Duane Shields Makes it to Semis at Atco Regional Event

After nearly a month off, Duane Shields had a decent return to the quarter mile. The PEAK Team competed at the Lucas Oil Regional event held at Atco Raceway. Duane lasted until the semifinals, when both he and his opponent suffered problems on the historic track. Duane qualified with a strong 5.30 at 276 MPH to land in the fourth position. "Number four is pretty good since the East Coast is a tough region to compete in with large fields and tough match ups" Duane said.

In round one, Duane was matched up with Tom Fox. At the hit, Fox went up in smoke right off the line so Duane and the PEAK team grabbed an easy win with a 5.46 at 270 MPH. "The car slowed down in the first round and I don't know why. As a result we made a couple of very slight adjustments going into semis". Duane explained.

In the semi-finals, Duane would have his hands full against Troy Coughlin Jr. As the lights came down on the tree it was Coughlin out first with an .052 reaction time to Duane's .079. Unfortunately for Duane, he went up in smoke instantly. Coughlin also began having problems of his own a little farther down track and had to abort his run. Seeing this, Duane tried to recover but did not gain enough traction to pass him. "It's all or nothing with these cars. Usually we can recover if we smoke the tires unless it's in the first twenty feet, then there is not much we can do. When I saw that Troy was having an issue I got back on the throttle but was not able to catch up in time. We're obviously disappointed as that was a round we should have won" Duane said.

Next, the team moves to Midwest for the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, MN. Duane would like to thank PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil, Final Charge, Blue Def, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods, Brad Anderson Enterprises, Hot Wheels Car Care Products, SRI and Clean Boost for their support.