SONOMA, Calif. – Terry McMillen got his wish – or at least most of his wishes. As much as McMillen’s Amalie Oil / UNOH / Motor State Distributing Top Fuel team struggled in the high altitude of Denver, it found as much relief in the sea-level conditions of Sonoma.
“It was a great weekend in a lot of ways,” McMillen said after his second round loss to Larry Dixon. “We didn’t get everything accomplished that we wanted to, but we’re a long way in the right direction.”
McMillen and his team put together their best outing in his second season on the NHRA Full Throttle Tour. During the weekend the Elkhart, Ind. based team was able to set a new career best elapsed time of 3.861 during Friday night’s qualifying session. That effort was good enough to help McMillen set another personnel best of qualifying in the fourth position. During the first round of eliminations McMillen’s Richard Hartman tuned ride set another personal best of 317.49MPH when he defeated Troy Buff.
“We had a good car this weekend,” McMillen said. “I think we have aligned ourselves with a good opportunity to get into the top 10. Our guys have a little more pep in their step and we can’t wait to get to Seattle.”
McMillen trails10th place David Grubnic by just 10 points and leads 12th place Vandergriff by 26 points setting up showdown for the last spot with just three races remaining before the Countdown.
