Championship Drag Racing

Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals
Pomona, CA
(November 3-6)

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Driver Profile

Dave Grubnic Optima Batteries dragster

Las Vegas, Sunday: "Aussie Dave" Grubnic, driving for new primary sponsor StriVectin-SD and Kalitta Motorsports, the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series' only full-time, three-car Top Fuel dragster team, reached his third Top Fuel final round of 2005 during Sunday's final eliminations of the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In the final round Grubnic and his StriVectin-SD team tried their best, but lost to Tony Schumacher (4.587 sec., 324.28 mph to 4.486 sec., 327.19 mph).

"Sure, I'm very disappointed, but you can't win them all," Grubnic said. "The loss is tough, but it was still a good weekend for us both on and off the race track. We had a lot of V.I.P. guests with StriVectin in our pit-side hospitality area all weekend cheering us on and that was fantastic. We're really happy that we were able to give them at least a runner-up finish. Thank you to everyone that came by to see us this weekend."

"Our car ran good all weekend, so we were certainly happy to see that. Oh well, we'll get ready to go again and hopefully get a win next time."

Grubnic's final-round showing was the 12th final for Kalitta Motorsports in 2005. Team Kalitta has won eight NHRA national events (Doug 5, Scott 2, and Grubnic 1) this season.

Native Australian Grubnic, 43, made history May 29th in Topeka, Kans., by becoming the first non-North American to win an NHRA Top Fuel national event. The win in Topeka was Grubnic's first in his 11-year career.

Grubnic remains in fourth place in Top Fuel championship points.

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