Qualified in the fast half for the first time since Sonoma, where he ended up a career-best 6th and made his first Pro Stock final, Cory Reed didn’t have to do anything special to go rounds. This time, he just needed to do his thing. But how was he supposed to know?
No one has any idea what kind of light the other driver is about to cut or how his or her car is going to run. This would have been a perfect time to be late, short-shift, or make a bad run. Anything would’ve done – anything but a red-light, which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. Gunning for a killer light, Reed came within thousandths of a second of a perfect one. But instead of a near-perfect .006 light, it was a near-perfect -.006 foul.
Then Camrie Caruso, who could have survived even with a lousy 10-second run, advanced with a 10.86, coasting silently behind Reed while he blasted across the finish line at 204 mph thinking he’d won. “I was really trying to kill it that time,” he said. “.010, .012 – something like that. I figured if I went .010 all day long I could win the race. I knew it. It wasn’t a mistake. I wasn’t like, ‘How did I just do that?’ It felt good. I’ve had enough good lights – about 15 now – that I can tell if it’s a good one, and that really felt like one.”
Reed vs. Caruso shaped up to be a close matchup – the closest possible, actually. Not only was it No. 8 against No. 9; both ran exactly the same e.t. right down to the thousandth of a second at almost identical speeds: 6.631s at 205 mph. Reed got eighth and Caruso ninth because on the speed tie-breaker, 205.57 to 205.38
The foul made it a moot point and Caruso’s shake-riddled shutoff pass made it that harder for the J&A Service/YNot Racing driver to swallow. “I knew going up there it was going to be the flip of the coin, .00 green or .00 red,” Reed said. “That’s how that game is played.”
Qualified in the fast half for the first time since Sonoma, where he ended up a career-best 6th and made his first Pro Stock final, Cory Reed didn’t have to do anything special to go rounds. This time, he just needed to do his thing. But how was he supposed to know?
No one has any idea what kind of light the other driver is about to cut or how his or her car is going to run. This would have been a perfect time to be late, short-shift, or make a bad run. Anything would’ve done – anything but a red-light, which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. Gunning for a killer light, Reed came within thousandths of a second of a perfect one. But instead of a near-perfect .006 light, it was a near-perfect -.006 foul.
Then Camrie Caruso, who could have survived even with a lousy 10-second run, advanced with a 10.86, coasting silently behind Reed while he blasted across the finish line at 204 mph thinking he’d won. “I was really trying to kill it that time,” he said. “.010, .012 – something like that. I figured if I went .010 all day long I could win the race. I knew it. It wasn’t a mistake. I wasn’t like, ‘How did I just do that?’ It felt good. I’ve had enough good lights – about 15 now – that I can tell if it’s a good one, and that really felt like one.”
Reed vs. Caruso shaped up to be a close matchup – the closest possible, actually. Not only was it No. 8 against No. 9; both ran exactly the same e.t. right down to the thousandth of a second at almost identical speeds: 6.631s at 205 mph. Reed got eighth and Caruso ninth because on the speed tie-breaker, 205.57 to 205.38
The foul made it a moot point and Caruso’s shake-riddled shutoff pass made it that harder for the J&A Service/YNot Racing driver to swallow. “I knew going up there it was going to be the flip of the coin, .00 green or .00 red,” Reed said. “That’s how that game is played.”