By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
In the off-season, Mike Salinas lost his masterminds to Kalitta Motorsports. Brian Husen and Alan Johnson moved over to the Michigan-based team.
Salinas has to hire Rob Flynn to run his team. In just his second race since the moves were made, he claimed his first Wally of the season.
The California native went 3.751 at 318.24 mph to claim the Wally. Parts Plus sponsored driver Clay Millican went 3.769 at 322.73 mph in the losing effort.
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“We went through quite a bit to get the right synergy,” Salinas said. “This NHRA racing, it’s a tough game. If you don’t have all the parts and pieces to keep it in place, you’re not going to do very well. Rob is a brilliant man, very calm and relaxed, and calculated. He told me he’ll see me in the finals. If you look at our runs, I was blown away. There’s a lot of good stuff going with this team. I’m very confident in where we’re going and what we’re doing, and these guys on this team are something special.
“I know we can run with these guys in this (Top Fuel) class, and I know we can beat them.”
Before this final round, Salinas held an 8-5 advantage over Millican in the previous rounds. This was the first time that the two drivers faced one another in the final round.
The Drummonds, Tennessee native had the starting line advantage. Yet, Salinas captured the lead by half-track and went on to win the race.
This is Salinas’ fourth Top Fuel win. He won the race by 0.0126 seconds or approximately six feet.
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