Toyota Gazoo Racing North America NHRA Las Vegas Post-Qualifying Report – 10.29.22

ASHLEY LOOKS TO EXTEND POINTS LEAD FROM THIRD STARTING SPOT

Former champ J.R. Todd leads the Toyota Funny Car contingent

LAS VEGAS (October 29, 2022) – Justin Ashley saved the best for last as he moved inside the top half of the ladder in the final qualifying session. The points leader ran a 3.686 to move up to third and draw Clay Millican. Shawn Langdon also had a strong qualifying effort inside the top-five.

In Funny Car, former Las Vegas winner and Funny Car champion J.R. Todd qualified a season-best fourth. Ron Capps, who began the weekend just 10 points out of the Funny Car points lead, qualified his GR Supra in sixth.

Toyota Post-Qualifying Recap
NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Race 21 of 22

TOYOTA TOP FUEL QUALIFYING POSITIONS

(*non-Toyota driver)

TOYOTA FUNNY CAR QUALIFYING POSITIONS

(*non-Toyota driver)

TOYOTA QUOTES

JUSTIN ASHLEY, Phillips Connect Toyota Top Fuel Dragster, Davis Motorsports

TF Qualifying Result: 3rd

How much confidence does that run in the final session give you going into tomorrow?

“A lot of confidence. To wrap up qualifying with a nice solid run like that – and to be truthful – no matter how we ran in that last session, I would have had a tremendous amount of confidence, and rightfully so, because this team has gotten up on race day every time, no matter where we qualified, but that is a really good base for us. Conditions are going to be similar tomorrow, so it gives us more data and information to overlay going into race day.”

What are your goals for tomorrow?

“For right now, my goals are to win round one. I will take it from there. Every race we come into trying to win, so that goal is not going to change – not that we are now in the Countdown, we are not going to change what we do. We are going to keep everything consistent and the same. Our goal tomorrow is to make it a long day and to put this Phillips Connect Toyota in the winner’s circle, but right now we are focused on Clay Millican. He’s a really tough competitor and we want to put our best foot forward in the first round.”

J.R. TODD, DHL Toyota GR Supra Funny Car, Kalitta Motorsports

FC Qualifying Result: 4th

How much are you looking forward to race day?

“That Friday night run was really encouraging. We’ve been trying to run like that for a while, just need to work on our consistency a little bit. We were definitely trying to run better tonight, and for whatever reason, it slowed down. The car is going down the track. I feel like we definitely have a really good DHL Toyota GR Supra that is capable of winning here. We’ve won here in the past – a few times – and it would be nice to leave here with a trophy on Sunday.”

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