Car Switch Hampers Northrop at Maple Grove Race

Northrop First-Round Finisher at Maple Grove

Dave Northrop had the opportunity to record career-best elapsed times in Kenny Koretsky's blue and red Nitro Fish/ISC Racers Tape Pro Stock Dodge Stratus entries during the Toyo Tires Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway over the weekend, but it wasn't planned that way.

Northrop put the team's primary Dodge 16th in the starting line-up in Friday's first qualifying session with a run of 6.666 seconds, only to have the car get loose on the second run and roll over past mid-track, damaging the car.

Crew chief Eddie Guarnaccia brought out the red backup Dodge and got it ready for Saturday, when Northrop reclaimed the 16th and final starting berth in the sport's quickest Pro Stock field, from Greg Stanfield's 6.621 to Northrop's 6.668.

In Sunday's opening round, Stanfield outran Northrop, 6.648 to 6.697 seconds. All things considered, however, it wasn't a bad weekend for the Nitro Fish team.

"We know both cars run pretty close to each other," said Northrop, the Perkasie, Pa., driver who is running selected races in his rookie year. "We will finish the season with the old reliable red car . . . the one I drove at most of the races I've run this year.

"Unfortunately, we were off on the tune-up for eliminations, primarily from lack of tune-up information. We only had two runs on the car and it had a different motor in it. Eddie and the crew will be fine-tuning it to get ready for the race at Virginia this weekend."

The Torco Racing Fuels Nationals is scheduled Oct. 6-8 at Virginia Motorsports Park near Richmond. It is the 21st of 23 POWERade Series races.