Pritchett, Hight speed to top spots
They roll through qualifying at Sonoma Nationals
Leah Pritchett (Top Fuel), Robert Hight (Funny Car), Drew Skillman (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) earned No. 1 qualifying positions and will lead their classes into Sunday’s eliminations at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals.
In Saturday’s final qualifying, no one was able to best the track record Pritchett ran on Friday in Top Fuel at Sonoma Raceway dragstrip. She earned her fifth No. 1 qualifying position of the season and sixth of her career with a run of 3.669 at 304.80. She’ll face Terry Haddock in the first round.
“This is the highest confidence we can have heading into a Sunday,” Pritchett said. “Keeping in mind that anything can happen on Sunday; no matter who you’re racing. Today we took this track extremely serious trying to get down it in similar conditions for tomorrow.”
Brittany Force piloted her dragster to the No. 2 spot after a pass of 3.689 at 330.63 and is paired against Steve Chrisman.
Hight’s national record speed of 339.87 with a time of 3.807 from Friday earned him back-to-back No. 1 qualifying positions. This is his third of the season and 52nd of his career. He’ll line up against Tim Gibbons to open eliminations.
“Things are definitely going in the right direction for us,” Hight stated. “It’s a big deal. Everyone wants to talk about sweeping the swing. We’ve got one leg down and coming here to make the quickest run in history is pretty awesome.”
Hight’s team owner and 16-time world champion, John Force, powered his Camaro to a pass of 3.848 at 337.16 to secure the No. 2 slot. He will face Jeff Diehl in the first round of eliminations.
Skillman, in his Camaro, earned the top spot in Pro Stock with his run of 6.538 at 211.36 during the third qualifying session. This is his second No. 1 qualifying position of the season and fifth of his career. POWER TAKES INDY POLL >> Will Power, still looking for a victory at the MidOhio Sport Car Course, took his fifth pole of the season and fellow Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden qualified second for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 in Lexington.
For Power, it was his third pole at Mid-Ohio and the 49th of his career to tie Bobby Unser for fourth among IndyCar drivers. Power has also been on the front row at Mid-Ohio for six straight years.
In eight starts at MidOhio, his best finish is second, with five other topfive finishes.
“We haven’t won here,” he said. “It’s something I’d really like to do. I’ve qualified well here. I’ve run well here.”
Power won the Fast 6 qualifier Saturday with a lap of 126.672 mph compared to 126.407 for Newgarden as Chevrolet took the top two spots.
Team Penske earned both of the spots on the front row for the fifth time in 13 races this season.
“We’re in the front row with Team Penske so it’s a good team day,” Newgarden said.
Takuma Sato of Andretti Autosport drove his Honda to the third position. Local favorite Graham Rahal (Honda) of Rahal Letterman
Lanigan Racing was fourth. PREECE GETS FIRST WIN
>> Ryan Preece survived a green-white-checkered finish to win the NASCAR Xfinity race at Iowa Speedway for his first career victory. The 26-year-old Preece, running the second of a two-race deal in the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, held off Kyle Benjamin on three restarts in the final 17 laps in Newton. Preece started from the pole.
Benjamin was second, followed by Brian Scott,
Brennan Poole and rookie Cole Custer.
William Byron, who began a streak of three wins in five races at Iowa last month, finished ninth.
Justin Allgaier was 20th after leading 106 laps. VETTEL GIVES FERRARI A
BOOST >> Ferrari got a huge boost as Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix with a blisteringly fast lap, while teammate Kimi Raikkonen was second in Budapest, Hungary. Vettel is optimistic he can secure his fourth win of the season and expand his lead over Lewis Hamilton heading into the summer break. He leads Hamilton by one point after 10 races. BELL WINS FOURTH RACE >> Christopher Bell grabbed a late lead and held on to win the Truck Series race at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Bell passed John Hunter Nemechek and held off Ben Rhodes over the final two laps to win for the fourth time this season. Bell crashed out of one race but hasn’t otherwise finished worse than ninth in 12 races this season.
Rhodes was second, followed by Ryan Truex, Nemechek and Johnny Sauter. The 22-year-old Bell leads the series in wins, poles, playoff points, laps led and top-10 finishes in the No. 4 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Busch led most of the race until he made contact with Justin Haley and spun into the outside wall. Haley blamed himself for the wreck.