Good news for the competition, Cory McClenathan won’t be running an orange paint scheme in the NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway which has resulted in seven final round appearances. The bad news is, on race day they will have to deal with a red, white and blue Valvoline scheme which is starting to develop a strong mojo of its own.

Make no mistake about it, looks don’t win races but a new look can renew a team’s enthusiasm and this weekend McClenathan’s team is racing invigorated.

“When it runs as well as it did last night, it provides you with a renewed enthusiasm,” agreed McClenathan. “Everybody is a little scared at first [of stepping outside of tradition] and getting away from the orange car.”

Good news for the competition, Cory McClenathan won’t be running an orange paint scheme in the NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway which has resulted in seven final round appearances. The bad news is, on race day they will have to deal with a red, white and blue Valvoline scheme which is starting to develop a strong mojo of its own.

Make no mistake about it, looks don’t win races but a new look can renew a team’s enthusiasm and this weekend McClenathan’s team is racing invigorated.

“When it runs as well as it did last night, it provides you with a renewed enthusiasm,” agreed McClenathan. “Everybody is a little scared at first [of stepping outside of tradition] and getting away from the orange car.”

In the Valvoline-sponsored team’s case, they are running a different and heavier body on the DSR in-house dragster than they are accustomed to. The body the team is running is an older version employed from last season. Plus there’s the superstitious factor of changing any element of a car which is obviously working.

“We weren’t really sure about it at first,” McClenathan admitted. “You never know until you get out here and qualify. Once qualifying is over, everyone is all smiles.

“It’s about luck and feeling lucky, and you have to have a little bit of that when you are in a Countdown phase and we can switch up like that and turn the whole sponsor around. It definitely makes you think about it. Once we qualified, it was all about working on going A-to-B.”

And for McClenathan that consistency on Saturday is a strength they hope carries over into Sunday’s final eliminations.

“We picked up a race day tune-up today,” said McClenathan. “Looks like it’s going to be a little hotter tomorrow so we need to be careful. You’re not going to see the big et’s and speeds like you did in last night’s perfect conditions.”

The low qualifying effort marked McClenathan’s fifth of the season and the first time with the Valvoline scheme.

In looking over Sunday’s ladder, McClenathan has both point leader Larry Dixon and defending series champion Tony Schumacher on his side.

“It looks awful tough tomorrow,” McClenathan said. “We are going to have to fight for it. We’ve had to depend on people to take out some of the front-runners here and maybe we can take out some on our own.”

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