Lenny Lottig earned his first career No. 1 qualifying position Saturday in his ITI Trailers and Truck Bodies Chevrolet COPO Camaro at the Circle K NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway. Lottig would go on to win in his first elimination quad of Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown.
After running 7.625-seconds at 179.92 mph to earn the top qualifying spot, Lottig would face Richard Ingram and AJ Berge in the first round. Lottig’s 7.698 at 176.67 would better Berge’s 7.832 at 178.52 mph and Ingram who did not make the run.
“We’ve had a great car all weekend. We’ve got a good team. We’re gelling. We’re getting all the little quirks worked out of the car and driving pretty good. It’s just coming together and it’s nice to finally see all the hard work come to fruition,” said Lottig, who, along with Berge, will have a bye run into the semifinals. “It’s much better being the number one than being further down in the pack. It’s finally nice to be on the right side of the ladder, for sure and then be able to move onto the next round.”
Reigning Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown champion David Barton and his Retail Fixture / Sawmill Auto COPO Camaro will also be moving onto the second elimination quads after they reached the finish line first with a 7.717-second pass at 178.57 mph to defeat Stephen Bell’s 7.743 at 177.95, Joe Welch’s 7.753 at 181.69 and Scott Libersher at 7.823 at 176.84. Bell and his Stanfield Racing Engines Camaro will also race in the second-round quad.
“I’ll be working on a plan for the rest of the race tonight. I wasn’t worried about it before the first round, but now that we made it through with a bunch of cars, we’re going to sit down and do some homework,” Barton said. “I look forward to the four-wide races. It seems like a lot of people are confused by looking at the scoreboards and what’s going on. Nobody knows how to read them. As a driver, I look forward to coming to this race. If you’re a decent driver, it’s an advantage because people are kind of flustered so if you can keep it together, I think it’s an advantage. I like any advantage I can get.”
When he reached the line first, Barton also earned $1,000 in the Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown bounty program for defeating most recent event winner Welch.
“It’s always nice having the bounty money. I’m not going to turn down any free money and I appreciate the NHRA and Flexjet having that added bonus. That was a great way to start the race,” Barton said.
Weather permitting, round two of the Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown will take place Sunday at 1:20 p.m. with semifinals at 3:05 p.m. and finals at 4:15 p.m.
Sunday Quads
No. 1, Lenny Lottig
No. 9, AJ Berge
Bye
Bye
No. 15, Warren Walcher
No. 13, David Janac
No. 6, David Barton
No. 8, Stephen Bell
No. 2, Aaron Stanfield
No. 18, David Davies III
Bye
Bye
No. 4, Jesse Alexandra
No. 16, Don Belles
No. 3, Mark Pawuk
No. 11, Lee Hartman
Elon WernerPR
