For a minute there, it looked like Cory “the Caveman” Reed might just get his first DNQ as a Pro Stock driver.
In Friday’s first qualifying session, Reed’s car made a hard move toward the wall and he had to lift, and a subsequent 6.59 got him in for the moment but left him just outside the field when qualifying resumed Saturday morning. “I wasn’t that worried,” said Reed, who reached his first NHRA final here as a Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie in 2016. “It wouldn’t have upset me that bad if we didn’t qualify. Spinning and shaking doesn’t upset me, either – that’s going to happen from time to time. This team has a qualifying game in place. You just don’t want to make a soft run, and we didn’t. When it got right down to it, I knew we’d squeak in.”
A clutch 6.57/208.62 early Saturday locked Reed into the field, and when he didn’t improve in last-ditch qualifying with a 6.60 at 208.49 mph he found himself stuck racing the driver he always looked up to as a kid in the first round: K-B/Titan team leader Greg Anderson, the winningest Pro Stock driver of all time.
“First round is so much easier when you qualify in the top half,” said Reed, who was No. 8 in Seattle in his Pro Stock debut and No. 6 in Sonoma, where he got all the way to the final. “Greg and [teammate] Dallas [Glenn, the early season points leader] probably have half a tenth on me right now, so I knew it was going to be tough. I honestly I thought if Greg went a .52 I, could go a .55.”
Instead, Reed ran another 6.60-flat that left him no chance when Anderson moved first and laid down low e.t. of the meet, 6.52. “A .020 light is my goal every time I go up there,” he said. “.060? That’s never going to be enough. So that was my fault. I got too much sleep. Sounds stupid, but it’s true. You know why? I was too relaxed. I’m never going to let that happen again.”