John Force set a national elapsed-time Funny Car record and Tony Schumacher snapped the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster to attention with a career-best run Saturday as fields were set in all four professional classes for the Lucas Oil NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Joliet.
Force returned to the notoriously quick Route 66 Raceway quarter-mile winless and in eighth place after the season’s first nine events. But the 12-time series champion earned his 114th top-qualifying position with a 4.721-seconds pass at 325.30 m.p.h. in his Castrol Ford Mustang.
In another coup for Schumacher Racing, Gary Scelzi recorded the fastest pass in Funny Car history with a 327.98 m.p.h. blast in the Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T. The speed is a track mark, but Scelzi has not backed it up for a national record.
“It’s nice to have the fastest hot rod in the world,” he said.
In Top Fuel competition, Schumacher, of Long Grove, earned his first No. 1 qualifying spot in 16 races with a career-best 4.512 seconds at 326.16 m.p.h.
“That run would’ve been even faster if we hadn’t broken something,” Schumacher said. “I’d like to turn it around on my home track, but we owe it to the Army because they’ve been patient so long, to go out and win this race.”
Greg Anderson rewrote both ends of the track record to take his fourth straight No. 1 Pro Stock spot. He began the day with a 6.788-second pass at 203.16 m.p.h. and finished with a 6.761/203.58. Final eliminations start at 11 a.m. Sunday.
