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News
Releases Arend Qualifies CMKXtreme Machine
with career-best effort CHICAGO, qualifying: CMKXtreme Machine Funny Car driver, Jeff Arend, qualified for his third race of the season on Saturday at the 7th annual NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, Ill. Arend rocketed to the quickest and fastest run of his career, improving his performance on each lap down the record-setting track at Route 66 Raceway to make the 16-car field for Sunday's eliminations.  Arend began his weekend at the Route 66 Nationals with a solid 4.968 at a career-best speed of 312.57 mph to finish the opening round of qualifying in the No. 12 position. The run gave crew chief Paul Smith a good baseline tune up to work with for the rest of the weekend. The CMKXtreme Machine Corvette made its second voyage down the Route 66 quarter-mile under the lights Friday evening. Arend blasted to a 4.930 at 313.88 mph, improving on his career-best speed once again. The Canadian native ended the first day of qualifying in the No. 13 spot with two more sessions scheduled for Saturday. "The first run was really smooth," commented Arend, "it was kind of slow off the line even though we ran a career-best speed. On the second run Paul tuned it up looking for a high 4.80. The car left the starting line hard with a .890 60-foot time but it was a little weak at half track. We still ran another career best speed but it just didn't feel that fast as a driver because it wasn't pulling hard in the middle of the run. We're really happy with the results so far, we have some good data to work with and we look to keep improving on our performance on Saturday." After a brief rain delay Saturday afternoon, Arend rolled to the starting line just past 4 p.m. for his third qualifying attempt. The CMKXtreme Machine thundered to an impressive 4.844 at 318.77 mph, the quickest and fastest run of Arend's career, to move him up one spot to the No. 12 position. The run also established Arend as the quickest and fastest Canadian Funny Car driver in NHRA history. The final qualifying session on Saturday was canceled due to rain, setting up a first round match-up on Sunday between Arend and rookie driver, Eric Medlen. "Paul figured the car might run as quick as a 4.82 on the last qualifying run," said Arend. "We did a lot of work on the clutch to try and speed it up in the middle of the run. On the 4.84 the car left pretty good but right around half track it took off again, which it didn't do on the two previous runs. It ran really strong to the finish line, it was a pretty smooth ride. This track is fantastic. It's the stickiest track we've been on by far this year, included Houston and Las Vegas. Paul and the crew are just doing an awesome job. I'm really looking forward to racing Eric Medlen in the first round on Sunday." The Route 66 Nationals marks the third time in four races on the 2004 POWERade Drag Racing Series tour that Arend has qualified the CMKXtreme Machine for Sunday's eliminations. The team plans to attend all the remaining races on the 2004 NHRA schedule. (PHOTO by BRUCE BIEGLER) CONTACT: Bill
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