Herbert goes out early at the NHRA Fall Nationals

DALLAS, TX, post-race: Doug Herbert went out in the opening round on Sunday at the 21st annual O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex. Herbert, who holds the track elapsed time record, made two good runs on Saturday to make the field but was unable to capitalize on his performance during eliminations.

Herbert entered Sunday's race from the No.10 spot after a wild final qualifying session that saw most of the fuel cars improve on their elapsed times. The Snap-on Tools dragster recorded a strong 4.641 at 306.88 mph to earn the right to race on Sunday. The Fall Nationals marked Herbert's 250th career start in Top Fuel.

A cold front passed through the Dallas area late Saturday and the weather changed dramatically from qualifying. It was cool and dry Sunday morning with a light cloud cover. Herbert faced Brandon Bernstein in the first round and they were the second pair of cars to battle it out down the all-concrete Texas Motorplex quarter-mile. Herbert got the jump on Bernstein on the starting line but the tires broke loose on the Snap-on dragster about 300-feet into the run. Bernstein took the win with a 4.572 at 327.98 mph to Herbert's 6.101 at 142.25 mph.

"It's disappointing," said Herbert. "We need to get the Snap-on Tools dragster running better and more consistent. We expect to perform better than we have been. We made a decent run yesterday but we needed to follow it up today. Now we just have to go to Reading and see if we can get all our ducks in a row and have a better outing up there."