All season, Larry Dixon has been a favorite to win qualifying pole positions.

Friday at the Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals it was no different and Dixon lived up to his billing.

Dixon took the provisional pole with a 3.839-second time at 317.79 mph. Dixon’s run was the last run of the first round of qualifying and it held up when the second round of Top Fuel qualifying was cancelled by NHRA officials because they didn’t believe the second round of qualifying could be completed in time to meet the 10 pm curfew at Infineon Raceway.

“We made a nice run in that first session,” said Dixon, who is aiming to capture his fifth No. 1 qualifying spot this season. “As more cars ran, it gave Jason (McCulloch) and Alan (Johnson) an opportunity to gauge what they thought the track would hold. They went up there and made a very good run. It was just a great job by everybody on the Al-Anabi team.”

All season, Larry Dixon has been a favorite to win qualifying pole positions.

Friday at the Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals it was no different and Dixon lived up to his billing.

Dixon took the provisional pole with a 3.839-second time at 317.79 mph. Dixon’s run was the last run of the first round of qualifying and it held up when the second round of Top Fuel qualifying was cancelled by NHRA officials because they didn’t believe the second round of qualifying could be completed in time to meet the 10 pm curfew at Infineon Raceway.

“We made a nice run in that first session,” said Dixon, who is aiming to capture his fifth No. 1 qualifying spot this season. “As more cars ran, it gave Jason (McCulloch) and Alan (Johnson) an opportunity to gauge what they thought the track would hold. They went up there and made a very good run. It was just a great job by everybody on the Al-Anabi team.”

The run proved to be even more vital when the second round of Top Fuel qualifying was waved off. Antron Brown was second in the qualifying ladder at 3.863 seconds at 315.86 mph.

“Obviously that run ended up being very important,” Dixon said. “You do not know what the conditions are going to be like tomorrow, whether you can or can’t run quicker. But for Friday, it was a great run by the team. I think all 19 Top Fuel cars would have loved to take a crack at it (the second round of qualifying) and go for the pole. As the day went on, all the sessions were running late for the schedule and a few cars had oil downs and it just drug out. They would have had the opportunity to run a few Top Fuel cars, but to make it fair for everybody, NHRA made the call that no Top Fuel cars would run. Bummer on the side of the fact we didn’t get to run the session, but at the same time you have to applaud NHRA for trying to make it fair for everybody in Top Fuel. I absolutely thought the curfew was going to be an issue, it has happened here before.”

Dixon remains upbeat about Saturday’s qualifying sessions, which are scheduled for 12:30 and 3 p.m. Pacific Time.
“We just need to try and run well in whatever conditions we get,” Dixon said. “I don’t worry about it too much, that’s what we have got Alan (Johnson) and Jason (McCulloch) for. I just go up there and try and do the best job I can driving the car, whatever car they give me.”