It had been about 10 months since the 2012 NHRA Funny Car world champion visited any winner’s circle or media center for a post-race celebration and interview after winning a title in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.
And he’d never advanced to a final round at the track near Chicago until Sunday when his Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T team funded by Terry Chandler and led by crew chief Jimmy Prock with assistants John Medlen and Chris Cunningham defeated teammate Ron Capps to snap a 15-race winless streak.
He joined with teammate Antron Brown to give DSR both nitro titles for the fourth straight year at the track near the hometown of owner Don Schumacher.
“It’s a little bit frustrating to have been the only one of our DSR Funny Cars that hadn’t closed the deal when Capps seems to be winning every weekend, (Matt) Hagan had multiple wins and Tommy won.
“We knew we would find it.”
“Even though we had been to three final rounds this year, we really didn’t have our car,” he said referring to last year’s performance which produced seven titles. “This year we had never made it more than 200 feet in any of those final rounds, and we were struggling. We set the national record this year, qualified No. 1 four times this year, but we just couldn’t put it together.”
The Infinite Hero Dodge powered by Pennzoil performed at Route 66 including a No. 2 qualifying effort.
“I’ll tell you the great thing about DSR and my teammates, it was my birthday two weeks ago and Tommy Johnson said he’d drive the car (for a test session) Jimmy wanted to do. They took it out to Indy and made four hits on it, and the thing never went past 400 feet but it started pointing us in the right direction as to what needed fixed.
“The car was just darn near flawless out there today. This doesn’t mean we’re going to be dominant at the next race, but it means I’ll feel a lot more confident when we pull through the gates knowing we can make consistent runs. Once you start making the consistent runs, you can turn the wick up and make quick runs.”
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