BURGESS RETAINS TOP QUALIFYING POSTION; DEFEATED IN FIRST ROUND OF ELIMINATIONS

Roger Burgess retained the No. 1 qualifying position at the end of qualifying on Saturday for the second time of the year and the third time in his career during the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series event at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas.

His good fortunes were short lived as mechanical problems in eliminations ended his weekend early as he had to shut off his turbo-charged Pro Care Rx 1953 Corvette after the burnout and giving the win to 16 seeded Mike Janis.

"We had no oil pressure and it wasn't safe, so we shut it off. The belt on the oil pump broke. It was the right thing to shut it off,” stated Burgess.  “You learn and move on. We have to be safe first, so we lived to race another day."

Points leader Khalid Balooshi make it into the field on his third and final qualifying attempt and got a first round win in eliminations.  He will face Ed Hoover in the second round.

Other second round pairings include Mike Janis vs. Raymond Commisso, Mike Castellana vs. Pete Farber, and Danny Rowe vs. Donald Martin.

Second round of eliminations for the NRHA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series will take place during the course of the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals on Sunday.