Denver Team Pennzoil Satruday Notes

Hill begins weekend while Allen vaults up ladder

DENVER (July 17) -- An extremely full day of drag racing began with a bang Saturday morning at Bandimere Speedway as qualifying for the 21st Annual Mopar Mile-High Nationals continued. Since the majority of yesterday's program was rained out, the Top Fuel and Funny Car drivers got their first of three scheduled chances to run down Thunder Mountain. Meanwhile, the Pro Stock battle continued with improved times across the board.

Here's the latest news from each Pennzoil driver.

Eddie Hill, the driver of the Pennzoil Top Fuel Dragster, ran a steady 4.912-second lap at 299.26 mph in his first trip down the strip. The mark places the popular Hill into the fifth position on the qualifying ladder.

"We had a lazy cylinder that came and went a few times during that run," Hill said. "If that hadn't happened we'd have really laid down a nice lap. The Pennzoil car really tried to go fast and run strong. I think that with a little bit of tuning we'll be in real good shape. That wasn't bad for our first lap down the track."

Bruce Allen, the driver of The Outlaw Fuel Additives Pro Stock Pontiac, shot up his bracket's ladder with an impressive 7.414-second pass at 185.61 mph in Round 2. The lap helped move Allen from the 14th position to the No. 9 spot.

"We put in the engine that we tested with here a few weeks back and it worked pretty well for us," Allen said. "But there is still a lot of work we can do to get quicker. I would have been happier if we had run a 7.38 or 7.39 that time. But I'm not unhappy. We were just adjusting off last night's numbers and trying to get more out of the car. We're pretty darn close to where we want to be. If we can match the numbers we had in testing (7.35 seconds) we'll be fine."

Mike Thomas, the driver of the Pennzoil Pro Stock Pontiac Firebird, managed to improve on his previously posted time of 7.472 seconds with a Saturday morning run of 7.450 seconds at 184.30 mph. Still, the improvement wasn't enough to keep Thomas in the 16-car field of qualified drivers. He slipped to the 17th position with one round of qualifying remaining.

"We're off on the tune-up somewhere," Thomas said. "The car just felt real slow. We'll have to find out what's wrong and fix it before tonight. Obviously, we've got to get a strong run in Round 3. I'm glad we're running after the fuel guys. Hopefully, it'll be cooler and we'll have a shot at getting in. We're in the back of the pack, which is good. The later we run, the better."