DRAG RACING TAKES CENTER STAGE
Mon, 2007-01-15 05:03
The Blackhawk helicopter was circling over Baghdad.
And one of the U.S. Army’s finest pilots was
on the cell phone in those dangerous skies, connected to his National Hot Rod
Association pals in Pomona, Calif. He wanted to know the outcome of Top Fuel
driver Tony Schumacher’s final-round run.
The championship was hanging in the balance.
Doug Kalitta, who had led the standings for the entire second half of the
season, had the Powerade Series title locked up – unless Schumacher could win
the final round against Melanie Troxel with
a national record-setting elapsed time.
In 4.428 seconds, Schumacher did it to clinch
his fourth championship in the Army Dragster. The Run will live in legend. The
miracles of modern technology will stay in Schumacher’s memory.
Schumacher, Force Inspire Remarks By Motorsports Elite
The Blackhawk helicopter was circling over Baghdad.
And one of the U.S. Army’s finest pilots was
on the cell phone in those dangerous skies, connected to his National Hot Rod
Association pals in Pomona, Calif. He wanted to know the outcome of Top Fuel
driver Tony Schumacher’s final-round run.
The championship was hanging in the balance.
Doug Kalitta, who had led the standings for the entire second half of the
season, had the Powerade Series title locked up – unless Schumacher could win
the final round against Melanie Troxel with
a national record-setting elapsed time.
In 4.428 seconds, Schumacher did it to clinch
his fourth championship in the Army Dragster. The Run will live in legend. The
miracles of modern technology will stay in Schumacher’s memory.
He knew as he sat there, buckled in for the
run of his life, that the pilot was on the line. "I thought," Schumacher said,
"that he’s going to know the result before I did."
Schumacher shared that story Saturday night
at the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Ass’n. All-America Team
dinner as he received First Team honors and the prestigious Jerry Titus Memorial
Trophy. He is only the fourth drag racer to receive the Titus award, joining
four-time winner John Force (1996, 1999, 2000, 2002), Don Prudhomme (1976), and
Shirley Muldowney (1982).
Funny Car icon Force -- drag racing’s other
first-team selection -- had his own version of what motivated him to win his
14th championship as a driver and 15th as an
owner.
"I didn’t have a Blackhawk helicopter," Force
deadpanned. "But I had eight or nine creditors hanging around."
He said Ford Racing Technology Director Dan
Davis whacked him on the helmet and told him as he sat in the staging lanes in
his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang that day, "You will win this championship. Or I
will fire you." Said Force, "That’s really how it goes down in drag racing. I
embellish my stories but I always tell the truth. Well, not always."
Force, attending the dinner for the record
11th time, took the stage for his Horsepower trophy along with
Schumacher, open-wheel stars Sam Hornish Jr. and Sebastien Bourdais, road racers
Jorg Bergmeister, Rinaldo Capello, and teammates Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz,
ARCA stock-car king Frank Kimmel, and Formula Ford 2000 champion J.R.
Hildebrand.
But thanks to Schumacher and Force, drag
racing took a significant turn in the spotlight all night.
Pruett injected some Schumacher-inspired
humor into his speech. Pruett, of Chip Ganassi Racing, said, "Tony Schumacher
talks about how he watches ‘Miracle’ before every race. I watch ‘Happy Gilmore.’
"
And rising star Hildebrand, who’s Champ Car
Atlantic Series-bound, reminisced about the times his father took him to Sears
Point (now Infineon) Raceway for drag races.
"I drew flags on paper of my favorite driver, and that was
always John Force. I’d sit up there in the stands, waving my little flag. He’d
never see me or anything," Hildebrand said. "But he always did the biggest,
longest burnouts. Drag races are about the most exciting things I’ve ever seen.
For that brute power, you can’t beat a drag race."
Hildebrand said he wanted as a youngster to
get Force’s signature, but when he got near Force’s pit he decided that the
Funny Car legend "totally scared me. I thought he was the scariest person
alive." But the young Californian, who also won the Gorsline Scholarship toward
his studies at MIT, worked up the nerve Saturday. He looked into the audience
and said to Force, "If you don’t mind, I’d love to get your
autograph."
Even keynote speaker Jack Roush -- a former
drag racer himself before building his NASCAR Nextel Cup, Busch Series, and
Craftsman Truck Series fleet and establishing Roush Industries – alternately
razzed and commiserated with Force. He even said he sympathizes with the NHRA
champ, who frequently and self-deprecatingly tells the public, "My wife loves
me. She just don’t like me."
Said Roush to Force, "I’ve got the same
problem you do. I lived with the same woman for 42 years and one day she decided
I wasn’t worth the trouble. I’m surprised it took her that
long."
Even Roush deferred to Force when it came to their
entertainment ratio. "I shouldn’t tell a joke here tonight," Roush said at the
Downtown Indianapolis Hyatt, "because throwing a joke in a room where you are
would be like throwing a firecracker into a minefield. Sooner or later you’d get
the last word and that would be the end of it."
But in speaking about his surprising but successful alliance
with rival Robert Yates, Roush jabbed Force.
The drag racer is father to four daughters (Ashley, who has
created a buzz regarding her announcement to step up to a Funny Car this year,
Force Racing CFO Adria, and budding Super Comp racers Brittany and Courtney).
And Roush mentioned Yates’ son, adding, "Eat your heart out, John."
But Force and Schumacher could say, "Eat your
heart out" to everyone else in the room. They know the thrill of winning a
handful of championships. They know what it feels like to go more than 330 mph
in less than five seconds. They sit in the eye of a spectacular sensory-overload
storm that makes the ground quiver, hearts race, nostrils flare, lungs burn,
eyes water, and ears ache.
And they know what it’s like to have their
names engraved on a special trophy that, to borrow a phrase from Hornish,
"celebrates which driver is the fastest and the bravest on the race track."
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