[woodcote]

   

It seemed right to get the first racing of the Winter Series done tonight... So the NHRA Top Fuelers had their first rounds - matched up as per the Top Fuel race results from the Summer Series Finale.

Youngsters Noah and Dylan resumed their long-running duel. Both cars were tight on warm-up and - despite some work on both - continued to be less-than-free-running on their first pass. It may have been a slow race, but it was pretty exciting! Noah in the Optima machine managed to hold off Dylan's Alanabi dragster to win by 0.105 of a second - another few feet and Dylan probably would have caught up. Some more tweaking will be necessary before the second round in the morning.

Alan will face Rebecca in a best-of-three match. Their first race was oh so close - neck & neck in the early stages, but Rebecca's Geico dragster just eked out a 0.015 second gap at the line! Rebecca's ET was 0.800 to Alan's 0.816 - and 7.812mph to 6.649.

September's finalists met in the big grudge match, made all the more 'grudgy' after Clive defeated Andy in Texas at an NTRA Super-Comp 4-Gear race. In the first round, Andy had his revenge, with the FRAM dragster looking super-smooth and beating Clive's Matco Tools machine to line by a big 0.146 of a second. ETs were 0.735 t0 0.886 and mphs 7.812 to 6.250.

There's all to play for in the second rounds tomorrow morning and a decider - if necessary - in the evening.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cars are awaiting their qualifying runs...