When Cory McClenathan brought his Fram Top Fuel dragster to face Antron Brown to the line Sunday in the finals of the NHRA Northwest Nationals, winning wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

McClenathan also was coping with the death of his friend and fellow racer Mark Niver.

Earlier in the afternoon, Niver, a Top Alchohol driver, died when his dragster crashed into the safety net at the end of the Pacific Raceways track, buckling the chassis into the driver cockpit. Niver, a 30-year NHRA veteran, was 60.

McClenathan did his job by just edging Brown, his Don Schumacher Racing teammate, for the victory. McClenathan clocked a 3.887-second time at 311.70 mph to defeat Brown’s 3.909-second effort at 308.92 mph.

“To win today is great for the Fram team and great for all of the guys and myself, but it is really very hard to sit back and be real excited right now to be honest with you,” McClenathan said.

McClenathan admitted Niver’s death left him stunned.

When Cory McClenathan brought his Fram Top Fuel dragster to face Antron Brown to the line Sunday in the finals of the NHRA Northwest Nationals, winning wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

McClenathan also was coping with the death of his friend and fellow racer Mark Niver.

Earlier in the afternoon, Niver, a Top Alchohol driver, died when his dragster crashed into the safety net at the end of the Pacific Raceways track, buckling the chassis into the driver cockpit. Niver, a 30-year NHRA veteran, was 60.

McClenathan did his job by just edging Brown, his Don Schumacher Racing teammate, for the victory. McClenathan clocked a 3.887-second time at 311.70 mph to defeat Brown’s 3.909-second effort at 308.92 mph.

“To win today is great for the Fram team and great for all of the guys and myself, but it is really very hard to sit back and be real excited right now to be honest with you,” McClenathan said.

McClenathan admitted Niver’s death left him stunned.  

“With Mark Niver, he was somebody I was friends with and competed against 20 years ago (in alcohol dragster), and I’ve known Mark for quite a long time,” McClenathan said. “His family is just super people. Mark was one of those guys who always had a smile on his face. He built everything in his own race car because he was such a good machinist. His cars always ran good and that’s one thing I’m going to miss in a big way. You don’t want to lose anybody, but when you know somebody as many years as I’ve known Mark, it is that much harder. Obviously, for his family, I’m speechless over it. I do not know what to say. I do not know what to think. I just want them to understand Mark loved drag racing and it is something he and I talked about all the time. Mark also was very big on the safety aspect, so this happening takes the wind out of your sail.”

As for Cory Mac, he qualified third this weekend, and made it to the finals by beating Mike Strasburg, David Grubnic and Shawn Langdon in consecutive rounds. This was McClenathan’s third win of the season and his second career title at Pacific Raceways. McClenathan’s only other victory in Kent, Wash., near Seattle, was in 1997, when he swept the Western Swing with wins also at Denver and Sonoma, Calif.

“I really think (co-crew chiefs) Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler and the guys were just going A to B and they were doing it during the heat in qualifying, and that really made the difference,” said McClenathan, who has 34 career Top Fuel wins. “We pretty much pulled out our No. 3 and No. 4 qualifying runs to do this final. The conditions were very close to that, so they (Okuhara and Shuler) said they would be happy if it ran .92, .94, something like that, and it ran good. Those guys just did a great job like they have all year. I was proud to get up there and get it done and it was cool to win here, since I had not won here since ’97.”

McClenathan moved into second place in the season point chase, 172 behind leader Larry Dixon. Tony Schumacher and Brown are third and fourth.