HOUSTON (April 27) - Usually, a race between the No. 3 and the No. 14 qualifiers is a lopsided affair because one car is much quicker, but that wasn't the case when No. 3 Dave Connolly squared off against No. 14 Rodger Brogdon and his ProtectTheHarvest.com Pro Stock team.

The margin of victory was about 11 feet, as Brogdon kept it close for the quarter-mile race with an official separation of .0356-second.

"After the way qualifying went, I'm happy with what we had today," Brogdon said. "We made a pretty good run that time. It wasn't perfect, of course, and we want to win, for sure, but we made some progress and we're pretty happy about that."

Connolly's pass was 6.614 seconds at 201.08 mph with Brogdon right there with a run of 6.640 seconds at 208.88 mph.

"I couldn't really see him since we were so close," Brogdon said. "One little hiccup on his part and we had him. We were that close."

Brogdon qualified No. 14 despite struggling in qualifying. He made one good pass in the first session Friday, run in the heat of the day, but the car didn't run well in the best conditions of the weekend on Friday night, when most other Pro Stock cars posted their best elapsed times.

Then in Q3 on Saturday, problems in the staging beams prevented Brogdon from getting an official time, and he had to get in the show in Q4. Wanting to make sure the Chevrolet Camaro got down the track, Brogdon's crew put in a conservative setup.

Brogdon got into the field at No. 14, giving his family, friends, and business associates who attended the race something about which to smile. Brogdon's race team is based in Houston, as are his home and businesses.

"Hey, we're making some progress, and that's all you can ask for in Pro Stock," Brogdon said. "This is tough. These other guys aren't going to slow down for us, so we have to work harder to catch up, but that's what we're doing and we showed that today. Great job by all the Protect The Harvest guys."