Championship Drag Racing

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

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Brandon Bernstein MAV TV/Lucas Oil dragster

Las Vegas, Sunday: The Budweiser/Lucas Oil Top Fuel team saw some of their hard work pay off in an increase in performance level at the SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The team held the quickest elapsed time in Saturday’s final practice, and low elapsed time of the first round of Sunday’s eliminations. Brandon Bernstein, driver of the Kenny Bernstein-owned Top Fuel car, had the best reaction time of the second round and was on the mark at the starting gate in eliminations.

For the second consecutive national event, Bernstein faced off again Scott Kalitta in Sunday morning’s first round match. The Budweiser/Lucas team took the win with low elapsed time of the round, 4.584/326.87 vs. Kalitta's tire smoking 6.129/151.54.

"The team has really worked hard this week,” said Bernstein. “That was a great round.”

In the second round battle of the beers, Bernstein, who had the best reaction time of the round, was ahead of Larry Dixon and was pulling away when the Budweiser/Lucas Oil dragster began to spin its tires and Dixon was able to drive around him for the round win. Dixon’s winning time was 4.657/318.62 vs. Bernstein’s 4.809/264.18.

“Even though we lost in the second round, the net result of the weekend was big progress,” said Bernstein. “In our last qualifying pass we were quickest of the round and we made good numbers in the heat so we thought we might have a good combination for Sunday. Then we ran low E.T. of the first round.

“The team has been putting in a lot of hours and a lot of late nights and their hard work is starting to pay off. As a driver, we had a good weekend, and we’re starting to take our performance to the next level.”

Bernstein qualified seventh for the SummitRacing.com Nationals with a 4.600-second elapsed time at 329.75 mph.

He maintains ninth position in POWERade Top Fuel point standings.

The team will remain in Las Vegas to make some test runs in preparation for the O’Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., April 29-May 1.

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