JOLIET, Illinois: Khalid alBalooshi, the second-year Top Fuel driver from Dubai, raced to a quarterfinal finish near Chicago for the Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Team, the two-time World Championship team owned by His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani, at the just-completed O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals, the 12th of 24 races that make up America’s 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season.
AlBalooshi made an excellent qualifying effort, but when many teams improved their qualifying positions the next day, alBalooshi’s gold Al-Anabi team did not follow suit, and he entered yesterday’s eliminations as the No. 10 qualifier. Still determined, the gold Al-Anabi team made a masterful run in the first round of eliminations and defeated No. 7 qualifier Brandon Bernstein.
However, in the second round, alBalooshi ran into seven-time World Champion Tony Schumacher who was racing at his home track. The veteran Schumacher took the second-round win from the second-year Top Fuel driver and went onto win the race. With the quarterfinal finish, alBalooshi remains sixth in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings. He trails fifth-place Doug Kalitta by 46 points and leads seventh-place Clay Millican by 37 points.
“Our team worked very hard this weekend, but we did not get the result we wanted,” alBalooshi said. “We made a very good run in the first round, but in the second round against Tony (Schumacher), we smoked the tires. That is not what we wanted for our Al-Anabi team so we will go to Ohio next week and do our best to do better.”
The Peninsula
