NHRA Quotes and Photos from Bristol

The NHRA traveling roadshow rolled into Bristol Dragway Apr. 29-May 1, for the 5th annual O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. Qualifying was rained out on Friday and just one session was completed on Saturday before the wet stuff returned, creating a difficult surface to get down on raceday. When the tire smoke finally cleared, Doug Kalitta had won in Top Fuel, Gary Scelzi dominated to win in Funny Car, Warren Johnson had earned his 94th Pro Stock title, and Mike Ashley took home his third straight Pro Mod win. Here, in their own words, are the stories of the racers as taken from NHRA and team press releases.

TOP FUEL

"What a final. I was a little concerned because I like to go in pretty deep when I stage in a final, but this time the first bite was more than usual so I didn't try for any more. It's always good to win on a holeshot, but to do it when I was probably shallow, is really something.” -- Doug Kalitta on winning a squeaker over Rod Fuller in the final round

"I gave a tug on the brake in the shaky part of the track. We couldn't leave anything on the table; we couldn't' give it up.” -- Morgan Lucas on his second-place qualifying pass

"Our run wasn't pretty, but we got in the field and that's ultimately the most important thing."
-- Tony Schumacher expressing the feelings of many of his competitors

“It's our home track and I can't think of a better place to put Cory's winning streak to an end. Our team is going to finally slaughter this Airhog.” -- Scott Weis on facing Cory McClenathan in the first round for the fourth race in a row, and losing each prior meeting with the Fram Airhog-backed driver

"We're in.” -- David Baca after holding on to the 16th qualifying position with a 10.902-seconds pass at 83.57 mph

"No disrespect to Todd (Smith, crew chief) and our crew but a deteriorating track today, lack of track time over the weekend and being the first pair out beat us, not Scott Weis. Even though we did, you should never lose to a 5.23 (seconds).” -- Cory Mac after going up in smoke in his first-round pairing against Weis

"We always say that in drag racing, you usually need one lucky round to get you through the day. We haven't had that round in a while." -- Doug Herbert after losing a close race to Larry Dixon in round one