FFor a minute there, it looked like Cory Reed might just get his first DNQ as a Pro Stock driver.
In the first qualifying session, Reed’s car made a hard move toward the wall and he had to lift, and a subsequent 6.59 Friday evening 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 there.”
With a clutch 6.57 at 208.62 mph early Saturday, he did, and after a 6.60 at 208.49 mph in last-ditch qualifying Reed 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’re in the top half,” said Reed, who was eighth in Seattle in his Pro Stock debut and sixth in Sonoma, where he made it all the way to the final. “Greg and [KB/Titan 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, but 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 win. So that was my fault. I got too much sleep. Sounds stupid, but it’s true. You know why? I was too relaxed up there. I’m never gonna let that happen again.”