CHICAGO (June 5) -- Both the Lucas Oil/Speedco Top Fuel dragster driven by Shawn Langdon and the Lucas Oil Buell Pro Stock Motorcycle ridden by Hector Arana successfully qualified in the top half of the field for Sunday's eliminations of the United Association Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.
Rain, or the prospect of it coming at any time, dominated the two days of qualifying, but Langdon said it's all part of the job.
"As a driver you have to be ready for anything, rain or shine," he said. "In qualifying you need to be ready to shut it down if something happens so you don't waste parts. On race day, you need to be ready to overcome anything to get the car to the other end. I approach it the same way no matter what the weather is doing."
Langdon rode the strength of a 3.871 second pass at 312.93 mph from Friday night to qualify seventh on Sunday's elimination ladder. He faces Steve Torrence, who had a best lap of 3.884 seconds at 313.95 mph, in the first round of eliminations.
"We have Steve in the morning and I expect them to run well, so it should be a good race," Langdon said. "We have lane choice, which will help, but more importantly we have our racecar back. We're excited to see what we can do tomorrow.
"We haven't really pushed the tuning window to see where we could go with it. We found out today what it didn't like. We do know where we're at with this thing and that's always good."
Arana, the defending Full Throttle Series champion in Pro Stock Motorcycle, said he made sure he was conservative during his pass on Friday, because with an iffy weather forecast, he wanted to make sure to get down the track and get into the field.
In getting two semi-unexpected passes Saturday, Arana said he was able to unleash the horses, experiment a bit, and move up to the No. 2 spot on the ladder with a best lap of 6.948 seconds at 192.30 mph.
"We improved over our first run on Friday and I'm happy," Arana said. "We were conservative on Friday because we knew it might be the only hit we'd get. We were third that run, not bad. Things didn't look promising this morning with the weather but we were able to go out there and improve.
"We come over here trying new stuff. We wanted to work on things for later in the year and see if they stick. Everything was good. My sons and the rest of the guys helping me have just been kicking butt this weekend."
Arana faces GEICO Powersports racer Karen Stoffer, who qualified 15th with a best lap of 7.111 at 182.55 mph.
Lucas Oil Pro Stock driver Larry Morgan was not able to get his Ford Mustang into the field. He was 19th on the day with a 6.700 at 206.64 mph.
Eliminations for the United Association Route 66 Nationals begin at 11 a.m. CDT on Sunday.
