"I was so close to a win I could taste it," Toliver said after trying with teammate Jim Head's "The Punisher"-themed Celica body. "I had just one more round to win . . . but when the guy in the other lane is ahead of you all the way down the track, there's nothing you can do. You're helpless.

"Sometimes you wish you could stick your feet out and help the car go fast, like Fred Flintstone used to do. I didn't have to pedal it on the last run because he was running away from me."

Toliver's crew did a tremendous job in patching the car together and helping him jump from 10th place to fifth, just 15 points away from No. 2 Densham despite the problems.

Greg Anderson had no problems all weekend in earning another $25,000. He began by swiping Pro Stock's No. 1 qualifying position for the 10th consecutive NHRA race, dating back to last September's race at Chicago. His Friday night elapsed time of 6.693 seconds equaled the third-quickest run in the class' history. The Charlotte, N.C., resident owns the top seven Pro Stock passes in NHRA history.

Then -- turning in his fourth consecutive 6.73-second clocking -- he bested rookie teammate Jason Line, a former head dyno operator for Joe Gibbs' NASCAR Nextel Cup team, with a 6.738-second pass at 205.57 mph. Line, making his first final-round appearance in his ninth career event, ran a 9.466 at 98.16.

The victory gave Anderson his 20th overall victory, fifth this year, seventh in the last eight races and 11th in the last 15.

"This class is absolutely the toughest class out here," Anderson said. "We've got a great team here -- everybody knows that -- but it kind of showed this weekend that there are some teams making gains. The Jeg's team ran real well. They outran me in speed a couple of runs, and Warren (Johnson) outran me on speed, too, and that shows power.

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But so far my team has done a better job with the race car and getting the e.t. out of it. If we can maintain it, we'll be in good shape, but it shows guys are making power gains."

Anderson advanced by defeating Mark Whisnant, Larry Morgan, and Jeg Coughlin.

"I'm having a blast, an absolute blast," Anderson said. "I keep thinking that I'm going to wake up and it's all going to be over, but right now everybody on the team's at the top of their game. There are a lot of guys out there with power, but they show it sporadically. You've got to do it every run, every race track you go to, and that's what we've been able to do and what I'm most proud of. It's obviously not going to continue forever, but we're going to ride this wave for as long as we can."