Courtney Force leaped from 11th place in the Funny Car order to first Friday night at the NHRA’s AAA Insurance Midwest Nationals near St. Louis, drawing a bead on her 12th No. 1 start of the season in 20 races.

Just as on so many weekends before during this season, she dominated this overflow field with a 3.881-second elapsed time at 331.04 mph on the 1,000-foot Gateway Motorsports Park course at Madison, Ill. But she said she wasn’t convinced it would hold up, with several pairings to follow hers.

“I definitely thought there were other teams that were going to get around us in Q2. The conditions were great. There were so many great cars that ran behind us. A lot of them came close and ran some great numbers,” the Advance Auto Parts Chevy Camaro driver said at the close of Day 1 of qualifying. “We didn’t have the best run in Q1. Laying down that number, honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was going to hold. My crew chief, Brian Corradi, said, ‘I think we have a little more in it.’ That’s pretty great to know.”

She said the three bonus points to begin the weekend are especially helpful, because she fell from first place to third in the standings last weekend with a first-round loss against Mike Smith.

However, she still isn’t supremely confident she’ll get all the desperately needed bonus points available in two Saturday sessions.

“I’ve hear there’s going to be some pretty good track conditions tomorrow, as well,” Force said.

She said the left lane “was pulling me hard to the outside” and it was a chore to keep the car in the groove. “I was just trying to hang on,” Force said. “Q2 is going to be one of the best runs of the weekend, and you definitely don’t want to be the reason why you didn’t get the car down there and lose out on that run. A lot of pressure to keep it in the center of that groove. We were able to get it done. And to hear Corradi come on the radio and tell me that it ran that [3.]88, it felt amazing. It felt good that were able to fix our problem with our car and get it down to the other end with all eight [cylinders] lit.  

In order Ron Capps, Bob Tasca, Tommy Johnson Jr., and Tim Wilkerson are on here heels.

“Who knows? Maybe they’ll get around us tomorrow,” Force said. “But we’re just going to keep ourselves focused.” She said she’s concentrating on accumulating qualifying bonus points to climb back to the points lead she had enjoyed since her Atlanta victory in May.

Force teammate Robert Hight set the pace in the opening session in his AAA Chevy Camaro at 3.957 seconds at 319.82 mph. He improved in the cooler conditions to 3.925, 325.37 but slid down to sixth overnight. His year-old track records (3.830 seconds, 338.60 mph) remain intact. (Hight also owns both ends of the Funny Car national record: 3.793, from the 2017 Brainerd, Minn., race, and 339.87 mph from last July at Sonoma, Calif.)

Homestate favorite Dale Creasy’s first-session attempt ended almost before it began. The Beecher, Ill., racer performed his burnout and the parachutes dropped out, so he was not able to make a pass in his Tek Pak/Beaver Shredding Dodge Stratus that sports the oldest body in the field. He didn’t get too much farther in his second try, losing traction almost immediately.

Jack Wyatt and Terry Haddock did not attempt runs in the opening session but joined the class in the evening session. Wyatt, driving his own Dodge Charger, reeled off his career-best E.T. at 4.192 seconds and slipped into the field at the provisional No. 15. Haddock smoked the tires right away on his attempt in the Lone Star Block Ford Mustang. Creasy and Haddock will have two more scheduled chances Saturday to break into the field.