Championship Drag Racing

NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals
Las Vegas, NV
(April 14-17)

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Driver Profile

Rod Fuller Yas Marina Circuit dragster

Houston, Sunday: This coming weekend will be very special for Top Fuel dragster driver "Hot Rod" Fuller of Las Vegas. The NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will mark this veteran campaigner’s first outing before a home town crowd as a professional competitor. The winner of 13 NHRA national events and 28 regional races in the sportsman ranks, Fuller will be competing in only his fourth NHRA POWERade Series national event since being selected by Houston, Texas home builder David Powers to drive his brand new David Powers Motorsports dragster.

Although none of Fuller’s national event victories came at the stunning LVMS facility, he’s more than familiar with the track, having successfully competed there in numerous bracket races, at one point winning four in a row.

"I love the track in Las Vegas," said Fuller. "It’s a fantastic place with great seating for the fans, and exceptional pits for the racers. And, there aren’t many racing surfaces as smooth and sticky as The Strip. It’s a great place to race, and I’m hoping we can put on a good show for all of our fans and friends."

Fuller has had a solid run in the David Powers Homes/Valvoline sponsored car. In three previous outings this season the team, headed by crew chief Richard Hogan, has qualified at every race, including having made the show at the Winternationals in mid-February, which featured the quickest Top Fuel field in NHRA history. Just this past weekend at Houston Raceway Park for the NHRA O’Reilly Spring Nationals Fuller scored personal bests in both elapsed time and speed, and won the first round of eliminations racing in his Top Fuel career, stopping four-time IHRA World Champion Clay Millican in the first round (Fuller had an abbreviated stint in Top Fuel in the mid-90s, qualifying for five national events but failing to win a single round of racing).

"Last weekend was David (Powers’) ‘homecoming’ in Houston because that’s not only where he lives, but where his home building business is based. It was exciting for me to be able to deliver the team’s first round win at that race," Fuller said. "This weekend it’s my turn, and I can hardly wait."

"Rod’s done an exceptional job for us," said Powers. "He’s enthusiastic and incredibly professional, and we’re glad we chose him to drive our car. We’ve got one round win to our credit thus far, and I’m confident that we can add a few more this coming weekend."

Crew chief Hogan concurs. "We’re a young team and in some respects we’re not quite on the level of some of the other operations out here, but Rod’s driving skills raise us up to another level. We’ve been competitive up to this point, but after Houston I think we’re becoming a real threat to win one of these races. Let’s hope it’s this weekend in Las Vegas. That would be one heck of a thing to happen in only our fourth race, don’t you think? You know what they say. Anything can happen in drag racing. In four-and-a-half seconds you can go from zero to hero, but the problem is it goes the other way, too. With Rod at the controls I think the odds are in our favor, and Vegas is a pretty good town to be talking about odds."

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