Madison Payne Continues to Impress in Houston

Houston - Madison Payne showed a lot of promise in her second start at the 34th annual Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil. The Texas event was plagued by bad weather all weekend which allowed for only one qualifying round before eliminations. Madison made the best of it by qualifying sixth with a fine 5.25 at 260 MPH on an early shut off run.

In round one, Madison raced Robin Samsel. As the cars left the line it was Madison out first with a .128 to Samsel's .132 light. It was a close race all the way to the finish line but it was Samsel who grabbed the stripe first to take the win. Samsel scored a 5.28 at 275 MPH to Madison's close 5.32 at 279 MPH.

Car owner and primary driver Duane Shields was happy with the effort but hoped for a first time round win for Madison. "The car ran great out of the box in qualifying, but because of the weather we were reduced to just one run which didn't give Madison much seat time. And, just like in Atlanta there was a delay right before we ran and that didn't help us either. I'm looking forward to giving Madison more opportunities as we move forward" Duane said.

The team now moves on to Maplegrove Raceway, May 28-30th in Reading, PA for a Lucas Oil Regional event where Duane will be back behind the wheel. Duane and Madison would like to thank Muscle Milk, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods and Brad Anderson Enterprises for their support of Duane Shields Racing this season.