Chris Demke- Friday Topeka Wrap-up

Seventh Heaven Sits Good With Demke


Topeka, KS- Heading into tomorrow’s final qualifying session, Chris Demke, driver of the Jerry Maddern Racing Peen-Rite sponsored Top Alcohol Dragster, currently sits in the seventh qualifying position at the NHRA Summernationals- Presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts in Topeka, Kansas.

During the first qualifying session earlier today, crew chief Jerry Maddern and new clutch specialist Adam Rhodes decided to ‘get their feet wet’ and established a solid baseline tune-up in less than favorable racing conditions. The corrected altitude at 11:00am this morning was 3,524 feet above sea-level with a track temperature of 101 degrees. The results netted a conservative 5.456 second elapsed time at a speed of 260.71 mph. The run itself was hot, straight and normal.

The team headed back to the pits to perform the standard between round maintenance and found no damage to their Brad Anderson Engineering power-plant.

In their final qualifying effort of the afternoon, in virtually identical conditions, the Maddern lead team decided to get a little more aggressive with the clutch and the car did not let them down. Running straight down the middle of the Heartland Park race track, Demke produced a solid 5.416 second run at a very consistent speed of 260.74 mph- placing him in the seventh spot, solidly in the 16 car field.

The team will get back to qualifying tomorrow, with one session scheduled to begin at 10:00 am.

Eliminations will begin promptly after the final Top Fuel and Funny Car qualifying session.

For updated race results, please visit our friends at http://www.dragracecentral.com