15th Annual NHRA Toyota Nationals
October 29 – November 1, 2015
Las Vegas, NV
Team Litton Racing combined its efforts with Randy Meyer Racing to leave their mark on the 15th annual NHRA Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, Team Litton and Driver Bill Litton had their work cut out for them to attempt to repeat their success from the Dallas FallNationals where the team held up its first “Wally”.
Moving into the weekend there was a great sense of confidence as Driver Litton was coming off of his recent national event victory. The Team Litton and Randy Meyer Racing powerhouse was beginning to hit its groove in their 3rd event together.
Friday’s Q1 brought the start that Team Litton was looking for with a solid 5.371 @ 268.44 mph. The car launched hard and was straight down the groove the entire track. Driver Litton commented on the opening run of the event, “It’s nice to start the race qualified deep in the 22 car field.” Team Litton finished Q1 in the number three spot.
Saturday morning and Q2 didn’t bring any progress, as Driver Litton was up in smoke early and clicked it off. The team fell to the number eight spot as a result. Per Litton, “Randy found the other side of the tune up.” Crew Chief Randy Meyer, Co-Crew Chief Ted Lake, and team still had one more qualifying round to make adjustments to clinch their spot into the elimination rounds Saturday afternoon.
In typical Randy Meyer fashion, Q3 brought the nitro dragster back to life and Driver Litton made another strong pass at 3.393 @ 267.59 mph holding the #8 spot with lane choice heading into Sunday’s eliminations. Driver Litton commented on the team’s changes leading into the round, “This is a tricky track with the high altitude. Randy and Ted will figure it out.” Team Litton would try to maintain their consistency moving into Sunday’s eliminations and chase another Wally.
Going into Sunday’s E1 after the team’s success thus far, Driver Litton said, “We are steady and that feels good!” Both cars launched hard, but Driver Litton had the starting line advantage and never trailed for the win. Team Litton ran a 5.313 @ 264.13 mph to drive the team to the round win. Chief Meyer reflected, “We knew we had a tough competitor so we hopped it up a bit.” The team celebrated that they would return to the starting line for another pass in E2 that afternoon.
E2 was a neck and neck thriller for the crowd. However, although Team Litton ran another respectable run of 5.384 @ 270.54 mph it wasn’t enough to advance to the semi-finals. Turns out that Team Litton would end up losing to the eventual winner of the entire event. A respectable loss.
Chief Meyer commented, “Our second round, the conditions were a little worse so we were afraid of smoking the tires. So we calmed the motor down and the clutch down a little. Unfortunately, I think we calmed it down too much and got outrun, but at least we didn’t beat ourselves and it ended up being a decent weekend.”
Driver Litton elaborated on the weekend, “Randy, Ted, Dan, Dalton, Mary and Megan all pulled together to produce some awesome Nitro acceleration. And I had a front row seat! It felt good to be a threat. We will be ready for Pomona.”