“It’s the final round, and you have to do what
you have to do to win. That’s what matters the most.
If you don’t see the other driver, you have to keep
after it, and that’s exactly what I did. There are
no style points in drag racing – a win is a win.”
-- Hernandez again, on pedaling
his way to the finish line first with a 6.915-second pass
at 164.91 mph, while opponent Ed Hoover suffered a broken
transmission
“I have the utmost confidence in my crew. They understand
the language this car speaks. It speaks differently to me.
If it throws me back in the seat, I know it's happy. If
it shakes the tires and dances around the track, it's not
exactly enthused with the combination we have in it. The
bottom line is we want her to be happy at all times. When
she's happy, we are all happy." --
Mike Ashley prior to qualifying 15th at Houston
“As a drag racer, you expect to have weekends that
fail to produce the results you want. I may have to accept
it, but I don’t have to like it.” --
Ashley after falling to Kirk Kuhns in round two
"It's all my fault. I have an old habit from my Pro
Stock days that I'm trying to beat but I just haven't been
able to get over it yet. It's really frustrating because
we have a top-half car that's capable of winning every race
and we're not able to show it because of a mental hurdle
I haven't cleared yet. In a Pro Stock car you rest your
foot on the clutch pedal as you go down the track so that
you're ready to push it in when you finish the run. If you
do that in a Pro Mod car and apply any pressure at all on
the clutch pedal you totally zing the motor. I don't know
if it's the thicker fire boots or what but evidentially
I'm putting too much pressure on the pedal. It's something
I need to correct before we can challenge at any of these
races." -- Troy Coughlin with
an honest appraisal of why he failed to qualify at Houston
