ATLANTA, Ga. (May 4, 2012) – Dom Lagana and the Paul Richards Racing team continued a nice string of A to B runs and made another pair of clean, straight passes down the racetrack in the NTB/Service Central Top Fuel dragster on the first day of qualifying at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. In the first session, Lagana commanded the NTB/Service Central rail to a 4.085, 293.03 mph that was 13th best of the session. In qualifying round No. 2, he improved to a nice and straight 3.951, 306.33 that landed him 14th in the line-up. Although only the top 12 times will carry over to Saturday, the team is pleased with their performance so far and is looking to step up just a bit on day two. “We have a whole new combination this year, and we’re not sure how far to push the limits when the air is this bad,” said Lagana’s older brother and crew chief, Bobby Lagana Jr. “There is a lot of moisture in the air, and it makes it really difficult to run good horsepower. You have to do things that your instincts are nervous about. When you drop compression and put more blower to it, you take a chance of damaging your parts – and that last run shows us that when we’re in this situation again, to get that really good e.t. out of it, we’re going to have to go to the next step. But we’re learning. We’ve learned more this year about running a nitro car than we have in our entire lives.” Day two of the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals is scheduled to begin at 11:30 am on Saturday with another qualifying shot slated for 2:00 pm. From: Kelly Wade
