Duane Shields Battles Difficult Regional Field

Duane Shields Battles Difficult Regional Field

Rising Sun, MD - Duane Shields and the Shortline Express team competed at the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event held at Cecil County Dragway. A large number of top alcohol dragster teams also elected to race at the regional event as sixteen cars tried to crack the tight eight car field which made qualifying almost as challenging as eliminations. "All year, the regional events have been tough to qualify for and you have to bring your A game every time” Duane said when describing the eastern regional points series.

Duane qualified for the difficult field in the seventh position with a 5.48 at 264 MPH. “We have been testing a lot of things that haven’t worked which was the case in the first qualifying session. In the second round of qualifying we improved with that .48 so we were able to move up to seventh but it didn’t put us in a very good position going into eliminations” Duane admitted.

In the first round, Duane was matched up with Dan Mercier who qualified second with a 5.37. As the lights went green, Mercier got a slight lead out of the gate and was able to maintain it all the way to the finish line. Mercier took the round win with a 5.34 at 263 MPH to Duane’s very close 5.38 at 268 MPH. “The car ran well in the first round, we hit 268 MPH and didn’t drop any cylinders but Dan ran quicker with a .34. It was a good close race and we should be in a great position to do well at Indy” Duane said.

Even with the first round loss, Duane still has a chance at clinching the regional title with two more regional events that he can claim. “The Championship is wide open for us. We are currently third in points, with five cars vying for the championship. I’m not sure which races my competitors plan to race at but we have our strategy in place” Duane observed.

Duane and the Shortline Express team would like to thank GRP Connecting Rods, Molinari Race Products and NGK Spark Plugs for their continued support.