Pomona - Duane Shields won the 50th Annual NHRA Auto Club Finals which closed the book on a great season for the PEAK A/Fuel Dragster team. The win marked Duane's fourth victory of the season, landing him in sixth place overall in the final Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series national point standings.
The Finals win stacks up as a career highlight and Duane's 20th national event victory. Prior to Sunday, Duane had never won the Finals as it was always an elusive race so the team was happy to finally win the event. “This is awesome to go into the off season with a win at the 50th anniversary Finals. This win is for PEAK, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods and Brad Anderson Enterprises along with all my guys including Ralph Freeman who passed away last year," Duane acknowledged.
Duane qualified 9th with a 5.33 @ 266 MPH and faced red hot Joey Severance who swept the last two races in Las Vegas. At the starting line Severance went red by .004 and then shut off after rattling the tires. Meanwhile, the PEAK Dragster shook hard but Duane still found a way to get it done with a 5.41 @ 260 MPH to advance into the second round.
In round two, Duane got by Chase Copeland with a 5.59 at 256 MPH. Duane dropped a cylinder on the run but it didn’t matter as Copeland lost traction off the starting line and aborted the run.
Next up was a semi-final battle between Duane and Aaron Olivarez. At the hit, it was Duane out of the box first with an .058 light to Olivarez’s .076. As Olivarez began to lose traction, Duane was on his best pass of the weekend as he ripped open a 5.29 at 272 MPH for a trip to the final round. “It was a good pass but I had to pedal it,” Duane said.
In the finals, Duane faced Cameron Ferre who ran consistently quicker on each of the prior rounds so Duane had to bring his "A" game. At the hit, Duane was again out first with a 0.052 to Ferre’s 0.061. As the cars thundered towards the finish line, both dragsters began to drop cylinders but Duane held a sizable lead and crossed the stripe for his first NHRA Auto Club Finals title. “I should have pedaled it but I was on an adrenaline rush. But, the way we won this race was to get down the track on every pass. Some days the breaks go your way which they did today and sometimes you can run really well but you don’t get the win,” Duane said.
Duane would like to thank PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil, Final Charge, Blue Def, NGK, GRP and Brad Anderson Enterprises for a great year in 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment