{"id":41031,"date":"2017-06-19T15:14:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T22:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=41031"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:34:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:34:12","slug":"clay-millican-scores-first-nhra-victory-at-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/clay-millican-scores-first-nhra-victory-at-bristol\/","title":{"rendered":"Clay Millican Scores First NHRA Victory at Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"jetpack-slideshow-noscript robots-nocontent\">This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p><div id=\"gallery-41031-1-slideshow\" class=\"jetpack-slideshow-window jetpack-slideshow jetpack-slideshow-black\" data-trans=\"fade\" data-autostart=\"1\" data-gallery=\"[{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/06\\\/Winners-Circle-e1497910464993.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;41035&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Winner\\u0026#8217;s Circle&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;NHRA, Drag Racing, Ellen richardson&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/06\\\/Clay-Millican_First-Win.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;41033&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Top Fuel&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;NHRA, Drag Racing, Ellen richardson&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;After piloting his Parts Plus \\\/ Great Clips dragster past Kyle Wurtzel, Brittany Force, and Steve Torrence, Tennessee native Clay Millican would be forced to face Leah Pritchett in the final round. While the Girl On Fire would put up one heck of a battle during Sunday\\u2019s final elimination round with a pass of 3.881-seconds at 307.09 MPH in her Papa John\\u0026#8217;s dragster, Millican would prove that Bristol was his territory after a 3.825-second pass at 316.38 MPH to become the 103rd different driver to win in Top Fuel.\\n\\nThis being Millican\\u2019s ninth final round of his career, he was glad to see what seemed like a curse lifted in his hometown. \\n\\n\\u201cI love what I do,\\u201d said Millican. \\u201cThere were times I ever wondered if this was going to happen. I don\\u2019t deserve this credit. I\\u2019m really happy for David Grubnic and all of the boys who work on this car, and I mean that 100 percent.\\u201d\\n\\nWhile both Pritchett and Torrence would fall short to Millican\\u2019s dominating performance in Bristol, both the Wonder Woman of Top Fuel and the current points leader Torrence will take their points battle into Ohio next weekend at the 11th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/06\\\/RonCapps-Sunday-BristolCeleb-1024x683.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;41034&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Funny Car&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;NHRA, Drag Racing, Ellen richardson&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;While the Top Fuel Series would produce a first-time winner at Bristol, this track would leave a very familiar face on the podium in the Funny Car Series.\\n\\nAfter taking down Kalitta Motorsports driver Alexis DeJoria as well as Robert Hight and his fellow Don Schumacher Racing teammate Matt Hagan, defending Funny Car world champion Ron Capps would move on to yet another final round against his other teammate Jack Beckman.\\n\\nWhile the entire Don Schumacher team was on pins and needles wondering who they should root for, it wouldn\\u2019t take long to realize that Capps is one of their top drivers after he tied current record holder John Force with most Funny Car victories at Bristol Dragway with a blistering pass of 4.054-seconds at 317.05 MPH.\\n\\n\\u201cWe had runs on Sunday against four of the toughest cars, drivers, and crew chiefs combined,\\u201d said Capps. \\u201cThere are not very many teams who are that prepared to pull a car out and have a quicker setup than we were and my team just keeps amazing me with producing one of the most powerful Funny Cars out there.\\u201d\\nCapps dominating performance this season also has him seeing gold as he continues to rule the 2017 Funny Car points battle. In fact, runner up Matt Hagan is going to have to step it up if he is going to come back from a current 163 points battle to take down the new Funny Car Phenom this season.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/06\\\/AlexLaughlin-Sunday-BristolCeleb-1024x683.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;41032&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pro Stock&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;NHRA, Drag Racing, Ellen richardson&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Bristol, TN has long been a famous place for racing and producing winners. \\n\\nWhile Top Fuel driver Clay Millican scored his first NHRA career victory at Bristol, Pro Stock Series driver Alex Laughlin would score his first Wally of the 2017 season and second of his career with a perfect reaction time in Sunday\\u2019s final elimination round.\\n\\nAfter racing past No. 1 qualifier Jeg Coughlin Jr., Allen Johnson and rookie Tanner Gray, Laughlin would move on to face current Pro Stock points leader Bo Butner in the final. While Butner has proved that he is nothing to shake your head at, Laughlin knew that his team had given him the most competitive car in the lineup. \\n\\nWith a pass of 6.718-seconds at 205.04 MPH in his Gas Monkey Energy Chevrolet Camaro in the final round it is easy to see why this driver had the confidence to win on Sunday.\\n\\n\\u201cWe had some good matchups all day and I definitely feel like I had a point to prove,\\u201d said Laughlin. \\u201cWe had a competitive car on the starting line and I came into this weekend with the confidence to win.\\u201d\\n\\nThe 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season will continue at 11th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals June 22-25 at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park.. Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com for all your NHRA coverage!&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}]\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageGallery\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Bristol, TN has long been a famous place for racing and producing winners. This historic race town held true to its legend by giving one NHRA Top Fuel driver his first of what are sure to be many historic wins at this weekend\u2019s NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":41035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,17,3470,4879,3399,22],"tags":[38,41,7,4801,73],"class_list":["post-41031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","category-news","category-slideshow","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-funny-car","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-pro-stock","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Winners-Circle-e1497910464993.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-aFN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41036,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41031\/revisions\/41036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}