He's looking ahead but stopped to talk about his recent past.

Top Fuel driver Bruce Litton miraculously is on the mend following his accident during a semifinal run against Bobby Lagana Sept. 10 at Epping, New Hampshire. He even has a new Lucas Oil Dragster safely in the field for this weekend's race.

He's looking ahead but stopped to talk about his recent past.
 

"I don't remember any of it." He said of the crash. "I remember talking with Bobby before we got into the car. I remember doing the burnout and staging the car. I seem to remember I had to pedal the car right off the bat. That's the end of it."
 

Litton said he told his crew chief, Mike Wolfarth, that he thought he had pedaled it a couple of times.
 

"Ten," came Wolfarth's correction.
 

"Ten times -- that's a lot," Litton said. "I was trying too hard. It just destroyed the car."
 

But the new Brad Hadman-built dragster, which Litton called "a nice piece," carried him to the tentative No.5 position with a 4.727-second pass at 289.63 mph during Friday qualifying and later a 4.657. 

It was clear Litton, who sat out two races and the only two he has missed since 1992, was eager to get back into competition. However, he said he came to Rockingham with a game plan that definitely included caution.
 

"I'm going to use good judgment," he said before climbing into his Lucas Oil Dragster. "I wanted to come back before the end of the year. I just want to get a run under my belt. I want to shake the car down."
 

Litton is racing while mending from a concussion, broken nose, cracked elbow, torn-up shoulder, and skin grafts. He said his shoulder "went though the seat and the side panel of the car, and I actually dragged it along the guard wall. It took a lot of meat out of the corner of my shoulder."
 

He said the most painful time during his recovery was when the bandage stuck to the skin-graft wound on his leg. "I stuck a towel in my mouth and screamed like a girl," he said, recalling the time wife Carol helped him remove it.
 

Litton said he appreciated the cards, e-mails, prayers, letters, and support he received following the accident. "That means more than winning a race," he said.

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