It can’t be stated enough the true size and scope of Clay Millican’s Top Fuel team.

In this day and age of super teams with multiple cars, dozens of tuners and hundreds of crew members, Millican and the Stringer Performance team plod along with a single car and a few brilliant minds making magic happen.

That is why, when things like Saturday happen, it is truly a marvel to behold.

Millican, who earned his first-career victory last season along with setting the national elapsed time mark in the sport's quickest category, bettered his own national record on Saturday and earned his 11th career No. 1 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway.

Millican retook the top spot he held from Friday after losing it earlier in the day with a 3.628-second pass at 322.04 mph in the Great Clips/Parts Plus dragster, bettering his own national record of 3.631 seconds set in St. Louis last year. The mark is Millican’s sixth top qualifier award since the beginning of last season, putting his team among the elite in the Top Fuel category.

“That whole thing is (crew chief) David Grubnic and the guys that work on this car,” Millican said. “I told everyone yesterday, he is in the 10 percent. 90 percent follow the 10 percent. He is definitely in that 10 percent. He is one-of-a-kind. He runs that car different than anybody else out here and he is just a bad dude.”

Defending class champion Brittany Force qualified in second with a 3.675 at 322.04 mph, followed by Steve Torrence with a 3.676 at 329.83 mph. Leah Pritchett (3.687) and Doug Kalitta (3.703) round out the top five.

While the record certainly doesn’t surprise Millican with all that this team has accomplished, that he set the record on this particular run was a surprise as he expected a little lighter number and a bit of a safer setup with only one full pass on the brand new chassis.

“I kind of had an idea what we were going to try to run before the car started, but we had that long delay and I saw some changes behind made and at that point it is all out the window,” Millican said. “I didn’t know what he was doing, but I knew about 330 feet, it wasn’t what he told me it was going to run.

“In the staging lanes the number was 3.66. That is when we really quit talking and then with the long delay I knew there were changes being made. I knew he wouldn’t try to slow it down, but when I got a brief glimpse of the scoreboard, I was just like, ‘wow.’ What an incredible run by this team. We are a single car team, a small team. We work out of the nitro barn. Doug and Whitney (Stringer) are awesome to let us keep doing this.

“Those were some incredible numbers and only the second full run on that car. Grubby will tell you that, yes, we are all excited about it, but he hasn’t really got a grasp on this car yet. It is obviously a good car and it is going to be a good car tomorrow. But tomorrow is what counts. We had a lot of green hats last year and we want some more yellow ones.”

Of course, one little secret about Millican’s new record-setting run is that he didn’t exactly get everything out of the car he could have.

“The driver made a boo boo,” Millican admitted. “I shut the car off early. It only went 322 mph because I shut it off a little early. My explanation to Grubby was that I was leaving him some room so we could reset the record again. The good thing about working with David Grubnic is he is a driver and he has the same book of excuses.”

Millican will face Steve Chrisman in round one and, with a win, would have a bye into the semifinals with only 14 cars on the property.

But more than anything, Millican is excited to once again hit the track with a brand new car that is already showing signs that it can be among the elite in the class.

“It is all back to the chassis and trying to figure out what this car wants,” Millican said. “In Q3 today we were quick to the 60-foot and actually started shaking at 40 feet and Grubby’s quote was actually kind of funny. He said, ‘man, I am strangely excited that this car has that much bite that it goes this quick while shaking. Now I have to figure out what to do with it.’ I can assure you, all these runs we are making he spends hours at home working on what he’s got for data. He has to take everything and dissect it and does an amazing job with it all.

“With the weather forecast, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the record set again tomorrow. But there are only a few teams that can do what we just did today.”