After more than a month out of the driver’s seat, Top Fuel pilot Jasmine Salinas proved that the Valley Services Scrappers Racing team should not be taken lightly despite their part-time status in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. The talented up-and-comer qualified in the top half of the competitive Top Fuel field this weekend at the Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals but fell to Shawn Langdon in the opening round of eliminations. Nevertheless, Salinas is leaving Bristol Dragway with gratitude for the valuable seat time as she continues to seek full-time sponsorship.
With a newly revamped track surface, qualifying kicked off with a lot of tire smoke across the nitro categories on Friday with only a handful of drivers making full passes. By Saturday, Scrappers Racing crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Adem Cave found the right combination, tuning Salinas to a powerful pass of 3.822 seconds at 326.00 mph, the best of the session, in her 12,000-horsepower machine.
Salinas began eliminations from the No. 8 spot on the ladder to face No. 9 qualifier Langdon. The Valley Services Scrappers Racing dragster ran into issues early in the run and Salinas ceded the win to Langdon.
“Overall, it was a good weekend, especially after sitting out for over a month,” said Salinas. “Consistency is especially key when you’re a part-time team. Any seat time we can get is valuable, so we were glad to be back out in Bristol and racing with NHRA. Being a full-time Mission Foods Series driver is still the goal and we’re headed in the right direction. We were able to get some good data. Because they just resurfaced the track, it felt like we were learning it all over again, along with everyone else. Q3 was a really great reminder, for everyone else out there as well as ourselves, of what we are capable of doing. Getting the low E.T. of that round was really good. I don’t think we’ve qualified up that high for a long time. When everyone else is on their ninth start of the season and we’re only in our third, sometimes it feels like we’re playing catch up. We’re going to keep working on it.”
The Scrappers Racing crew will head to the Columbus area next weekend to compete in the IHRA’s Triple Crown event at National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio. Salinas will be joined by her father and Scrappers Racing team owner, Mike Salinas, who will be charging down the lanes in a Top Fuel dragster for the first time in over two years.
