Bernstein, Epler, Coughlin
Roll the Dice and Come Up Winners

photos by Jeff Burk

WARREN COMES UP SHORT
In the post race interview from Vegas WJ said - “The car got loose in the final. We may have been a little too greedy because we thought the track would cool off more than it did. I had my best 60-foot time in the last round, but when I shifted into second gear, it just spun the tires. The heat contributed to the problem because traction goes down as the temperature increases. The solution is to back down the power you’re putting to the pavement while still running quick enough to win. We felt that if the Hoosier tires were going to work, they’d work on a hot race track like this. I feel very optimistic going into the race in Houston next weekend. We could spin the tires at will here, but we won’t have that problem on a well seasoned track.”

- Jeff Romack

PHISH  PHACTS
Todd Paton driver of the number one qualifier in Fuel Funny Car - “All in all, we made a pretty good showing this weekend. If we wouldn’t have dropped a cylinder, we the Nitrofish Pontiac Firebird would have been more in the fight than what we were. We gave up a little on the start and Tony (Pedregon) started to put some distance on us. He had dropped a cylinder in the round before and we haven’t had that problem out here. That’s just one of those things. We didn’t see it coming, it came along and this time the big fish got bit. We’re looking forward to Houston and we’re pleased with what we’ve been able to learn in the last two races. At Gainesville we performed well on a proven racetrack. This weekend our performance level was high on an unproven racetrack. We know what to run in Houston. Dupuy has a pretty big logbook on that track and we’re looking for some big things out of the Nitrofish Firebird.”

-JR

HERBERT’S WILD RIDE
“We are getting things sorted out,” Doug Herbert said after a wild first-round loss at the inaugural SummitRacing.com Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Sunday. “We made some changes after (the race in) Gainesville (March 19) and the performance seemed to come around. Then we went after the clutch at Vegas and it seemed to work good in the first round.” Herbert didn’t have an opportunity to make another elimination attempt because the Snap-on dragster’s right rear tire came apart during his race against Larry Dixon.

“I was ahead of him when the tires began spinning down track,” Herbert recalled. “Then the tire let go and knocked off the engine’s fuel lines. We were fortunate we didn’t lose any points for an oil down because the tire caused the accident.” The car did skid on its right rear tire rim as Herbert deftly steered it to a stop. “The car wanted to go left, so I let it go,” he said about the car drifting from the right into the left lane. “I knew Dixon was already past me. I didn’t want to steer it too much because I didn’t want to bend the frame. We only have a few days before going to Houston.”

-Joe Sherk

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