Two-time and defending world champion Tommy Franklin led the field in Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous presented by MoTeC Friday night at PDRA Drag Wars at GALOT Motorsports Park. Franklin used a 3.71-second pass at 202.12 to earn his second No. 1 spot of the season.

Veteran nitro Funny Car driver Bob Bode is coming off a strong showing at the U.S. Nationals Sept. 3.

The part-time competitor qualified No. 15 and then upset Bob Tasca III in the first round. Bode had a 4.171-second elapsed time to defeat Tasca who slowed to 4.597 seconds. It was Bode’s first career round win in nitro Funny Car at the U.S. Nationals.

Bode’s day ended with a second-round loss to Shawn Langdon.

While the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series regulars head to Reading, Pa., for the Dodge Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, Kebin Kinsley will be on another racetrack in his home state of Texas. For the South Arlington resident, it will mark the first time in several years he will have driven his Nostalgia Funny Car.

“It used to be my Alcohol Funny Car. We changed it over to a Nostalgia Fuel Car,” he said.

 Top Fuel championship contender Clay Millican will be back in the Great Clips / Parts Plus / Strutmasters.com Dragster in 2019. But the Stringer Performance entry will have a new organization in place behind the scenes.

In a prepared statement issued Friday, Stringer Performance owner Doug Stringer announced he’ll team with Scott Gardner and Jonathan "J.J." Koehler in forming a new company at the conclusion of the 2018 NHRA Mello-Yello Drag Racing season.

In the interim, Gardner and Koehler will observe current operations and begin immediate groundwork for 2019, according to company spokeswoman Stacey Murdock.

Part-time driver Blake Alexander has fielded the question more often than he cares to. But he said the fact he might have qualified for the Countdown had he not been scheduled to skip the Seattle and Brainerd races “doesn’t bother me that much.”

The driver of Bob Vandergriff Racing’s LoCo Cookers said, “I think it’s just we want to show up and be able to win, and if we spend all of our money going down the road at events that we don’t have sponsorship for, it’s not going to help us.”

 Lex Joon knows the joy and satisfaction of being the toast of the European Top Fuel scene. “Basically, I won everything in Europe, what there is to win,” he said. “I set records. I won races, I won championships.” He wanted more, wanted to test himself against the sport’s best. In the fall of 2009, Joon had competed at Las Vegas and Pomona and revisited Pomona the next year but missed the cut each time. However, he said that experience “planted the seed” for their “American Dream Tour.”

So he and crew chief wife Gerda set their sights on NHRA racing regularly in the United States. They sold their home and race shop in Zaandam, The Netherlands – and just about everything they owned – and left their family and friends and everything familiar. They jumped through the visa-process hoops and arrived in Brownsburg, Ind.

Rob Wendland, crew chief for Amalie Oil Dragster owner-driver Terry McMillen, has issued a challenge . . . to his own team.

“Earlier this year, I said our goal was to be in the top 10,” Wendland said. “And I told them I think we need to change our goals to top five. With the way this car runs and track prep and all these other things, we could be champions. And everybody was ‘Whoa.’ We just need to do better first round. Qualifying is very important to your position. If this team could get past first round, I’d make it pretty ugly on the rest of them. That’s the way we run.”

McMillen looked back to the 2017 Seattle race in which he was runner-up to Antron Brown. That weekend seemed to turn on a switch for his young crew hands who were starting to work in unison but needed confirmation that they were progressing.

Without a bonus race, such as the recent Traxxas Showdown or classic Bud Shootout or Skoal Showdown, this year’s U.S. Nationals had a slightly different vibe. With no $100,000 bonus to aim for, the tension isn’t heightened. The consensus seemed to be that the drivers were disappointed not to have that extra incentive but found the silver lining: that they had more time to pay attention to details for optimum qualifying results.

“It was nice to have that opportunity to go some more rounds and maybe win the Traxxas Shootout. It’s a big win and it motivates the whole team. It’s a bummer that we don’t have it this year,” Brittany Force said. “But it takes a little bit of the pressure off, which, I guess, is nice.”