Terry Haddock and the Priority Systems Mechanical Services Funny Car team rolled into The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with momentum and a positive outlook for the second to last race of the season. Uncharacteristic weather conditions in the Las Vegas area wreaked havoc for all the teams with rain and unseasonably cold temperatures challenging tune-up decisions. For Haddock\u2019s independent Texas-based team they had a strong plan coming into the Mopar Las Vegas Nationals but had to adjust throughout the weekend.
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\u201cI thought we were going to run a 3.90 right off the trailer, and then I fought it all weekend,\u201d said Haddock. \u201cIt was numerous different things all weekend. You have got to be good at what you\u2019re doing. You have to have a little bit of luck and have everything go your way. All the teams were facing the same thing. The conditions were way better than we expected. I struggled with stupid things that I shouldn\u2019t have had to this weekend. Vegas has always been a tough race for our team. We will get it together for a great Pomona.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, Haddock raced his way into the quickest Funny Car field in history. This weekend the Funny Car qualified field was comprised of all three second runs for the first time in history and Haddock, who has run in the 3.90s during the Countdown, was on the outside looking in at the end of qualifying. Haddock took the missed opportunity in stride but also knows he will have to continue to work hard to keep up a blistering pace.
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\u201cIn one breath it gives you confidence because I know we can run threes,\u201d said Haddock. \u201cIn another breath you get a little worried about are all the fields going to be three second fields? It\u2019s hard to give this car everything it needs every lap. You have to think about which things are the most important.\u00a0 Throughout the race you\u2019re going have to prioritize what to spend your time and attention on.\u201d
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Through two days of qualifying the Priority Systems Mechanical Services Funny Car with support from Conco Supply Inc., made progressively better runs. In the first round they came off the trailer and ran 4.212 seconds and in the second qualifying run the Funny Car pushed out a head gasket and suffered a quick flash fire but luckily suffered minimal damage thanks to Haddock\u2019s driving skills and the variety of safety products on the race car. On Saturday the team stepped up with a 4.109 second pass but unfortunately a quick turnaround forced the team to skip the final qualifying session and a chance to race their way into the field.
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\u201cI have a really good young team and sometimes you have to make tough decisions,\u201d said Haddock on the decision to skip the final qualifying session. \u201cI want to make every run possible, but I am not going to cut corners. We are entertainers and we want to put on a good show. We are already getting ready for Pomona and we will be ready for that race.\u201d
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Even though the Priority Systems Mechanical Services Funny Car was not in competition on race day Haddock looked at all the positives. The team made solid runs, and his crew got valuable experience in a fast-paced environment. With one race left and some exciting news on the horizon, Haddock is thankful for the opportunity.
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\u201cThe first thing you always have to do is say we\u2019re blessed that we get to do this,\u201d said Haddock. \u201cI am so thankful we live in a country where we get to go out and race every weekend. Where you can come from nothing and you get to go out and race with the best in the world on any given weekend. This sport is so tough. Some days we do great and some weekends we struggle. This weekend we struggled. We still count our blessings, and I think we can do better and that is what we will work towards.\u201d
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Haddock and the Priority Systems Mechanical Services Funny Car team will be back in action for the final race of the 2026 Mission Foods Drag Racing Series at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip for the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, November 12-15.<\/p>\n
The post Resilient Terry Haddock Overcomes Tough Las Vegas Weekend<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Terry Haddock and the Priority Systems Mechanical Services Funny Car team rolled into The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with momentum and a positive outlook for the second to last race of the season. Uncharacteristic weather conditions in the Las Vegas area wreaked havoc for all the teams with rain and unseasonably cold temperatures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}