PEAK TEAM Goes to Quarterfinals at Cold Winternationals

Pomona CA - Duane Shields and the PEAK A/Fuel Dragster team made the best of a very cold, wet weekend and finished in the quarterfinal round of the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals held at the famed Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, CA. Duane qualified eighth with a 5.31 at 274 MPH. “It was a tough weekend with the winter weather but everyone was in the same boat” Duane said.

In the first round held on Saturday, Duane raced James Stevens. At the hit it was Duane off the line first with a .068 but Stevens wasn’t far behind with a close .070. Both cars were neck and neck with Duane taking the win with a 5.27 to Steven’s 5.33. However, the race didn’t end there as the chutes didn’t come out of Steven’s car in Pomona’s already short shutdown area. Stevens sadly barreled through the sand trap and right into the net totaling his race car but he escaped serious injury. “I was very thankful that James was okay” Duane said after the incident.

The racing continued on Sunday for the final eliminations. However, NHRA was only able to get the first round of Top Fuel in before postponing the remainder of the event for the rest of the day due to ongoing rain showers.

On Monday, eliminations continued and the PEAK Team was ready to take on their next competitor, Shawn Cowie. As the cars left the starting line it was Duane out of the box first with a .072 to Cowie’s .099. Unfortunately for Duane, Cowie was on the quickest run in history for a blown alcohol dragster and Cowie stopped the clock with a 5.16 at 280 MPH to top Duane’s very respectable 5.27 at 277 MPH. “Because of the conditions, we backed it down a little bit to be sure we could get off the starting line without losing traction. We made a good pass but Cowie ran the quickest run in history so there wasn’t much we could do to stop him” Duane explained.

Duane wasn’t too disappointed with how the race went and was happy with his team’s performance. “Overall it was a good weekend and we did better this year than we did at this race a year ago” he said. Duane would like to thank PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil, Final Charge, Blue Def, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods and Brad Anderson Enterprises.