Rookie Eric Medlen showed that his numbers in pre-season testing were no fluke. In his debut driving the Castrol Syntec championship-winning Mustang, tuned by his father John Medlen, he grabbed the #1 position running right down the middle of the lane to a 4.840/319.07 pass.
"I owe it to my dad, he's the champ for this year really. It's real special for me to do this with him," declared a proud Medlen who had walked the fence on his trip down the return road. Funny Car Champ Tony Pedregon, who is carrying the #1 on his new car, landed in the middle of the first round field with his 5.097 right behind brother and teammate Cruz.

Jerry Toliver finally ended speculation and debuted his Alan Johnson Performance Engineering-prepped Toyota Celica with sponsorship from the new Official Razor of NHRA: Schick Quattro (and associate sponsorship from Captain Morgan's Rum -- perhaps the unofficial rum of the NHRA?). Johnson, who tunes the U.S. Army car, is co-owner of Toliver's, which has already caused speculation about a conflict of interest when the cars go head to head.

Toliver is teamed with Jim Head who parked his top fueler this season. Head will carry the Schick sponsorship and that of Lions Gate Films, the same one on the third CSK/Worsham car last season. Cory Lee in this year's third CSK car cranked off a 4.844 to grab the #2 position after the first round.

Ron Capps suffered a fiery top end explosion in his brand new Monte Carlo bodied Skoal Funny Car qualifying in the #10 position. Tommy Johnson Jr.(newly married to Melanie Troxel) in the Skoal blue car qualified sixth with his 4.930 while kicking the rods out of the engine on the top end.

According the local TV weathermen, Friday may bring intermittent rain showers with a possible deluge on Sunday, not a great prospect for the rest of the weekend. These numbers may have set the fields for eliminations if the weather remains sketchy.