell and team manager Jon Dunn got his behind the wheel of their Funny Car to get a first-hand look inside the cockpit of the Jim Dunn Racing flopper (Ron Lewis photo).

After a long rain delay, 16-time Funny Car champ John Force climbed in to test-fire his Peak Chevy.

Teammates Antron Brown and Leah Pritchett checked out the replay of their wild, pedaling first-round battle, won by Pritchett.

Jonnie Lindberg had some wild flames in round one by still got the win light against red-lighting Jim Campbell.

Pro Stock rookie Will Hatcher qualified but lost in round one.

Rain delay tweeting ...

Well, cars are turning around and heading back to the pits. Boooooo rain!!👎👎👎 #rainraingoaway #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/2i1A6Pfzda

— Kalitta Motorsports (@TeamKalitta) May 20, 2018

Wading through a rain delay with some of the best fans on the planet. #NHRA #HeartlandNats #TeamLRS pic.twitter.com/ULGeMc9B42

— Team Wilkerson (@TimWilkerson_FC) May 20, 2018

An intense game of spoons (with forks) going on while it’s raining at @heartlandmsp! #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/zGVcWBioaF

— Don Schumacher Racing (@shoeracing) May 20, 2018

I'd rather be in the car getting ready to go down the track but Mother Nature had other plans, so hanging out with @theLohnes instead #NHRA #HeartlandNats #RainDelay pic.twitter.com/daSCM9MR5F

— Jack Beckman (@FastJackBeckman) May 20, 2018

This is what happens when it rains and we have too much time on our hands, part 1: Sad that it's raining #NHRA #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/vt4VIJLmwO

— Team Wilkerson (@TimWilkerson_FC) May 20, 2018

Aaaaaand.... This is what happens when it rains and we have too much time on our hands, part 2: Ready for Matt Hagan #NHRA #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/B6Atm8vwdD

— Team Wilkerson (@TimWilkerson_FC) May 20, 2018

Hanging out in the rain with the @NHRA fans! #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/vjjB2pKqxM

— Don Schumacher Racing (@shoeracing) May 20, 2018

Rain drops on the roof are so soothing pic.twitter.com/P077cBdTKh

— J.R. Todd (@J_R_Todd) May 20, 2018

Top Fuel is rolling through the lanes! Let's try this again! #NHRA #HeartlandNats pic.twitter.com/8q8THbLIME

— Kalitta Motorsports (@TeamKalitta) May 20, 2018

Back to racing ...

LADDERS