Running a quick run in pre-season testing means is strikingly similar to a
baseball player hitting a homerun in batting practice. However, when the hit
encompasses 750-feet, everyone tends to notice.
Robert Patrick’s testing run during the Eastern Spring Test
Nationals in Valdosta, Ga., was the drag racing equivalent. The Fredericksburg,
Va-based driver nailed his 1320-foot homerun with the quickest naturally
aspirated run in drag racing history with a 6.266 elapsed time at 223.84 miles
per hour.
True, Patrick’s run was in unbelievable and highly unlikely
atmospheric conditions than he’ll face during this weekend’s IHRA Texas
Nationals in San Antonio, Texas, but that’s okay -- the champion admitted he
left a few hundredths on the table.
The competition might argue Patrick’s run was a quarter-mile
run but he’s got that base covered as well. He carded a 4.062 elapsed time to
the eighth-mile mark to eclipse his previously established record by .04 of a
second.