Championship Drag Racing

O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals
Topeka, KS
(May 26-29)

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Driver Profile

Doug Herbert Doug Herbert Performance/B.R.A.K.E.S. dragster

Topeka, Sunday: Doug Herbert jumped up two positions in the NHRA POWERade point standings Sunday at the O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka. Herbert moved into the No. 7 spot in the points, leaping up two positions.

"It's great moving up two positions," Herbert said. "The competition is real tough this year and everyone is keeping the top 10 honest. We need to keep moving up and see if we can be legitimate contenders."

Doug drove his Snap-on Tools Top Fuel dragster to two round victories, beating Rod Fuller and Scott Palmer before falling to David Grubnic in the semifinals.

Herbert earned the first round win over Fuller with a 4.593-second pass at 322.27 mph to best Fuller's 4.628 at 321.27.

"The first round was awesome because that was the best run we made all weekend," the 1999 Topeka winner said. "That round win gave me some confidence. It was especially good for the team because rounds like that build morale and that's a great way to race during eliminations.

"We haven't gone rounds since Pomona to be honest and it was fun to be in hustle mode again."

In second round action, Herbert faced off with Palmer in a battle of tire-smoking dragsters. Herbert pedaled to victory with a 6.379 at 246.48 over Palmer's 10.090 at 111.20.

"I would rather be lucky than good any day," Herbert said. "We needed to go a couple of rounds and that is one way of doing it."

Herbert's dragster smoked the tires in the semis against Grubnic.

"We still need to be pleased with the weekend because we had a good lap this morning and we moved up two spots in the point standings. We still have some work to do because we need to win the tough rounds too. We got lucky today and we can't rely on luck to get us to winner's circle. We can't expect to be a legitimate threat to win races on Sunday if we don't become more consistent.

"Still, I can't say enough about the way this team works. They did a great job and I know that we are going to be making plans to get the car running quicker on a regular basis."

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