If you're looking for tough, you don't have to look much further than to Mike Edwards.  After watching driver after driver click off lower and lower et's, Edwards turned up the wick on his ART/Young Life Pontiac GXP to keep his place on the top of the ladder in the Pro Stock division during final qualifying for the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd Int'l Raceway.

Greg Anderson, second quickest at 6.708, 204.91, predicted from the top end that Edwards was going to knock him from the top spot.

“I am scared to watch Mike Edwards come down the track,” said Anderson after making the fastest run of the weekend. Edwards quickly proved Anderson's fear was legitimate with a near perfect 6.694, 205.39 mph lap.

If you're looking for tough, you don't have to look much further than to Mike Edwards.  After watching driver after driver click off lower and lower et's, Edwards turned up the wick on his ART/Young Life Pontiac GXP to keep his place on the top of the ladder in the Pro Stock division during final qualifying for the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd Int'l Raceway.

Greg Anderson, second quickest at 6.708, 204.91, predicted from the top end that Edwards was going to knock him from the top spot.

“I am scared to watch Mike Edwards come down the track,” said Anderson after making the fastest run of the weekend. Edwards quickly proved Anderson's fear was legitimate with a near perfect 6.694, 205.39 mph lap.

“We came out and made a nice run this morning,” said Edwards, adding, “We felt like we might have left a little bit out there on the starting line. It didn’t go nice and straight but other than that it was a nice. We were fortunate enough to hold off the rest of the pack because they were all getting real close. I don’t know if we could have held on if we had gotten the last session. But anyways it is us and we’ll see what happens tomorrow. The conditions will be a lot different, so we will just have to race the track and see what we can do.”

If Edwards left anything on the line it was in the thousandths of a second. But, was the run all that he wanted?

“For me I always feel like you should shoot for the most you can ever get. On that run we were just favored a little bit to the left side; we were kind of crooked, and anytime you’re crooked it’s going to be slower. Straight is the fastest way down this track and when you wiggle a little bit and move to the left it knocks a bit of time off. I think we could have run a 68 at the best, so we’re happy.”

On the pole, best et and speed of the weekend and Edwards, despite his humble manner was talking about leaving a hundredth of a second on the table. That is exactly how tough the Pro Stock division has become this year. So tough that being as close to perfect as possible is the only way to be the last man standing.

“You really do, this class is just so competitive,” said Edwards when asked if perfection was what it took to compete. “You have to be almost perfect in every aspect of the game; the car, the driver and the team. You have to be that good because there are that many good cars in this class. All 16 drivers are great and you have to be almost perfect to win.”

As for that hundredth of a second left on the table, can Edwards really feel the difference in a 69 and a 68?

“No, I can’t so much feel it as I just know when I’m just not going straight. You might have felt like you missed the shift a little bit and once it’s going left, it’s gone left. All of that adds up and you’re talking thousandth of a second and we feel like we left that out there today.”

With qualifying over, Edwards knows that anyone leaving anything on the table tomorrow in eliminations is packing up early, even if it is only a few thousandths of a second. 

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