Joliet II: Larry Dixon Saturday summary

DIXON DRIVES MILLER LITE RAIL TO NO. 7 SPOT AT JOLIET

JOLIET, Ill. (Oct. 1, 2005) – Two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Larry Dixon drove his Miller Lite dragster to the No. 7 qualifying position Saturday at Route 66 Raceway after the 38-time NHRA winner recorded a qualifying-best run of 4.511-seconds during qualifying for the fifth annual Ameriquest Mortgage Co. Nationals.

After driving to the sixth quickest pass of the day on Friday with a 4.511-second elapsed time, Dixon carded a 4.715 seconds, 313.80 mph pass on Saturday’s first qualifying pass as the Miller Lite/Ameriquest dragster remained sixth in the 16-car order. On his final qualifying attempt of the weekend, Dixon used a Dick LaHaie tune-up to record his third low-4.5-second pass of qualifying, as the Miller Lite/Lucas Oil rail stopped the Route 66 Raceway timers in 4.536 at 329.42 to finish seventh in the 16-car order. Dixon clocked the second fastest speed of the final qualifying session.

“There was quite a difference between yesterday and today,” Dixon said. “Last night, it was really cool out. We came back today and it seemed like all or most of the cars fell off a little bit. The conditions were more like what we’ll see tomorrow.

“We had a valve train problem on the first run. We got that fixed and made a nice run. We had the second best speed of the round. We’ve got a tough car tomorrow in the first round. We’ll go out and race them hard. We’ll take it one round at a time and hopefully we’ll have four.”

Dixon will battle No. 10 qualifier Scott Kalitta in the opening round of Top Fuel eliminations at 11 a.m. (ET) on Sunday at the record-setting drag strip. Dixon is 9-13 in his career versus the fellow two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion (1994-95).

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