David Wells Dallas summary

Wells wins O'Reilly Fall Nationals on holeshot.

ENNIS, Texas - NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster driver David Wells won his fourth career national event by defeating defending five-time World Champion Rick Santos on a holeshot at this past weekend's O'Reilly Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec at the Texas Motorplex just south of Dallas. The win marks the second time that Wells and his Blue Bunny Ice Cream/ "Plain Vanilla" team won the event.

Wells, who heads mechanical operations at Blue Bunny Ice Cream in LeMars, Iowa, qualified his Blown Alcohol Dragster 13th with a 5.513 second elapsed time at 256.99 mph. In round one, he defeated Bill Reichert with a 5.539 at 254.23 mph, and then took out Chris Ricketts with a 5.473 at 258.17 mph. The defending three-time Division 5 Champ then ran a 5.460 at 259.59 mph to take out Brandon Johnson in the semifinals.

In the final, Wells would have the monumental task of facing Santos, who had been on a tear all weekend. Undaunted, Wells stuck to his game and took a huge holeshot win with his 5.492 at 258.69 mph defeating Santos' quicker-but-much-later 5.344 at 264.55 mph.

"Everything just went our way this weekend," said Wells. "We got a few breaks, but you usually do to win one of these races. We just stuck with our gameplan and didn't try anything stupid. It paid off. We won our last national event here, so I guess we have pretty good luck at this track."

"In the final, I didn't intentionally deep stage," Wells continued.  "The
brakes just wouldn't hold.  I was pulling back on the brake as hard as I
could.  I guess that distracted Rick."

Wells and the Blue Bunny Ice Cream/ "Plain Vanilla" team will make their final event of the year at the season-ending AAA Auto Club Finals in Pomona, Calif., Nov. 7-10.

"Basically we want to go out there and do well to try to move up some in points," commented Wells. "We also want to work on our tune-up more for next season. We've had a lot of little things go wrong this year that we've had to iron out, and now everything seems like it is starting to work. Pomona is usually a fun trip, so we're looking forward to it."

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