Madison Payne Goes to Quarterfinals in Ohio

Norwalk, Ohio - Duane Shields, the primary driver, and owner of the Muscle Milk A/Fuel Dragster decided to mix things up a little bit and put Madison Payne in the car at the Summit Race Equipment Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park. His reasoning was so he could get a better handle on the tune-up and a better understanding of what the dragster is doing being outside of the car after a couple of recent first-round exits in the Lucas Oil Series. Madison answered the call and was able to improve with a QuarterFinal finish.

Madison qualified the Muscle Milk Dragster seventh with a fine 5.34 at 272 MPH in a big field of heavy hitters from largely the midwest, south, and east coast. "It was a challenging track in qualifying and hardly anyone was getting down the right lane and the left lane was only a little better. We had to detune the car in order to be sure we would get in the field" Duane explained.

In round one, Madison was matched up with Corey Michalek. At the hit, it was Michalek out first with a .032 to Madison's .106. The starting line disadvantage did not matter though as Madison was able to pass Michalek right before the finish line and take the win with an ever so close 0.0074-second margin of victory. Madison's 5.37 run over Michalek's 5.40 was the 2nd quickest run in the first round.

In the quarterfinals, Madison raced against former Top Alcohol Dragster World Champ Alan Bradshaw from Midland, Texas. As the lights came down it was Bradshaw out first with a .049 to Madison's .089. Bradshaw continued to increase his lead and took the win with 5.29 at 268 MPH over Madison's 5.39 at 272 MPH. "We got out ran and he had the quickest run of the second round. In hindsight, we should have given the car more juice. I would have liked to have gone a couple more rounds but Madison did a good job and we were able to pick up some more data" Duane said.

The team will now take a month-long summer break before returning to Chicago for a Lucas Oil Regional event, August 5th-7th where Duane will be back driving the car. Duane and Madison would like to thank Muscle Milk, GRP Connecting Rods, Clean Boost, SRI, Brad Anderson Enterprises and NGK Spark Plugs for their great support.