Moments after Mike Salinas stole the Top Fuel show Friday at the Menards NHRA Nationals, sloughing off the hot, muggy Topeka conditions as though he and his Pep Boys Dragster tune-up never noticed, crew chief Rob Flynn said he had wondered before the run, “Did we do enough here?”

Whatever he did, it was more than enough.

Salinas used his 3.754-second elapsed time on Heartland Motorsports Park’s 1,000-foot course at 323.19 mph to claim the provisional top qualifying position. And he said he thinks that will ensure him his third No. 1 start of the season. 

“Tomorrow’s supposed to be in the 100s,” the Scrappers Racing owner-driver said of the weather forecast for Saturday, “so I believe it will [hold up as low E.T.]. And I never say that. It’s very, very hard to build any horsepower in this type of environment. 

“Tomorrow’s going to be awesome,” he said, “because our car loves the heat, I learned how to pedal real good, so we’re getting ready. Sunday’s going to be fun day. First round’s going to be pretty quick. After that, it’s going to be a dogfight. It’s going to be anybody’s race.” 

Salinas was ready Friday night, for sure. 

Flynn said, “We were definitely going for it. It’s kind of surprising the other cars didn’t run better than that. We were like, ‘Well, did we do enough here?’ We took a shot on the starting line, trying to get the car to run better and just eked it out there.” 

Salinas knows his performance wasn’t a runaway. 

The top five in Friday’s line-up – in order Salinas, Justin Ashley, Josh Hart, Steve Torrence, and Doug Kalitta – coaxed 3.7-second E.T.s from their cars on in the hot, humid lone session of opening day. But only Salinas, running in the final pairing alongside points leader Brittany Force, made it into the 3.75 range. Force posted the top speed of the day, 324.59 mph, but she’s in sixth place overnight. 

Salinas said, “We looked at our computer, and we had just enough horsepower. And when you look at everybody else’s times, everybody’s down on horsepower because of the water grains [in the air], because of the humidity. Brittany and I just got lucky that the sun went down or I think the times in front of us would’ve been really good times.” 

A fairly lengthy oildown from Clay Millican’s Parts Plus Dragster after his engine let go paused the action. So Kalitta, Hart, Torrence, and Ashley also were able to capitalize on a more favorable racetrack. 

No. 2 Ashley and No. 3 Hart were one-thousandth of second apart. And only .064 of a second separated Salinas and No. 10 Antron Brown, who clocked a 3.818-second pass. (Doug Foley and Brown both logged 3.818, but Foley took the tentative No. 9 position by virtue of his higher speed – 299.13 mph to Brown’s 281.89.)  

“If you notice, the cars are getting closer and closer. They’re figuring it out,” Salinas said. "I would say by the time we get to Indy or Maple Grove [at Reading, Pa.], look out. It’s probably going to be some of the best racing we’ve ever seen. The coolest thing here is all the Top Fuel cars are so close. 

“And what’s really going to be nice tomorrow is some of the guys that aren’t the top-running cars, you’re going to see them move up, because their cars will get down the track,” he said.

“The biggest problem that I’ve learned from watching these guys is that they don’t know how to slow down the cars. They do not know how to slow down the cars,” Salinas said. “They know how to make ’em fast, but slowing down a car that’s made to go fast is a task.” 

Force had a 75-point advantage over Salinas entering the weekend, and he gained three qualifying bonus points Friday while she blanked. But the four-time winner this season is not becoming overly confident. 

Salinas, who has 26-9 elimination-round record so far, said, “We’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves. There’s a lot of great racing. And you have some really great crew chiefs and some really great teams.” 

As he proved once again Friday night, he’s a major part of that conversation.