“It may only have lasted a few seconds, but we’ll always know we were the first to do it here in Atlanta,” said Atlanta businessman Roger Burgess, who purchased Palmer’s entire race team—car, truck, trailer, parts and he even retained the crew—shortly before the event. Burgess also brought in blower wiz Al Billes from Canada to provide tuning help to new crew chief Julius Hughes and a new supercharger for the 521 c.i. Brad Anderson Hemi.
“Doug already had a pretty good program and he knew what it would take to make it one of the top competitive cars, so we were able to implement that, bring in Al to give us a little help with our blower and of course, you can see the success that we had,” Burgess said.
Despite being out of the seat since last fall, Palmer insisted he wasn’t surprised at all in making his first five-second lap. “A lot of people seemed to question if I’d be ready, but you
don’t just forget how to drive one of these cars. I knew I could do it,” Palmer stressed. “And I knew the car was capable, that we had an excellent car and program and I knew with the correct supercharger on there and with consulting from Billes, I knew we’d be right there.
“Now, to be honest, I thought it might take us a couple of races just to get some data; we had no data to go from,” he added. “Our first full quarter-mile lap with the new combination that Al gave us was a 5.99 at 238, first full lap and it was still a little soft; you can tell by the mile an hour being a little off what the some of the other cars were able to do. So we were probably a little conservative, but it was still plenty fast enough for what we had to race and make rounds.”
Palmer made a solo pass in round one when Eddie Ware was a no-show, but certainly didn’t take it easy as he improved to 5.981 at 238.68 mph. He then defeated Shelly Payne and her ’05 Stratus with a 6.05 that still was good enough to gain lane choice and would prove to be the undoing of Canada’s Ray Commisso in the semis. He couldn’t see past the protruding engine of his ’67 Camaro to the starting-line tree.
Toronto, ON’s Ray Commisso qualified 3rd with a 6.003 at 241.97 mph, which held up through eliminations as top speed of the weekend. Stuck in the left lane for the first time in his semi-final match against Doug Palmer, Commisso said couldn’t see past his engine to the starting lights and it led to a holeshot loss for the Canadian.
“For some reason at this race track I cannot see the lights from the left lane, so basically I lost to a holeshot because I couldn’t see the lights,” Commisso said after Palmer’s 6.082 was good enough to beat his 6.079-seconds effort. “The way I ran that race, I just listened. Doug Palmer hit it, I hit, I followed, and I ran quicker but he obviously had a better light because I couldn’t see the tree. It’s kind of a bummer.”
Commisso added it marked the first time he’d been in the left lane all weekend. “Even during qualifying I was never put in the left lane for some reason, so I was totally not prepared for that, I didn’t know I couldn’t see and by the time I realized it, it was too late.”
