The latest update as of February 7, 2025

SCAG Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout Qaulifying

We're finished day four of the Superstar Shootout and we've seen some changes from the original lineup of racers. Top Fuel dropped from eleven to nine competitors, when the Salinas team (Mike & Jasmine) dropped out. Funny Car ended up with ten drivers when Paul Lee was added to the lineup. Pro Stock saw the biggest change when the announced 14 racers became 18 when qualifying commenced. That made for a full 16-car field which justifies the four rounds of eliminations on the schedule.

After four rounds of qualifying, the Top Fuel field ranged from Antron Brown on top with a tremendous 3.644 - 322.11 run, followed by four others in the 3.60's. The bump spot 3.738- 328.30 was held down by sophomore TF racer Tony Stewart.. On the outside, by just half a tenth was Doug Foley with a strong 3.788 - 289.94. We're still trying to figure out what happened to the Salinas team.

In Funny Car, Austin Prock and the "Prock Rocket" team picked up right where they left off in 2024, bombing the timers with a 3.791 - 331.53 to grab the #1 spot in the field. The next eight cars were all the 3.80's, and even the second alternate, Dave Richards laid down a very strong 3.944 - 320.28 to show that they are ready to be a competitive force this season. The bump spot was held down by the "Speed King" Bob Tasca III with an excellent 3.862 - 333.08. First alternate J.R. Todd, in a Scott Kalitta tribute car turned a best number of 3.895 - 333.33 that would qualify strongly in any 16-car field.

Pro Stock would have had the tightest grouping of e.t.'s if it was an 8-car field; less than four hundredths of a second separated the #1 and #8 qualifiers. Even the full 16-car field showed just an eight hundredths spread, from (surprising!) Cory Reed on top at 6.494 - 209.62, all the way down to Chris McGaha on the bubble at a still very good 6.574 - 209.85 clocking. Of note was Deric Kramer with top speed of qualifying at 211.53 mph.

The chip draw for first round pairings saw some weird positioning, with both Top Fuel and Funny Car having just one "standard" pairing of the #4 & #5 qualifiers facing each other. Reasonably separated were one other pairing, where #1 faced #6, but the other two pairs in both classes matched #2 and #3, and #7 versus #8. Pro Stock was all over the board, with #1 against #10, #11 versus #12, and #14 against #15. The biggest gap in the order was #4 facing #16, and the closest was #7 vs. #9. And the pairings for the second round of eliminations, and the semifinal round for Pro Stock would be more chip draws. It's a gimmick to be sure, but we didn't hear or see any obvious complaints about the randomness of it from the racers.