Three-Time Pomona Winner Toliver Returns for Season-Ending NHRA Finals
POMONA, Calif., November 11, 2009 - As with several of their NHRA Full
Throttle peers, Southern California natives Jerry Toliver and Jim Dunn
will be racing in front of hometown friends and family at this weekend's
45th annual Auto Club of Southern California NHRA Finals at Auto Club
Raceway at Pomona, and the duo would love nothing better than to deliver
a season-ending victory for their fans and sponsors in their Jim Dunn
Racing entry, the CANIDAE/Lucas Oil/WileyX Chevy Funny Car.
"I love starting and ending the season at Pomona," Toliver said. "It's a
great track and it's fun to race in front of so many friends and family
that don't normally get to see us. Plus I've run pretty well there over
the years, so it's an easy facility for me to like. In fact, I got my
first career win at this race in '99 when I beat Force in the finals. I
probably could have called it a career right there, beating John Force at
Pomona to win the NHRA Finals. But then we turned right around and won
the Winternationals to start the season in 2000, so you can see why
Pomona is my favorite track."
Toliver, a five-time NHRA Funny Car national-event winner, has had three
of his career wins here at the quarter-mile track at the Los Angeles
County Fairgrounds. The Compton, Calif., native won the NHRA Finals in
1999, and followed up with victories at the season-opening NHRA
Winternationals in 2000 and 2004.
"The CANIDAE folks are headquartered right up the road in San Luis
Obispo, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of them out here supporting us and
I'd love nothing better than to give them a win right in their own
backyard. And Lucas Oil and WileyX are California companies, too, so
that would be a great ending to the season.
"We have probably two or three really big, historic races at Pomona,
Gainesville and Indy. I've been fortunate enough to have won at two of
them (Pomona, Gainesville), but I can't think of anything better than to
add another Pomona notch on my belt. We're going to give it our best
shot."
Another racer spreading the message of Responsible Pet Ownership is one
of the owners of CANIDAE, Scott Whipple. Whipple, a regular competitor
in the National Sand Drag Association (NSDA), drove his CANIDAE/Lucas Oil
Top Fuel sand dragster to the 2009 NSDA season points championship,
putting an exclamation point on the championship at the series'
season-ending race in Primm, Nev., on Oct. 24-25. The CANIDAE team not
only won the event but Whipple broke his own record on the 100-yard track
on three consecutive passes during eliminations with runs of 2.278
seconds at 162.75 mph, 2.273 at 160.71, and 2.239 at 164.16 mph.
A two-hour telecast of qualifying coverage for the Auto Club NHRA Finals
can be seen on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD on Saturday, Nov. 14, beginning at
10:30 p.m. (ET). Coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD continues on Sunday,
Nov. 15 when NHRA Race Day kicks off eliminator coverage starting at
11:00 a.m. (ET), and concludes with three hours of final-eliminations
coverage beginning at 7:00 p.m. (ET).
-credit: lor
