Qualifying report

Starting sixth, Line has work to do in Seattle

Jason Line

Photo by: Michael C. Johnson

Mother Nature threw the racers at the NHRA Northwest Nationals a curve on Saturday, with the mercury topping ninety degrees for the first time in the Kent, Wash. area this year, completely changing the tuning requirements, especially in the normally-aspirated Pro Stock category. Although this prevented any changes among the top qualifiers, it gave competitors a chance to prepare their cars for race day when conditions are expected to be the same.

After posting the sixth-quickest time on Friday, Jason Line and the Summit Racing team took the atmospheric changes in stride, recording the second- and third-quickest times in the final two sessions at 6.587 and 6.603 seconds. Although this did not change their starting position for Sunday, it did improve upon their best time from Friday, allowing them to garner three bonus points, and seemingly put the team in a good position to defend their victory at this event from a year ago. However, the highly competitive Minnesotan was not totally pleased, feeling there was even more room for improvement.

“Today’s performance was really not what I was looking for,” said Line. “Although we ran closer to the top of the pack today, we really didn’t make what I would consider a great run. Having said that, it’s nothing that can’t be undone, although at this stage we really need to keep moving forward.

“The bottom line is that the performance is in there somewhere, and it’s up to us to find it. We’ll go over our notes from the last two days and come up with a game plan for tomorrow. I know there is a lot left in this Summit Racing Camaro, and if we’re going to repeat as winners here in Seattle, we’ll need every aspect of this program to perform at its very best, and that’s what we plan to do.”