Lee Feeling Momentum Building

LAS VEGAS - Slammers Ultimate Milk Pro Stock driver Tommy Lee is enjoying his weekends more and more as the 2006 NHRA Drag Racing season enters the home stretch, and this weekend's running of the ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals was no exception.

"What a great race for our whole team," Lee said. "We got all three Cagnazzi built cars into the top half of the field and past the first round, it was quite a race for us."

Lee qualified no. 5 out of the 27 Pro Stock cars attempting to make the 16-car field with a 6.732 at 204.11 mph. Lee's Slammers Ultimate Milk teammate Jeg Coughlin qualified no. 8, and Torco teammate Dave Connolly qualified no. 3. This is the fourth straight race that Lee qualified in the top half of the field.

Lee's strong qualifying effort paired him with Kenny Koretsky in Sunday's first elimination round where Koretsky's stellar .018 light gave him the early lead. However, the lead was short lived as Lee's Chevy Cobalt drove around him for the win with a 6.762 to Koretsky's 6.813.

"Our car has been making good runs every pass here in Vegas," Lee said. "The consistency puts you a little at ease as a driver and I felt real good in the car because of that. Of course you always hope that the first elimination round goes as well as qualifying did, and luckily that's how it worked out here today."

Lee's next opponent was none other than reigning Pro Stock World Champion Greg Anderson, with Anderson having lane-choice. Lee was up for the challenge and left the starting line just .003 behind Anderson. Unfortunately Lee was unable to catch Anderson and lost with a 6.803 to Anderson's 6.783.

"Both Greg and Jason [Line] are the class of the field right now," Lee said. "We aren't the first team to get beat by them, that's for sure. We will keep working until someday maybe the result will be different."

In spite of the loss, Lee still feels it was a positive weekend.

"The Slammers Team hit kind of an unforeseen speed bump about mid-season with some changes," Lee said. "But now it feels like we are getting back to where we were then. The car is making it down the track well, and when we make a change to the tune-up we are seeing results. I just wish we had more than one race left, this is really getting fun."