39th annual ACDelco NHRA Gatornationals
Gainesville Raceway, Gainesville, Fla.
March 14-16, 2008

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(GAINESVILLE) — Everyone involved with John Force Racing knew that the 39th annual ACDelco Gatornationals would be an emotional weekend. All four drivers expressed a serious desire to win this race in honor of their fallen teammate Eric Medlen who crashed during a post race testing accident following the 2007 installment of this historic event. Unfortunately, a variety of issues conspired against one of the most successful dynasties in sports.

2007 Rookie of the Year Ashley Force achieved the most Sunday success, advancing to the second round before falling to eventual winner Tony Pedregon. Even though she did not win she survived a pedal fest with the reigning champ and showed the mental patience for a veteran beyond her years.

“I was ready to pedal it if I had to so I wasn’t taken by surprise. I was surprised he (Tony Pedregon) went up in smoke next to me. I thought for sure if I went up, I’d watch him go past me. I was trying to do whatever I could but I was just getting sideways,” said the former Gatornationals winner in the Top Alcohol Dragster class. “There were moments I wanted to stomped back on it but I thought, ‘you just can’t do that.’ I learned from my mistakes last year that no matter how much you don’t want to be off the throttle there are times when you just can’t be on it.”

Inclement weather on Friday forced the cancellation of a full day of qualifying effectively cutting in half the opportunity for the teams to gather valuable data. Faced with only two opportunities to qualify for the sixteen spots in the elimination rounds the entire team pulled together and achieved the first goal of the weekend when John Force grabbed his highest qualifying position of the season with a solid No.2 effort during Saturday’s final qualifying session. Following the Castrol GTX High Mileage team were Auto Club’s Robert Hight, No. 7, Ashley Force, No. 8 and Mike Neff, No. 14.

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Race Winners At-A-Glance:

FUNNY CAR: Tony Pedregon, Brownsburg, Ind., Q Power ‘08 Chevy Impala, 4.921, 315.27 mph, def. Gary Densham, Bellflower, Calif., Racebricks ‘08 Chevy Impala, 4.924, 309.13 mph.
TOP FUEL: Tony Schumacher, Pittsboro, Ind., 4.603, 325.37 mph, def. Brandon Bernstein, Fairview, Tex., 4.665, 323.27 mph.
PRO STOCK: Jeg Coughlin, Delaware, Ohio, ‘08 Cobalt, 6.652, 208.07 mph, def. Jason Line, Mooresville, N.C., ‘08 GXP, 6.656, 209.10 mph.
PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE: Matt Guidera, Loomis, Calif., ’05 Buell, 6.949, 191.54 mph, def. Andrew Hines, Brownsburg, Ind., 07 V-Rod, 6.985, 189.55 mph.
TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER: John Finke, Selkirk NY, 5.489, 254.71 mph, def. Ken Perry, Richmond Hill ON, 5.694, 185.05 mph.
TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR: Frank Manzo, Morganville NJ, ’06 Chevy Monte Carlo, 5.502, 264.03 mph, def. Marc White, Glendale Hts. IL, ’08 Ford Mustang, 5.645, 264.03 mph.

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NHRA POWERade Points (unofficial standings after three of twenty-four POWERade National events):
1. Robert Hight, Auto Club 2008 Ford Mustang, 222; 2. Jack Beckman, 216; 3. Cruz Pedregon, 202; 4. Tony Pedregon, 182; 5. Gary Densham, 175; 6. Jim Head, 156; 7. Tim Wilkerson, 152; 8. John Force, Castrol GTX High Mileage 2008 Ford Mustang, 147; 9. Ashley Force, Castrol GTX 2008 Ford Mustang, 137; 10. Scott Kalitta, 118; 12. Mike Neff, Old Spice 2008 Ford Mustang, 100.

TOP FUEL – 1. Tony Schumacher, 305; 2. Larry Dixon, 253; 3. Brandon Bernstein, 183; 4. Rod Fuller, 180; 5. David Grubnic, 167; 5. Antron Brown, 167; 7. Hillary Will, 162; 8. Cory McClenathan, 159; 9. Morgan Lucas, 117; 10. Doug Herbert, 116.

PRO STOCK – 1. Jeg Coughlin, 287; 2. Jason Line, 241; 3. Greg Anderson, 229; 4. Allen Johnson, 186; 5. Warren Johnson, 179; 5. Mike Edwards, 179; 7. V Gaines, 175; 8. Kurt Johnson, 168; 9. Justin Humphreys, 137; 10. Johnny Gray, 133;

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE – 1. Matt Guidera, 118; 2. Andrew Hines, 96; 3. Matt Smith, 77; 4. Chip Ellis, 74; 5. Ed Krawiec, 55; 6. Angie McBride, 54; 7. Angelle Sampey, 53; 8. Chris Rivas, 52; 9. Karen Stoffer, 33; 10. Shawn Gann, 32; 10. Wesley Wells, 32; 10. Paul Gast, 32.

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ASHLEY FORCE, 25, Castrol GTX Ford Mustang
Qualifying position and performance: 8th at 4.864 seconds, 319.45 mph.
Race Results: Beat Scott Kalitta. Lost to Tony Pedregon.
Notable: This is the second year in a row that Ashley Force has advanced to the second round at the Gatornationals.
Quotable: “I wish we could have gotten the win for our sponsors like Castrol, Ford, Auto Club, Old Spice, BrandSource, and Sanyo. We got out of Gainesville safe and we are just going to head on down to Houston.”– ASHLEY FORCE.

NEXT EVENTS:
Mar. 28-30 21st annual O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals, Houston
April 10-13, 9th annual SummitRacing.com Nationals, Las Vegas, Nev.
April 24-27 28th Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals, Atlanta, Ga.

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