Pomona Duane Shields Thursday pit notes

POMONA, Calif. - Federal Mogul Dragster team owner and driver Duane Shields is currently qualified No. 8 in his Team Short Line Express dragster with an elapsed time of 5.591 at 253.04 miles per hour after Thursday's first qualifying session of this weekend's AAA Auto Club Finals at the legendary Pomona Raceway. Team driver Dale Carlson ran a 5.731 at 248.71 mph to put him in the 15th spot in the No. 2 car.

Shields, of Las Vegas, is happy with the team's initial effort, citing that his run was on a conservative set up just to get down the track.

"With the chance of rain tomorrow, the gameplan was to make a solid run we could tune from, and that's what we got," said Shields. "It was a pretty lazy run, but it didn't hurt any parts, so it was nothing to complain about. It gave us something to work with."

Shields, looking to maximize the opportunities of his two car team, used Dale Carlson's No. 2 car as a testing opportunity to see what the Pomona track could hold. Unfortunately, Carlson overpowered the track and slowed to a 5.731.

"We had his car set up a lot more aggressive than my car was," explained Shields. "It went out there and overpowered the track in the very beginning and shook the tires pretty hard. He lost a lot of e.t. right there."

In addition to on the track goals, Shields has high hopes for his two car team in the marketing arena. After one day, Shields feels the fan response looks promising.

Shields said, "We had a lot of people asking about the two car idea, and what we were doing with it. I took that as a positive."

"The team did a great job today, everything went pretty smooth. Everybody did what they needed to do, and we are looking forward to Friday."

The Federal Mogul Dragsters will complete qualifying today with runs at noon and 4:30 p.m. First round of eliminations will be ran on Saturday, with final eliminations to conclude the event on Sunday. Stay tuned to SummitRacing.com's Drag Race Central for round by round updates of the racing action from Pomona.