Muscle Milk Team Makes Headway in Houston

Baytown TX - Duane Shields and the Muscle Milk A/Fuel Dragster team made some headway in the performance department in Houston, but a still unknown problem has not allowed them to completely close the gap as to where they would like to be in eliminations. Nevertheless, the team qualified third in Houston with a strong 5.28 at 277 MPH pass in the first round of qualifying. They then tested the car in the second qualifier and ran a 5.36 even after shutting the car off at just 1,000 feet.

In the first round, Duane was supposed to race Megan Meyer but she was unable to stay for eliminations as she had previously planned to get married the weekend of the re-scheduled event and thus was a no show. The good news for Duane was he got to make a single run to automatically advance to the second round where he clicked off a 5.44 at 264 MPH. "We were glad to have had that solo run because the car slowed down like it did in Dallas. After the second qualifying round, we thought the problem was fixed. I also want to add a big congratulations to Megan on her wedding" Duane said.

In the quarterfinals, Duane took on Matthew Cummings for the second consecutive weekend. At the hit, Cummings got the starting line advantage with a .075 reaction time to Duane's 0.91. Cummings then hammered down a 5.19, the best ET so far in eliminations to Duane's decent 5.29 at 277 MPH. "The car is leaving hard at the starting line but it's slowing down in the middle of the run and then speeding up at the top end" Duane explained.

Next weekend, the NHRA Camping World and Lucas Oil series moves to Duane's home track in Las Vegas where he is the Defending Champion. "We will be in test mode in Las Vegas so we can hopefully eliminate the problem that hurt us in Texas," he said. Duane would like to thank his great sponsors including Muscle Milk, NGK, Brad Anderson Enterprises, GRP Connecting Rods, SRI, CleanBoost, and Accelerated Travel.