Leah Pruett had a “Fast Friday” in Epping, New Hampshire. (Photo: NHRA Media)
EPPING, N.H. – Hot, humid conditions made getting down the track a tricky proposal as the NHRA New England Nationals kicked off on Friday afternoon. Several teams struggled to navigate the Epping, New Hampshire lanes during the first round of qualifying, but Leah Pruett and Chad Green were not among them.
Pruett claimed the top spot in Top Fuel on Day 1 qualifying with a lap of 3.856 seconds, while Green cruised to a 4.100-second pass to garner top honors in the Funny Car category.
Pruett claimed the top spot and the three bonus points that come with it, but she is under no allusions that that number will hold when teams return to a track in much cooler temperatures on Saturday.
“That 3.85, as we all know, is not going to stay No. 1,” Pruett said. “That wouldn’t have even qualified at our last race. This particular track and these conditions are basically getting everybody to maximize their adaptability, and that shows with us being No. 1.”
For Green, whose Funny Car is tuned by Dan Wilkerson, son of Chicago winner Tim Wilkerson; the provisional No. 1 might have been helped by dropping a cylinder mid-run, as he cruised to a 4.100 lap.
“The run felt pretty good,” Green said. “We were trying to go faster than that, obviously, but the car put a hole out going down through there. I felt it kind of make a move, so I drug it back to the middle and tried to get it to the end. I didn’t think it was going to be very good; it’s a tricky track today, but we were one of the only cars to make it down, so we feel pretty good about that.”
While the bonus points and provisional No. 1 qualifiers are nice, both drivers quickly turned their focus to Saturday’s qualifying, where temperatures are expected to be cooler and speeds much higher.
“[Saturday], the weather situation is going to be totally different than it was today, so we’ll definitely have a different tune-up in the car,” Green said. “We have the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge tomorrow, and we’re really excited about that. I’d like to be the first Funny Car driver to win it twice.”
Pruett pointed out that while Friday’s qualifying data won’t translate much to the rest of the weekend, she will be able to go back to it for future races in warm weather.
“There is not a lot that we can take away from this run and use for tomorrow, but we’ll go back to a lot of other races,” she said.
In Top Fuel, Antron Brown took the provisional No. 2 spot with a 3.899-second pass and Josh Hart’s 3.902-second run was good for the provisional No. 3 spot.
Multi-time Epping winners Matt Hagan and Ron Capps took home the rest of the bonus points in funny car. Hagan earned the No. 2 spot with a 4.123-second run while Capps’ 4.483-second pass was good enough for the No. 3 spot.
The second round of qualifying kicks off Saturday at 2 p.m. ET and will include the first round of the Mission Foods 2 Fast 2 Tasty Challenges for top fuel and funny car. The final round of qualifying will kick off at 5:30 pm and will be highlighted by the championships of the Mission 2 Fast 2 Tasty challenge.
