Dixon Finishes Ninth Friday at B.I.R.

BRAINERD, Minn. (8/9/06) -- Larry Dixon raced his Miller Lite dragster to two solid passes Friday at Brainerd International Raceway to kick-off qualifying in the North Star State with a 4.644-second elapsed time to claim the ninth quickest pass of the first day of qualifying.

Debuting a new chassis this weekend at the 25th annual Lucas Oil Nationals, the 38-time NHRA winner opened qualifying by powering his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned rail to a pass of 4.675 seconds at 318.62 mph to claim the sixth quickest pass of the first qualifying session. On his second attempt, Dixon bettered his opening time by driving to a run of 4.644 at 320.89 to finish ninth in the 16-car order.

"Overall, we made two decent runs today," Dixon said. "We brought out a new car and just wanted a baseline on the first run. We didn't shake the tires or do anything crazy. We came back and picked up a little. Not as much as we'd have liked. We were looking for a high to mid-4.50 and ran a 4.64. We were underpowered. We'll fix that and come back on Saturday."

The Miller Lite/Lucas Oil driver eyes a spot in the top half of the field when qualifying resumes Saturday afternoon with sessions scheduled for Noon and 3 p.m. (CT) Saturday at B.I.R. He qualified sixth at the Brainerd event last year en route to a runner-up finish.

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