POMONA, Calif. — It wasn’t the plan that Terry McMillen drew up for the first race of the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle campaign. McMillen believes the opening round loss that the Amalie Oil/UNOH/Motorstate Top Fuel Dragster experienced will only make his team stronger.
Rain shortened qualifying to three sessions and while most teams hoped for the fourth a final session, McMillen felt it could have been the difference for his Elkhart, Ind. based team. “We really needed that extra session,” McMillen said. “We’re still working on a lot of things and right now we need every lap we can get.”
“It’s a long season,” McMillen said after his loss to Bob Vandergriff in opening round action. “We can’t get to high about the good things or to low about the bad things. We’ve made a lot of changes and investments in our team this offseason. We’ve added additional full-time employees and added Lee Beard as a consultant. It’s just a matter of time before this pays off.”
“I guess the best news of the weekend for us is that we didn’t make anyone’s highlight reel,” McMillen continued. “We’re leaving here without any oil downs and no big boomers. We’ll just have to build from there.”
It will be a short week for McMillen and crew as they make their way to Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Ariz. for the second stop on the NHRA tour.
