In baseball, there’s a term called an upper deck shot. An upper deck shot is when a batter hits a baseball as far as possible without going entirely out of the stadium. 

When it comes to Top Fuel racer Mike Salinas’ Friday night during the opening qualifying session at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, upper deck shot seems such an inadequate description. 

Mike Salinas blasted out a pass with a 3.652-second elapsed time at 327.74 miles per hour to put his Scrappers Top Fuel dragster exactly .05 quicker than No. 2 qualifier and defending series champion Steve Torrence. 

Salinas had the only Top Fuel dragster in the 3.60s on Friday. 

“We’ve been working on stuff all year, and that’s the first sign of it right there,” said Salinas, whose Top Fuel dragster is tuned by Alan Johnson and Brian Husen. “We had stuff coming our way, but now we know it’s here. Our numbers are getting really good at a 330 even in testing, so I think we’re hitting at the right time.”

There are 20 dragsters in St. Louis, and Brittany Force, who stands one No. 1 qualifier shy of tying Gary Beck’s nearly four-decade-old consecutive pole position mark at eight, sits on the bubble with an off-pace 5.620.

There was probably no one more surprised with the 3.65 than Salinas himself.

“When you watch what Brittany’s been doing, that’s impressive,” Salinas said. “They’ve been doing a great job. All of us are trying to run these crazy numbers. We have a fast car, and now we just need to finish the year off exactly with what we’re doing. Try to have as much fun as possible.”

There’s a whole lot of fun having a .05 advantage on the rest of the field, especially on a run where you lift early. At least that’s how Salinas sees it. 

“I actually lifted because we spun it towards the end there,” Salinas said. “It was not bad. Should have been faster, actually. A little disappointed. It made it all the way. We hold ourselves to a higher level. We really do. The same with Alan, I hold him to a higher level, and when he does his best, I expect better. That’s just the way life is."