Gray Scores First Round Win of Season Excited About Team's Future

Service Central Funny Car driver Johnny Gray advanced to the quarterfinal round during Sunday's eliminations at the 42nd annual Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals.

Gray made it into the second round after scoring a first-round win over Paul Lee in a tire-smoking race here at Gainesville Raceway. Both Gray's and Lee's car lost traction early in the run, but thanks to a savvy pedaling job by Gray, the Service Central Racing team got its first elimination-round win of the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season.

“You do what you have to do to get that win light,” said the 57-year-old Artesia, N.M native. “That was a big round win for our team."

Gray and crew chief Lee Beard were expecting a better run in the quarterfinal round, but once again the Service Central Dodge Charger R/T, out of the Don Schumacher Racing stable, smoked the tires (resulting in a 7.021-second at 97.74-miles-per-hour lap). Gray's opponent -- Cruz Pedregon -- made one of the best runs of day with an elapsed time and speed of 4.077 seconds at 311.41 miles per hour in gaining the victory.

“Actually we had mechanical problems for both runs and we had two separate issues,” explained Gray. “We have some growing pains going on right now, but I have the utmost faith in this team.

“When we start to click we’re going to have one bad Service Central hot rod. I am not discouraged in the least -- we’re still in the hunt and I am not afraid of anybody.”

When Gray's Funny Car did get down track with a clean pass during the Gatornationals weekend it produced impressive numbers (4.079/309.34) as was evident with a fourth-place qualifying effort.

"No doubt, we've had strong qualifying performances in our first two races," noted Gray, who qualified second at the Winternationals opener two weeks ago. "It shows that the potential is there, we just need to do some fine tuning. I am disappointed of not having better results, but I am still pumped about the future of this team."

After two races, Gray is eighth in the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car driver standings with 100 points.

The next NHRA national event race for Gray and the Service Central Racing team is the 12th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals April 1-3 on the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.