Clay Millican posts low e.t. on Friday night in Gainesville

Team Speed Society Racing is off to a solid start in Gainesville with Clay Millican’s Great Clips/Parts Plus dragster sitting atop Top Fuel qualifying after the first day. Millican rocketed to the top of the ladder when tuner David Grubnic unleashed a stout 3.708 elapsed time, despite adamantly declaring he was backing the car down. “Right before that last run, Grubby told me ‘I slowed it way down’, so I wasn’t expecting to go to #1!” Said Millican, joined by his miniature bull terrier Iggy for the post-Day 1 press conference.

Team Speed Society’s other two Top Fuel drivers join Clay in the top half of the field with Antron Brown’s Matco dragster sitting at #3 and Leah Pritchett, returning to the gold Papa John’s theme this weekend, currently #5. With warmer weather predicted for Saturday, it’s going to be harder to supplant Millican’s number and take the top spot, so it seems likely he will enter eliminations from the pole.

In Funny Car, our drivers didn’t have quite as good a day on Friday with Jonnie Lindberg fighting his new chassis and Ron Capps struggling to reach the finish line under power. Lindberg, who’s car was destroyed when an unconscious John Force ran into his Head Contractors Toyota Camry on the top end at Phoenix, is racing an all new chassis, including swapping to a Ford Mustang body and flying the Landmeco colors. The chassis didn’t seem to like much of anything they did in the first two rounds, however, and smoked the tires almost instantly. Currently Lindberg is on the outside looking in from the #17 position. Capps is in the show at #8 but would like to improve on his 3.97 ET and move his Napa-sponsored Dodge Challenger up the ladder entering eliminations.

In Pro Stock, Alex Laughlin sits solidly at #2 on the ladder after a pair of nearly picture-perfect runs on Friday. Laughlin and his Hot Wheels Car Care sponsored Camaro sits just three thousandths of a second behind Greg Anderson. The warmer temps predicted for Saturday should cement his place on the ladder, sending him into eliminations from his best starting point on the season if so.

We’ll bring you all the action from Gainesville and hopefully a report from the Winner’s Circle tomorrow evening. Don’t forget, you can catch the action throughout the weekend on FS1 too!