Nobody in the Top Fuel Countdown field has been eliminated yet, and any one of the 12 championship-eligible drivers can mix up the standings this weekend at the Texas FallNationals at Texas Motorplex, near Dallas.
This race marks the start of the second half of the six-event Countdown, and it began Friday with the second through seventh seeds within 74 points of each other and No. 7 Doug Kalitta just 88 points behind leader Justin Ashley.
Ashley days ago shook off his first-round loss to No. 4-ranked Mike Salinas at St. Louis, and Salinas has stopped thinking about his second-round defeat against No. 6 Josh Hart. Likewise, Antron Brown put his Round 1 stumble against Clay Millican behind him. And the whole pack – Steve Torrence, Brittany Force, Salinas, Brown, Hart, and Kalitta – have been ready for days to take advantage of four qualifying sessions and maybe one another’s mistakes to position themselves for a title run in the final two races, at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif.