When Team Chevy’s Dave Connolly entered his first NHRA Pro Stock race of the year in April at the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, he was mostly relieved just to be competing again. Spotting the rest of the field what was in essence a five race head start, the driver of the Charter Communications/Lifelock Chevy Cobalt knew that making the Countdown to 1 playoff format would be a difficult task. With two races remaining before the field of 10 is set at Indianapolis, Connolly now finds himself in eighth place in the standings and on the verge of securing one of the highly coveted spots in the NHRA’s Countdown to the POWERade championship.

“We’re extremely pleased with the way the Charter Communications Chevrolet has been running,” said Connolly. “When we first came back at Atlanta, and a few races after that, it was a brand-new car, and you always have new-car bugs to work out. But I knew it wouldn’t take Tommy Utt (crew chief) long. We had a few issues, and Tommy worked them out and now it looks like we have a great racecar. Every time we go down the track, I know it’s going to go straight and that gives us a good shot at winning every time. We’re extremely pleased with the way everything has been going. I have full confidence in the car and my driving is starting to come around and get a lot better. That’s what is fun about this class. It’s not just the driver, or the crew, or the engine program, you have to have them all to win right now.

“When we came back our goal was to win as many rounds as we could, and as many races as we could for Charter Communications, Lifelock and Chevrolet. To be honest, after sitting out the first three months and missing the first five races, I was just so excited to have a ride again and be back out there racing that I wasn’t too concerned if we made the Countdown. If luck was on our side and we performed well enough to get into the top 10, then that was icing on the cake. It looks like now that could be the case. If we can put a string of races together like we did last year, then when they reset these points, we might have a shot at the POWERade championship and that would be awesome.”

One of the promising young drivers on the NHRA circuit, Connolly made his Pro Stock debut at Chicago in June 2003 following a successful Sportsman tenure in which he won the 2002 NHRA Division 3 Super Gas championship. The Ohio native earned a third-place points finish in 2004 and advanced to four straight runners-up before capturing his first-ever win at Brainerd in August. Connolly finished fifth in the points standings in 2005 and in 2006 he climbed to third place with a class-leading four wins in seven final-round appearances.

Last year, the Charter Communications Chevy driver captured a career-best eight national-event victories including the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, and battled all the way to the final race of the year before ending the season in third place, his fourth consecutive top-five points finish. Connolly’s 19 career Pro Stock victories place him third on the Chevy all-time Pro Stock win list behind Kurt Johnson (29 Chevy wins) and Lee Shepherd (26 Chevy wins).

“I’ve always raced the same way whether it’s a Wednesday-night street car meet at a local drag strip, or the U.S. Nationals; you’re out there to win and that’s the way our team is,” Connolly said. “We want to win every round possible. That’s what is so good about this team, I know it doesn’t matter where we are, we’re there to give it 100 percent and they’ll give me the best car possible. It’s my job to do well behind the wheel. That’s part of being a team with the same goal in mind – winning as many races as we can.”

Even after sitting out the first five races of 2008, Connolly hasn’t seemed to skip a beat from the career-best season he had in ‘07. In the 11 contests he’s entered this year, Connolly has won two national events (Bristol, Sonoma), scored a trio of runners-up (St. Louis, Englishtown, Brainerd), advanced to the final round at the last two races and advanced from 25^th place in the standings to eighth. Since climbing back into his Chevy Cobalt at Atlanta, Connolly has scored 20 round wins and is tied with points leader Greg Anderson for the most round wins during that same time period.

“We had the same team that we won eight races with last year, the same group of guys, the same engine program and everything else,” Connolly said. “Even though we missed five races, I felt we could hit the ground running and make a push to get into the top 10 for the Countdown. There for a couple of weekends our car was giving us grief with the runs we were making, but even through that little time frame we managed to have luck on our side and scramble and make it to the final in St. Louis. Now we have our act together and the Charter Communications Chevrolet is making decent runs.

“We’re trying to get back into the thick of things and we have built for ourselves a little cushion to stay in that top 10. We didn’t have enough for Kurt (Johnson) in the finals at Brainerd, but we were making great runs and I was driving good. We might be a touch down on horsepower right now, but I’m pretty confident that by the Countdown we can solve that problem and run with the top dogs.”

This weekend’s Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals will mark a significant anniversary for the 25-year-old resident of Mooresville, N.C. It was a year ago at the rain-delayed contest at Maple Grove Raceway that Connolly began an impressive five-race win streak that lasted all the way through Richmond (Va.), and tied the second-longest streak in Pro Stock history.

“Last year’s Reading race is still fresh in my mind because it was Wednesday before we finished and we ran Kurt Johnson in the finals,” Connolly said. “We ran him again this last weekend in the finals at Brainerd. We’re excited to get back to Reading. For some reason, until last year, we never had too much luck there, but it’s always been one of my favorite tracks. I like the layout and it’s the home of Bill Jenkins. When my Pro Stock career first started that was the first time we ever put Jenkins horsepower under the hood of our Chevrolet, and we got to make some runs before we went to Chicago (in 2003). I have some good memories of that track.”

If Connolly can eventually clinch a spot in the Countdown to 1, he will transform instantly from being a dark horse into a front runner for the POWERade championship.

“Indy is also going to be huge for us,” Connolly said. “You want to have your best engines in and you’re A-game on. We’ve had a lot of success there the last two years with the win and the runner-up. That trophy last year is one I’m pretty proud of. When my career is over I can look back and say that I won the U.S. Nationals – that’s pretty cool. We’ll do some testing after Reading and try some things that will help performance wise. With the Western Swing and the back-to-back races at Englishtown and Norwalk, and the truck being away from the shop, we really haven’t done any testing. We’ll have the opportunity to try a long list of things and see if any pan out for us. Every thousandth counts right now and as you’ve seen in the last few races, the driver has to be on and the crew has to make good runs every round, and even then that’s not enough. Being back at the shop and having a weekend off before Indy will certainly help us.”

24^th annual Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals

GM RACING STATS AND FACTS

* The most recent tabulation for the 2008 NHRA Manufacturer's Cup shows Chevrolet in first place with 3600 points. Chevrolet won its 16^th NHRA Manufacturer's Cup in 2007, the most of any automobile manufacturer in the history of the sport.

* Points leader Greg Anderson (Pontiac), Kurt Johnson (Chevrolet), Anderson’s teammate Jason Line (Pontiac), and Jeg Coughlin Jr. (Chevrolet) are the first four GM-backed Pro Stockers to clinch a spot in the Countdown to 1. Anderson, driver of the Summit Racing Pontiac GXP, has a class-leading five wins on the season including back-to-back-to-back wins at Englishtown (N.J.), Norwalk (Ohio) and Denver.

* Kurt Johnson’s victory at Brainerd in the ACDelco Chevy Cobalt was the 154^th all-time win for Chevrolet in the Pro Stock category. Johnson became Chevy’s all-time winningest Pro Stock driver with his victory earlier this year at St. Louis in May and now has 29 of his 39 career wins behind the wheel of a Chevy.

* Greg Anderson in the Summit Racing Pontiac set both ends of the Maple Grove Raceway track record in the Pro Stock class last year with a 6.583 e.t. at 209.88 mph.

* Warren Johnson in the GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP (2003, 1995, 1992, 1991) has the most career Pro Stock wins at Maple Grove Raceway. His son and teammate, Kurt Johnson, (2000, 1998, 1993) and Jim Yates in the WileyX Eyewear Pontiac GXP (2002, 1997, 1996) are next with three wins each, Greg Anderson had back-to-back wins in 2005-06, and Connolly (2007), Coughlin (1999) and Jason Line (2004) each have a victory.

* After 16 of 24 races on the schedule completed, and just two events remaining before the Countdown to 1 cut at Indianapolis, eight drivers in GM-branded cars occupy a spot in the top 10 of the Pro Stock standings. Greg Anderson (Pontiac) leads the standings with 1,164 points, Kurt Johnson (Chevrolet) is in second place with 1,108 points, Anderson’s teammate Jason Line (Pontiac) is third with 1,054 points, and Jeg Coughlin Jr. (Chevrolet) is fourth with 1,017 points (Anderson, Johnson, Line, and Coughlin have clinched a Countdown to 1 berth). Mike Edwards (Pontiac) is sixth with 834 points, Dave Connolly (Chevrolet) is in eighth place with 775 points, Ron Krisher (Chevrolet) is ninth with 761 points, and Greg Stanfield (Pontiac) is 10th with 739 points. Warren Johnson (Pontiac) is just outside the top 10 in 11^th place with 666 points.

* Tony Pedregon’s fourth win of the season at Brainerd in his Q Horsepower Chevy Impala SS was Chevrolet's 98^th all time in the nitro Funny Car category. Chevy Funny Car drivers have combined for a class-leading 10 victories so far this year to break the mark set in 1998 for most Chevy Funny Car wins in a season.

* Pedregon is the defending Reading event winner in Funny Car and has three career victories at Maple Grove Raceway (2007, 2005, 2002).

* Points leader Tim Wilkerson and second-place Tony Pedregon lead the way in Funny Car with a class-leading four victories each and both have clinched a berth in the Countdown to 1. Del Worsham drove the CSK Chevrolet to a win in April at Houston, and Tony Bartone recorded his first career Funny Car win at Seattle.

* After 16 of 24 races, three Chevy Impala drivers occupy a spot in the top 10 of the NHRA POWERade Funny Car standings including points leader Tim Wilkerson in the Levi Ray & Shoup Chevrolet. Wilkerson leads all Funny Car drivers with 1,154 points, Tony Pedregon in the Q Horsepower Chevrolet is in second place with 1,013 points, and Gary Densham in the Racebricks Chevy Impala SS is sixth with 828 points.

A two-hour telecast of qualifying coverage for the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals can be seen on ESPN2 on Saturday, Aug. 16, beginning at 6:00 p.m. Coverage on ESPN2 continues on Sunday, Aug. 17, when NHRA Race Day will kick off eliminator coverage starting at 11:00 a.m., and concludes with three hours of final eliminations coverage beginning at 10:00 p.m. All times Eastern.