Kevin Helms and Brett Candies head into Friday's preliminary eliminations at the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals as the No. 1 seeds in their respective categories.

Helms, runner-up in the Factory Stock Showdown at the NHRA U.S. Nationals, let his light shine in Super Stock qualifying as he went -.954 under against the 10.20 Super Stock/D Automatic standard. He stopped the clocks with a 9.246 elapsed time. Tony Crowell, a SS/GTI racer, was second with an -.884, 10.416 elapsed time.

Candies, son of legendary nitro racing icon Paul Candies, topped the Stock division as he was -1.057 under the AA/Stock Automatic division index. Candies posted an 8.943 elapsed time. Brian Massingill finished second with a -.1.009, 9.291 performance.

Competition eliminator had only one scheduled qualifying session, and it was led by Clark Smith, whose BB/Altered Pontiac GXP ran a 7.343 to dip -.587 under his index. Clint Salee, Kevin Self, Donald Thomas and Brian Browell rounded out the top five provisional qualifiers.

Bob Gulutti paced the Top Sportsman division as he recorded a 6.624, 208.78 to edge Jim White, who was second after the lone session with a 6.679 elapsed time.

Qualifying resumes on Friday morning with the completion of Comp and Top Sportsman.