Peggy Llewellyn admitted that Sunday in Dallas was a usual race day for her when she
started. It’s been said, it’s not how you start the race but how you
finish that counts.

Llewellyn entered the first round as a championship hopeful. She ended as a contender.

Llewellyn validated her first final round appearance with a victory.
Her success today qualified her for the Countdown to One phase of the
playoffs.

“I just started off the day the same as always,” Llewellyn said.
“George [Bryce] always came over to me and telling me to work on my
process. He always tells me to do what I can do in my lane. That’s been
it.”

“Even when I’d go to the semi-finals and do stuff here and there like
not shift the bike … and I remained calm. You try not to be nervous. I
know what it is like to go up there trying not to lose sight. You don’t
rounds when you do that. I’m working on that.”

Max Naylor has performed incredible since changing his Dodge Stratus
over to Hoosier Tires. Reportedly, at least six more drivers are said
to be testing them out.

Ron Krisher said things got pretty tough earlier in the season and had
him questioning his direction. He made a change over to an engine lease
program with Victor Cagnazzi and life has been great.

The only problem for Krisher is that he’s lacking for experience when the conditions are very good.

“We have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing now,” Krisher said.
“The thing is we know what to do with the Cagnazzi engines until we get
in the good air. We don’t have any runs in these kinds of conditions to
mix gear ratios with motor power and we suffer with that.”

NHRA.com senior editor Rob Geiger presented Whit Bazemore an
autographed copy of his new book on Darrell Russell. How did Bazemore
show his gratitude?

Bazemore said he gave it away. But, it was to a good cause.

“It was a personal dedication to me and I wanted to autograph it and
donate to D.R.A.W.,” Bazemore said. “When I found out how much money it
made for them, it just made my day that someone would be so generous
and support D.R.A.W. in that way. It shows you what the racing
community is made of.”

Brian
Gahm had decided he needed a break from drag racing after many years of pursuing
championships in the volatile IHRA Pro Modified division; so he hung up his
driver’s suit and went about enjoying life away from a racetrack.

When his phone rang with suggestion to pull the suit out of the closet,
Gahm decided to get back behind the wheel. At the suggestion of longtime
friend Doug Kirk, a two-time IHRA Pro Stock champion, Gahm decided that he'd put
his Pro Modified life behind him and go Pro Stock
racing. 

“I had gotten out of
drag racing but I didn’t stay away too long,” Gahm said. “Doug Kirk talked me
into giving the class a try, so in 2000 I made my
comeback.”

To this day, there are more than a few drivers who wish Doug Kirk had not
been so convincing.

Dave Connolly may not prefer housework chores, but he has taken a liking to sweeping.

The driver of Evan Knoll’s Torco Pro Stocker claimed his fourth victory
in a row and seventh of the 2007 season. Today’s victory raises his
personal number to 16 with another final round victory over Greg
Anderson.

"We were actually ready to do battle in our Chevy Cobalt,” Connolly
said. “Greg was having some problems over in the other lane and I don't
know exactly what it was but he was leaking fluid. Either way, the
whole team did an excellent job getting us through the first three
rounds. They did their part - we were low for the round in the first
two sessions and even in the semifinals we had to outrun Jason (Line)
because he strapped it on us. The driver was a little off his game
today - I'm a little under the weather and I didn't leave on anybody
all day.

Tony Pedregon had every reason in the world to celebrate today. He had
just won his third race of the season and second at the Texas Motorplex
since 1999.
 

Pedregon defeated his brother Cruz in an all-Pedregon final round.

Pedregon admitted it was tough celebrating after witnessing his former
employer John Force suffer a devastating crash in the second round of
eliminations.

“Coming into this weekend, I felt like we had a missed opportunity in
Memphis,” Pedregon said. “We came in here with pressure and I knew the
clock was ticking. We didn’t really qualify as well as we would have
liked. It really worked out for the best because I looked at the
pairings and I felt like we had a great opportunity to make a move
today.”

Pedregon didn’t make a move; he made a quantum leap from third to the lead with this victory.

“I knew a lot had to happen to make it all fall in place,” Pedregon
said. “It’s hard to ask the competition to cooperate but things just
fell into place.”

 
Larry Dixon admitted that his chances of winning the Top Fuel title in Dallas were slim to none after Saturday's qualifying.

“After qualifying, I was just hoping to get past the first round,”
Dixon said. “I didn’t know what our chances were because we didn’t make
any runs down the track during the day. The only time we went down the
track was in the night session.”

Dixon said crew chief Donnie Bender and assistant tuner Todd Smith
burned the midnight oil on Saturday trying to diagnose the problem.

“Whether he’s lying to me or not, Donnie told me that he’s found the
problem,” Dixon said. “They told me to be ready for it. We had some
trouble during the day but the people we raced seemed to have more than
us.”

Dixon claimed the point lead with today’s triumph.

Morgan Lucas has learned a valuable lesson this season. No one is above having a disastrous season.

“This year has been lesson that anyone with any budget can have a year
like we did. I thought we had a bad year last year. But I have learned
what a bad year is. We were hurting parts on every run and blowing the
heads off of the car. Now I have come to realize what a bad year really
is. The people who are true friends have really showed themselves this
year. It has been an up and down year, but now it is a little more fun.
We are just going to keep our heads in it and try to win a race this
year.”

“Maybe this will be good for next year since they are giving us 90%
back and a couple of other things. We are going to get geared up for
that. This winter we plan to test as much as possible.”

Lynn Nickerson said being able to fill his role
as announcer this weekend was the equivalent of a drag racer crashing and coming
back to win the next race.

Nickerson said in a sense, he had crashed.
He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2004 and last year it returned in his
renal gland and kidneys. This weekend’s event was the first for Nickerson since
fending off cancer for the second time in three years.

“You go through
things for a reason and I believe that God would never put more on us than we
can handle,” Nickerson said. “He’s got something else for me to do.”

“I spent a lot of time in chemotherapy, made trips to the doctor and did
time in the hospital,” Nickerson said. “The one thing that made it possible to
survive was my love for the sport and the love returned back to me from the
racing community.”

Nickerson said the outpouring of the drag racing
community was unbelievable and that his cancer is now in remission.