EVENT NEWS EVENT NOTEBOOK POINTS AFTER EVENT ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS FINAL ROUND RESULTS			EVENT GALLERY

 

SUNDAY NOTEBOOK - A TOUGH DAY AT THE DRAGS

NIVER REMEMBERED AS RACER, FRIEND - The National Hot Rod Ass'n. has confirmed that Top Alcohol Dragster racer Mark Niver, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz., died from a top-end accident Sunday during the semifinal round of eliminations at the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways.
 
The King County Sheriff's Department, ruling the facility a crime scene, suspended all racing activities for about an hour and a half, pending an investigation. However, it permitted racing to finish and extended the 5:30 p.m. noise curfew to 7 p.m.
 
The NHRA canceled winners circle activities, save for photos that fulfilled business and contractual obligations and said its officials are investigating the accident.
 
A prepared statement also stated, “NHRA and Pacific Raceways officials extend their deepest sympathies to the entire Niver family.”
 
Niver was married and had a daughter.
 
Sportsman racers mourned this second top-end fatality in the past three national events, and the consensus was that Niver was one of the sport's most popular competitors.
 
“He was practically a father to me. He and my dad were pretty much best friends,” Top Alcohol Dragster driver Kyle Rizzoli, of San Luis Obispo, Calif., said Sunday as he serviced his car that was pitted next to Niver's. “We vacationed together.
 
“You can't replace a Mark Niver -- ever,” Rizzoli said. “You can talk to anyone out here at the racetrack, and there wasn't one person that didn’t love him. He was a true racer, racer's racer, totally old school, built all his own stuff.
 
“It's just horrible,” Rizzoli said. “He's going to be forever missed.”
 
Rizzoli's father, Jim, also drag raced, and Rizzoli said Niver and his dad “had the funniest little competitions with each other, designing and making little winglets and stuff for the race cars. Just the engineering -- you just don't find people like that anymore. He had the old-school craftsmanship. He did it all.”
 
Niver used to race in the Top Fuel class, and among his close friends is veteran nitro-class crew chief Johnny West. “The Top Fuel guys had respect for him. He's probably one of the most respected guys out here.”
 
Morgan Lucas, whose family's Lucas Oil company funds the sportsman earnings program and built an impressive sportsman-racing record,  said, “Mark Niver is one of the most awesome people I've ever met. He's a great craftsman and a great human being. He was more optimistic than anyone I've ever met. The sport had a big loss today.”
 
Huntington Beach, Calif., driver Larry Miersch and his team worked closely with Niver, and Miersch said after learning of Niver's death, “He was a pure gentleman . . . such a kind man. The guy would do anything in the world for you. He was always a positive individual, a gentle, gentle human being. No matter what happened or what kind of thrash he was in, he'd be there to help you.
 
“I talked to him almost daily on the phone. It's hard. I don't know what to say, just a great person. This is unbelievable,” he said after helping the Niver crew pack its belongings into the hauler. He also was first at the crash scene, offering his help. “They don't know what happened. They don't know what he passed away from.”
 
Miersch said Niver won here at Seattle a couple of years ago, completing back-to-back national-event victories. “It was awesome.” He said Niver's celebration was being “with his friends and his family, (and he'd) sit back with that big ol' smile he had on his furry face, sit back and have a Coors regular. That's exactly what he'd do.”    
 
SpeedZone Magazine journalist Bob Wilson remembered Niver as someone “who always had all the time in the world for anybody. No matter how badly things were going for him, he was always smiling, always upbeat, always positive. He was the kind of guy when you were around him he made you feel better.
 
“He was a brilliant guy but very humble,” Wilson said. “He built his entire car, machined all the parts. He was a master machinist.”
 
Rizzoli said Niver would not have wanted racing to stop on his account, said the show should continue. "That's what he would've wanted. We're racers. If I got killed, I wouldn't want people to stop racing. I'd want people to get right up on that horse and do it. We're out here because we love this. There's inherent danger. It's just you hate to see stuff like this.”
 
Top Alcohol Funny Car driver Neal Parker was killed June 11 at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park at Englishtown, N.J.  In Niver's crash, the parachutes deployed but were apparently pulled from the car.
 
Niver, who won in his final pass, had beaten Shawn Cowie with a 5.364-second elapsed time at 271.79 mph. Rizzoli guessed that Niver, applying his brakes, had trimmed his speed considerably by the time he made contact with the netting beyond the sand trap that ends the shutdown area.
 
That handed the event victory to Los Angeles driver Chris Demke, who said, “This is not how I wanted to win this race. I want to dedicate this event to Mark Niver. He was doing what he loved most.
 
“He was just that guy everybody loved,” Demke said. “You could always turn to him for a happy handshake. He was one of the nicest guys ever.”
 
Will Hanna, a veteran Top Alcohol Funny Car and Top Alcohol Dragster crew chief, was stunned by the news of Niver's death.
 
“I'm kind of numb right now,” Hanna, who also used to drive an Alcohol Funny Car, said. “I didn't really know Neal Parker, who we lost just over a month ago. I was pretty close to Shelly Howard and Darrell Russell, so losing another driver I knew pretty well kind of stings pretty hard. It is just a really sad deal.”
 
Howard died April 2, 2005, when she crashed her Top Alcohol Dragster while making an exhibition run at Tulsa (Okla.) Raceway Park. Russell, a Top Fuel driver, died June 27, 2004, during eliminations at the Sears Craftsman Nationals at Madison, Ill.
 
Hanna also gushed with kind words about Niver.
 
“Mark was a great guy with a great team,” Hanna said. “He would lend you the shirt off his back to help you out or make one. That's the kind of guy he was. For a long time, he made nearly every part on his race cars himself. He even ran cylinder heads he made before he switched over to the conventional fat head combination with his A-Fuel car. If I'm not mistaken, I think he was the first guy back in the day to run a PSI Supercharger, back in 1987 or 1988.
 
“He was one of those guys who never had anything bad to say. He always had a positive attitude, and even if he would disagree with you he would tell you in a respectful manner,” he said. “He was really a class act, a smart guy who was an innovator. He was as-good-as -gold type of person. His cars also were not only fast and winners, but they were really a piece of art from a machining and engineering standpoint.”
 
Sunday's crash thrust safety concerns to the forefront once again.
 
Rizzoli said “safety first” always is everyone's concern and suggested some ideas that might be helpful in the future.
 
“Mark had a freak breakage. It was some sort of part failure. No one could have prevented what happened,” he said. “(Racing to) 1,000 foot would be the logical thing. I don't like the nets. With Mark, he didn't go in that fast. It was just more how the dragster got caught up in the net. I've never seen a dragster enter a sand trap and come out well. The nets are not designed for dragsters, and they've got to change that.”
 
He said, “NASCAR and IndyCar, we've got to look at their technologies. Especially in run-off areas, they don't have nets. They have cushions and that kind of stuff that displaces the forces.”
 
Nets, he said, might stop a car but in the case of dragsters, “it's not a graceful stop. Something's got to give, and it's going to be the chassis every single time. So I think some sort of the cushion or tires or barrels with sand would be better. It wasn't a high rate of speed (with which he entered the sand pit).”
 
Top Alcohol Funny Car driver John Lombardo Jr., who crashed into the netting at Pacific Raceways in 2008, said, "It's tougher for a dragster -- so much spindly, sharp stuff that can get tangled with the net.
 
The Northwest Nationals is the 14th of 23 stops on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour. The next race will be this weekend at Infineon Raceway at Sonoma, Calif., for the middle race of the NHRA ‘s Western Swing.

PRO STOCK DRIVERS PROTEST SURFACE PREP  - Ron Krisher vividly remembers his fiery crash in the 2005 Northwest Nationals, and it flashed through his consciousness Sunday as he ran against Warren Johnson in the second pairing of eliminations.

Krisher eliminated Johnson, but he swears it's only by grace that neither one of them crashed. Rookie-of-the-year Shane Gray started the class' opening round by defeating V Gaines, but winning to him was less the issue than escaping without injury.
 
“Don't put the rest of them cars down that frickin' racetrack without doing something. It's just not right. You're going to hurt somebody. I won, but it's not right. I promise you -- you're going to hurt somebody,” Krisher pleaded. “Stop what you're doing. Stop the race. Do something with the racetrack.
 
“The first two cars were really in trouble,” he said, and continuing added, “was beyond dumb.” The track, he said, “looks like a hole-y road of some kind. The tires are just slappin' and bouncin' and spinnin' -- it's stupid. They need to spray the track. Don't just say there's nothing' wrong with the track. You put four cars down it, and everybody almost killed themselves.”
 
After top-end protests and calls for a halt to racing, starter Rick Stewart ordered Kurt Johnson and Jason Line, the next drivers in line, to shut off their engines. The remainder of the Pro Stock qualifiers towed back to the pits and waited until the Top Alcohol Funny Cars and Top Alcohol Dragsters ran and slipped into the program after the nitro classes' quarterfinal runoffs.
 
“I got out of the car. I heard Warren screaming before I was even out,” Krisher said. “I was mad and I was shaking. I was absolutely shakin' when I got to the other end - I'm still shakin' . . . but he was out before me. He had everybody [officials] treed. He wasn't wrong. It would have been real damn easy to have somebody piled up out there -- I'm telling ya, really easy.”
 
Kurt Johnson, after chatting with his father Warren Johnson, assessed the conditions as “We're running on bee bees out there. There's absolutely no traction.”
 
At the center of the problem was track prep, more precisely the lack of it.
 
The normal procedure is for the track-prep personnel to spray traction compound on the racing surface after the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes run, but evidently that didn't happen to the fullest measure.
 
“You can see if they spray it. They didn't spray it,” Krisher said. “They just ran everybody out after the Funny Cars. We all know after the first round of (Top) Fuel and Funny Cars, if you don't do something with that track, you got all that clutch dust and all that crap. And you can't just say, 'Well, we're going to run it,' because it doesn't work. We used to do that, and we wrecked car after car 10-15 years ago.”
 
Referring to Dan Olson, NHRA's director of Top Fuel and Funny Car Racing, “Mr. Olson decides he ain't doin' it. Then when you confront Graham, you know what he does: 'I'll do what the hell I want and you guys can just go park.' I wish he'd come look at my [computer] graph. He'd understand. There is no racetrack from third gear to the end. None. Zero.
 
“I was a dumb-ass and kept going,” Krisher said.
 
However, he was concerned for his fellow racers. Moreover, he was angry at the NHRA's attitude, which he described as “Just tell people to just go to heck and race on it and if you don't want to race, go sit down.” Said Krisher, “That's baloney. If you're not going to do anything with it, then don't put anybody out there.”
 
A similar situation developed in February at Phoenix, spurred by two qualifying rollovers and driver allegations on Sunday of an unsafe surface at the national event. (The rest of the Phoenix Pro Stock eliminations carried over to the March Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla.) That, coupled with the NHRA's admission a week later that it sprayed the wrong traction compound on the track there for a divisional race, undoubtedly emboldened the first four Pro Stock competitors Sunday to demand immediate fixes.     
 
“You had the potential to do the same thing out here. I promise you - you did,” Krisher said.
 
Greg Anderson, sarcastically calling the NHRA decision and reaction “brilliant,” said, “They were so lucky they didn't wreck those first two pairs. We go through it and go through it. It's just a broken record. You have to have glue for these guys -- have to, have to, have to. Period. End of story. We've gone through it a hundred times.
 
“They didn't spray the racetrack downtrack; last eighth-mile of the racetrack. We can't have that. We're going to crash cars. It's as simple as that,” Anderson said. “They think they can get away with not doing it. They can't.”
 
Kurt Johnson said his dad “about crashed. You know, you've got a $150,000 race car, and you're trying to put on a show. This is strictly entertainment. It's for the fans. Obviously there's competitiveness -- you want to turn on that win light and the sponsors are paying millions of dollars for that to happen. When you have the potential to do that and the conditions are not what they were the day before, it's tough.”
 
He said his father's qualifying runs in the left lane, one generally considered less desirable for Pro Stock cars, were “fairly nice.” However, he said, “This run here was absolutely out of control from second gear to the finish line. What went on that racetrack I don't know. It's obviously not the same track prep that we ran on yesterday. It's pretty tough to put on a good show when the track's not consistent.
 
“The car was out of control,” Kurt Johnson said of his dad's K&N Pontiac. “RPM (was) jumping up and down. Tires were not hooked up. It was ridiculous, like going out there on Wednesday afternoon, being a car that's never been down the racetrack before. It was just stupid. All I know is that it wasn't the same track we raced on yesterday.”       
 
The shame of it, Kurt Johnson said, was that “these conditions here should absolutely be perfect. You should see some 6.54s, 6.55s, a good show for the fans. These Pro Stock cars and these Goodyear tires that we have nowadays should go A to B with absolutely no problem. When they're shutting off, something's obviously wrong.”
 
Johnny Gray showed Krisher the computer printout from son Shane Gray's pass against Gaines. Seismic-calamity spikes danced all over the page. "Oh hell, that's way nicer than mine!" Krisher said.   
 
“You've seen me sideways and every way in the world. And you know, it doesn't bother me that bad,” Johnny Gray said. “But when my son turns sideways, that bothers me. That's a different deal.”
 
“I've got bad experiences with this joint anyway,” Krisher said. “I ate a car here, and I don’t want to eat another one.
 
“There's no point in going on and telling you there's nothing wrong with the racetrack and keep racing. What on Earth are we doing?!” Krisher exclaimed.
 
Krisher's assessment of the NHRA performance in this situation was “You don't know what the hell you're doing. That's pretty much standard.”
 
Johnny Gray said, “The last time I talked to Graham about track conditions for Pro Stock cars, he said, 'We can fix it. We can put wings on 'em where they will spin the tires.'”
 
“Baloney,” Krisher responded. “When they start in third gear, you can't put enough wing on 'em. You don't have enough tire speed to put the downforce on the car to do squat in third gear.”  
 
Kurt Johnson said, “We don't have wings that put down 10,000 pounds of force on the back end and do all that. Either we need to change or they need to change. This is how we make our living. We all need to work together.
 
“The ones who suffer are the fans. It's ridiculous,” Johnson added, extending empathy to the Phoenix fans. “They got screwed, too. That's why you don't see very many fans out there in the seats today. It's only 60 percent out there, and that's just not right. This is a great show that we have here (with) great spectator-driver communication. It's just not fair for the fans.”
 
Krisher's gripe included the notoriously quirky Pacific Raceways that years ago prompted frustrated Funny Car driver Scotty Cannon to declare, “Ray Charles could see there's bumps out there!”
 
The Warren, Ohio, driver said, “It's not a good racetrack. It's just not. Track's horrible. It's never any good. It's not a fair racetrack for anybody to race on.
 
“We've been promised for 10 years what they were going to do to fix it,” Krisher said. “It's got too many bumps in it. They don't even grind it. I could show you the bumps last year and where they were, and guess what -- same place this year. There's no starting line. You got about 30 feet and then 30 feet of nothing. The cars all spin out, and you got to screw around with transmissions in second gear to compensate what first gear not goin' anywhere. It'll start out, it's OK. Then it just goes straight off the end of the Earth. You need to do so many things different here to run fast.
 
“It's a mess,” he said. “We've raced on messes before. But you don't race on messes and risk hurting people. It's that simple.
 
“There's a bunch of guys upset because they couldn't run and don't know when they're going to run,” Krisher said before the class got the call back to the staging lanes. “But believe me, they're lucky. They were going to hurt somebody. We don't need to hurt anybody else.”  
 
Johnny Gray had an idea about what the class needs: “We need a bunch of Larry Morgan's buttons that say, 'You can't fix stupid.'”

STILL POSITIVE - On a day of racing which started out with Pro Stock drivers standing unified in their disdain of the racing surface, Greg Anderson quickly pulled away from the pack to become an army of one.

Anderson, driver of the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac, kept a tight rein on lane choice to capture his second consecutive national event victory of 2010 by winning the NHRA Northwest Nationals in Kent, WA, located outside of Seattle.

Anderson saved his best run for last as he beat Johnny Gray with a 6.599 at 209.56 miles per hour.

On a day when aggravation, frustration and tragedy could have easily taken the most seasoned driver out of their game, the newest addition to the team, Tommy Utt, has proven to be the peaceful addition, at least Anderson sees it that way.

“He has had a calming effect,” admitted Anderson in a post-race press conference. “We’ve been struggling and behind the eight ball all year; shame on us because we have made a lot of moves this year that we shouldn’t have because we were behind and not running as well as we should have been. Tommy Utt was an obviously great find, but he came in and kept us from making so many moves. It’s not like he brought a lot of technology to us, he just helped us to manage what we already had.”

The KB Racing technology was enough to put Anderson solidly in the qualified field with a No. 2 seeding and on Sunday, kept him just ahead of the competition.

Lane choice was important on Sunday as only four drivers won from the left lane. Anderson was in charge of his destiny all day racing from the right lane. One lane race track or not, the three-time world champion would have been tough to beat in the left lane as his worst reaction of the day was .026.

Anderson’s 62nd career victory came at the expense of Greg Stanfield, Rodger Brogdon and Mike Edwards before meeting Gray in the finals.

“I guess I am the only Pro Stock racer who has a chance to sweep the Western Swing,” Anderson said. “I have been fortunate enough to do it once in my career and I remember what a great feeling it was. It’s a long way to go and I’m not going to say I’m going to win those races, but I have a chance. I’m the only one who does.”

The victory marked the first back-to-back win for Anderson since the 2008 season.

“It’s amazing what a little change will do,” surmised Anderson. “It’s a great time for me and I was down at one time, but not anymore.”

WILKERSON GOES BACK-TO-BACK ON A TOUGH DAY IN SEATTLE - For much of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season to date, Tim Wilkerson has been almost as invisible as the invisible man. The few headlines he has garnered have dealt with his attempts to help the NHRA find ways to make Funny Cars safer without slowing them down dramatically.

Over the past three races, Wilkerson has become the man to beat in the Funny Car ranks.

Wilkerson advanced to his third consecutive final round, won his second race in a row, and completely solidified his spot in the Countdown playoffs by moving his record to 21-11 while moving up to the No. 5 spot in the Full Throttle standings.   Rather than exhibiting an exultant Winner's Circle celebration, however, the team paid its respects to Top Alcohol Dragster driver Mark Niver, who succumbed to his injuries after a high speed wreck during eliminations.

“When something happens like that, your first instinct is to just want to go home,” Wilkerson said. “But we're racers, and Mark was a racer, and this is what we do. I raced with him and knew him well, and the best way to be respectful for all he's done was to go out there and win the darn thing.  Our motivation wasn't for us, and it wasn't to have a big celebration. Our motivation was really just about representing our sport well, and all of the racers, officials, and fans who love it so much. We love drag racing, and we're here to do our best every time we race.  In that regard, today was a very good day. Today went just about as good as it can go, when you're talking about the action on the track.”

Wilkerson, who struggled in qualifying on Friday and Saturday, entered eliminations from the bottom half of the field, just as he had at the previous race in Norwalk. This time, he did a little “tweaking and trying some things” on Saturday, once a spot in the field seemed secured, and those attempts resulted in two tire smokers, making his crew a little nervous and the driver a bit more focused. If there is such a thing as momentum in this sport, it clearly wasn't on Wilk's side as he took to the track to face his alliance partner Bob Tasca in round one.

In that round, with pain still hanging deep over the track like a leaden cloud, Wilkerson simply erased all memory of the two failed efforts on Saturday as he left first, led the whole way, and posted a strong 4.150 to take a big win. At this point in the season, with playoff positions at stake, every round seems bigger, and every point seems more important, and a certain Levi, Ray & Shoup team seems to be peaking at just the right time. The win light in the opener ran Wilk's first-round record to 11-4 on the season.

Round two brought with it a date with Cruz Pedregon, and this one wasn't as close. Wilk was a bit tardy off the line, but he made up the difference quickly and tore away to a 4.193 that was more than good enough to take out Pedregon's tire-smoking 4.997.  

“We were halfway there, but we were absolutely only thinking one round at a time, and the weather was changing very fast on us,” Wilkerson said. “We went from basically fog in the morning, to overcast, and then just as the second round was about to begin we saw the first patches of blue up there. It didn't take long for it to then clear right up and heat up, just like the forecast said. The trick was to adapt to each round, and we knew we had to slow it down after the big run in the first round.

In the semifinal, Wilkerson faced off against Matt Hagan in a round that was three parts DSR and one part TWR.  With Ron Capps and Jack Beckman, both Don Schumacher Racing drivers, squaring off in one semi, and with Wilk tackling Hagan (the third DSR flopper) in the other, it seemed incumbent upon Wilkerson to carry the torch for Ford.  He did so, with another beautifully clean lap, taking out Hagan with a 4.249.

In the final, Capps was the opponent and the NAPA team had lane choice.  They chose the favored left side, and as the sun lowered in the western sky at the end of the track, Wilkerson knew much was at stake.  Just two races ago, he'd been  ninth in the point standings and was far too close to falling out of the Top 10 to be comfortable. A runner-up in Bristol gave him a cushion. A win in Norwalk moved him up a few spots, and made the cushion even bigger. This one would all but lock up his spot in the 2010 playoffs.

Capps got a slight edge at the tree, but before the 60-foot timer the two cars seemed locked together for the length of the track. Whoever won this one, would be doing it by inches, and the LRS car was the one to trip the win lights, take the prize, and earn the points. Wilk's 4.221 beat Capps' 4.246, and when factoring in the drivers' reaction times, the margin of victory was a miniscule 14-thousandths of a second. Tight? Yes. Hard fought? Absolutely.

“I have to give credit to my guys, who were just terrific all day,” Wilkerson said.  “As we said, it wasn't an easy day to race and any team out here would have had unlimited excuses for losing their focus or whatever out there.  Somehow we put four great laps together on one of the most challenging days of the year, and I mean that in every respect.  We went through all sorts of different weather and track conditions, and we dealt with a big blow, but we overcame it all.

“At the end of a day like this, and after finding our way to our third straight final and our second win in a row, the tiredness sets in but it's a feeling that you know you earned. We earned every bit of it today.”

Every bit.

CORY MAC PROVIDES HIS BEST FOR PATIENT RACE FANS - When Cory McClenathan brought his Fram Top Fuel dragster to face Antron Brown to the line Sunday in the finals of the NHRA Northwest Nationals, winning wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

McClenathan also was coping with the death of his friend and fellow racer Mark Niver.

Earlier in the afternoon, Niver, a Top Alchohol driver, died when his dragster crashed into the safety net at the end of the Pacific Raceways track, buckling the chassis into the driver cockpit. Niver, a 30-year NHRA veteran, was 60.

McClenathan did his job by just edging Brown, his Don Schumacher Racing teammate, for the victory. McClenathan clocked a 3.887-second time at 311.70 mph to defeat Brown’s 3.909-second effort at 308.92 mph.

“To win today is great for the Fram team and great for all of the guys and myself, but it is really very hard to sit back and be real excited right now to be honest with you,” McClenathan said.

McClenathan admitted Niver’s death left him stunned.  

“With Mark Niver, he was somebody I was friends with and competed against 20 years ago (in alcohol dragster), and I’ve known Mark for quite a long time,” McClenathan said. “His family is just super people. Mark was one of those guys who always had a smile on his face. He built everything in his own race car because he was such a good machinist. His cars always ran good and that’s one thing I’m going to miss in a big way. You don’t want to lose anybody, but when you know somebody as many years as I’ve known Mark, it is that much harder. Obviously, for his family, I’m speechless over it. I do not know what to say. I do not know what to think. I just want them to understand Mark loved drag racing and it is something he and I talked about all the time. Mark also was very big on the safety aspect, so this happening takes the wind out of your sail.”

As for Cory Mac, he qualified third this weekend, and made it to the finals by beating Mike Strasburg, David Grubnic and Shawn Langdon in consecutive rounds. This was McClenathan’s third win of the season and his second career title at Pacific Raceways. McClenathan’s only other victory in Kent, Wash., near Seattle, was in 1997, when he swept the Western Swing with wins also at Denver and Sonoma, Calif.

“I really think (co-crew chiefs) Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler and the guys were just going A to B and they were doing it during the heat in qualifying, and that really made the difference,” said McClenathan, who has 34 career Top Fuel wins. “We pretty much pulled out our No. 3 and No. 4 qualifying runs to do this final. The conditions were very close to that, so they (Okuhara and Shuler) said they would be happy if it ran .92, .94, something like that, and it ran good. Those guys just did a great job like they have all year. I was proud to get up there and get it done and it was cool to win here, since I had not won here since ’97.”

McClenathan moved into second place in the season point chase, 172 behind leader Larry Dixon. Tony Schumacher and Brown are third and fourth.

BECKMAN FINISHES IN THE SEMIS - Jack Beckman got a lucky break in the opening round of Funny Car eliminations at the 23rd annual NHRA Northwest Nationals, then advanced to the semifinal round, where he was ousted by his Don Schumacher Racing teammate, Ron Capps.

Beckman was ready to accept defeat when the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger struck the tires against 14-time champion and points leader John Force in the opening stanza, until Force crossed the centerline and was disqualified. Beckman grabbed the win with a 7.267-second pass at 82.46 mph.

He continued his run to the semis by dismissing another John Force Racing driver, Robert Hight (second in points) in the second round, with a 4.347/281.77. Then Beckman's luck ran out. Despite nailing Capps at the starting lights (.061 to .098 reaction time - .000 is perfect), he lost traction, ceding the win to Capps' 4.245/289.94 with a 5.099/173.45.

"I'm going to be positive and pragmatic about this," said Beckman, who holds on to fourth place in the rankings. "We had good results from a below-par performance for us. We went to the semifinals, which is good for points. But we didn't make it down the track but two of the seven times and it's very uncharacteristic of us.

"We were making it past that crucial shake zone - 50-150 feet - just fine. This thing is a Chrysler 300 right now. It's quick early, it makes it through there, so we solved those problems.

"For whatever reason, when we were trying to stack clutch on it out there at 300 feet, it wasn’t liking it. But we still kept getting data. (Crew chief) Rahn (Tobler) is upset right now and any time Tobler's upset he's going to find the issue. He and (co-crew chief) John Collins are two halves of the same mind some days. They're going to take this data back, look at it for three days, and figure out what we can tweak and tune.

"We got a real lucky break against John. Our car went out there and shook and smoked and he had us. He smoked too, but he was driving away from us and then his car went over to the centerline and I had another front-row seat and I saw him get on the centerline. But, the rules say you have to cross the centerline and I got on the radio and I said, Guys, they may have to get the video tape and a ruler out for this one, I don't know if he got all the way over.

"Fortunately for us we did get the win light. We don't want to win like that, but we'll take these rounds, we'll take the lessons we learn from them and we want to go to Sonoma and just kick their butts on brute muscle.

"We're still fourth in points. We want to get another win here real quick, and next Sunday would be really fine with me."

Beckman should clinch a spot in the Countdown with a solid performance next week.

QUICK HITS – RACE REPORTING IN RAPID FASHION

TEMPERATURE’S RISIN’ – While the thermometer hovered around the 130-degree mark for the first two days of the event, a cloud cover for Sunday’s final eliminations dropped the mercury to a cool and optimum 84. By the second round it had climbed to 119.

TOP FUEL

A HEAVY HEART - Morgan Lucas raced with a heavy heart on Sunday after a fatal accident claimed the life of Top Alcohol Dragster racer Mark Niver.

Lucas, whose family business sponsors the Lucas Oil sportsman drag racing series, became close with Niver when Lucas was coming up the NHRA ranks in a Top Alcohol Dragster of his own.

“Mark Niver is one of the most awesome people I’ve ever met,” Lucas said. “He’s a great craftsman and a great human being. He was more optimistic than anyone I’ve ever met. The sport had a big loss today.”   

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING – Doug Kalitta has a lengthy resume when it comes to his drag racing career. On Sunday in Seattle, he added another footnote.

Kalitta experienced his first competition bye run as a Top Fuel driver. He’s competed in 297 events throughout his NHRA career.

“That was very interesting to go up there like that,” said Kalitta, who paced the 15-car field.

HOLDING HIS GROUND - Steve Torrence turned in his quickest elapsed time of the weekend Sunday during the opening round of the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways, but it wasn’t enough to put him into the next round. His 3.916, 310.55 mph was just a few ticks behind Morgan Lucas’ 3.905. 309.06.

“Winning that round would have helped us in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series standings,” said Torrence, who remains ninth in points with 598.  “I heard Morgan’s car all the way and knew it was going to be close.  I looked up and didn’t see the win light in my lane.”

Torrence now holds a 46-point advantage over No. 10 David Grubnic with three more events remaining in the 17-race Countdown to 10.  

FUNNY CAR

MO-PAR TO YA – Headed into the semis, of the three body styles left – three were Mopar against the lone Ford of Tim Wilkerson.

DIDN'T WIN, BUT HE'S IN - 14-time champion John Force dropped a tire smoking pedalfest to Jack Beckman in the opening round when his Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang crossed the centerline resulting in an immediate disqualification. Before the run Force knew that he could have his hands full since his Mustang was not 100 percent. Ironically, Force was out in front of Beckman and could have possibly coasted across the finish line for the win.

“I knew it had a clutch problem before I ran. I was just going to go up there and do the best I could. I put the top bulb out on Beckman. I was trying everything. We took off and I didn’t see him. I didn’t know he was having problems so when I smoked the tires I got back in it. I crossed the centerline and Beckman goes to the next round,” said the 130-time tour winner.

Even though Force’s day ended early he started on a high note when he was recognized as the first Funny Car competitor to clinch a spot in the 2010 Countdown.

“I am glad to be in the Countdown. Someone asked me if I was happy to be in the Countdown and was I going to take it easy now. I told them no way. I am going to try and get as many points as possible. We want to have that top spot going into Indy. That is what we are going to fight for. We want all the points we can get.”

NOT AGAIN – Robert Hight found himself having flashbacks to Norwalk when he became distracted and didn’t leave the starting line until a second later. This time the No. 1 qualifier was on the winning side of being left on the starting line.

Opponent Jeff Diehl left too early with a -.240 reaction.

“I was glad to see a red-light this time,” Hight said. “We probably had the clutch come in a little too hard in these conditions and smoked the tires in the middle. We definitely dodged a bullet.”

BLINDED BY THE DUST – Del Worsham learned during his first round win over Brian Thiel just how valuable of a tool his helmet visor is.

“The visor wasn’t completely latched and it came up a little bit during the run,” Worsham said. “I got dust in my eyes. I thought I had it latched but I guess I didn’t.”

Worsham still ran a 4.133, clutch dust and all.

PRO STOCK

ONE-LANE BLACKTOP – Only four of fifteen races on Sunday were won out of the left lane. The winner, Greg Anderson, raced the right lane all four rounds.

COUGHLIN SEES RED - An uncharacteristic red light by Jeg Coughlin Jr. on Sunday led to his early departure from the NHRA Northwest Nationals.
 
Coughlin fouled out in the first round of eliminations against Rodger Brogdon by .007 seconds. It was a rare red light from a driver who is normally an ace on the Christmas tree in the JEGS.com Chevy Cobalt.
 
“I didn’t think I had that in me today,” Coughlin said. “We’re cutting things into the thousandths of a second.  It’s not to be. Rodger had a good run and it would have been tough to beat. My car was a little light on the clutch and it may or may not have made it to the other end.”

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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - OF STARBUCKS AND THE NEXT GENERATION

“I can't believe it's been almost four years since we were No. 1,” Kalitta, who's fifth in the standings, said of his 29th career No. 1 qualifying berth.

SOARING AGAIN - Doug Kalitta's 13-year drag-racing career is studded with a number of stellar achievements and precious few regrets.
 
But the 2006 NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif., has to rate as probably his most crushing disappointment. It was the race at which Tony Schumacher seized the series championship on the last run -- against Kalitta, taking the race and the glory from the Ann Arbor, Mich., driver who had led the standings following the previous 10 events.
 
Things unraveled a bit that weekend for Kalitta, and he never had led the Top Fuel qualifying field since -- until Saturday at the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways.
 
Driving a special Kalitta Air-themed dragster, he registered his first No. 1 qualifying position in 85 races, relying on his 3.884-second elapsed time at 313.58 mph from Friday's night session.
 
Both his time and speed were best in the class, and they propelled him into the Countdown to the Championship field. He joined Larry Dixon, Tony Schumacher, and Cory McClenathan as qualified for the so-called playoff process that consists of the final six events (at Indianapolis, Charlotte, Dallas, Reading, Las Vegas, and Pomona).
 
“I can't believe it's been almost four years since we were No. 1,” Kalitta, who's fifth in the standings, said of his 29th career No. 1 qualifying berth. “All the credit goes to Jim (crew chief Oberhofer), Troy (assistant crew chief Fasching), and all the guys on our Kalitta Air team.
 
“We've made some changes to our engine program and tune-up since Norwalk,” he said, referring to the previous race, in northern Ohio, “and they definitely look like the right moves.”
 
Kalitta, a four-time runner-up in the first seven races this season, said, “Getting in the Countdown is also a really big deal for us. It's something we don't have to worry about now, and we can go out and race with less pressure on us. Our Kalitta Air Dragster is really running great this year, and we hope to keep that going.”
 
He'll have a bye run in tomorrow's first round of eliminations, because the Top Fuel class is a car short of a full field. Then he'll face the winner of the Morgan Lucas-Steve Torrence match-up.
 
Kalitta is a three-time runner-up finisher at Pacific Raceways, with final-round appearances in 2003, 2000, and 1999.

BACK TO NORMAL - Mike Edwards left his Coweta, Okla., home and drove his Pro Stock team hauler 2,100 miles to the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways this week.

“It has 130,000 miles on it, and he has put every one of 'em on it!” wife Lisa interjected. However, it was the last half mile in his race car which made the long trip worthwhile.
 
Staring down a hot, tricky track with a third-place showing from Friday, Edwards needed to go back to what he knew would work at Pacific Raceway; what gave him one of his five victories last year on the way to his first Pro Stock series championship.
 
“Yesterday we were trying a lot of things. We stepped out of the box a little bit and tried a few things and didn't really like what we saw. So we basically went back this morning to kind of how we ran the thing here last year,” the Penhall/K&N/Interstate Batteries Pontiac GXP driver said.
 
That worked in the third overall qualifying session early Saturday, as he nosed out Johnny Gray in the NTB Pontiac GXP by one-thousandth of a second. Edwards' 6.598-second elapsed time earn him his 10th No. 1 qualifying position in 14 races -- best in any pro class this season.
 
“We made a nice run. We barely inched out Johnny Gray. He made an awesome run, too.”
 
Gray, with a 6.599 in that same Saturday afternoon session, was the only other driver with a sub 6.6-second effort.
 
Edwards, who has qualified no worse than second for nearly an entire calendar year -- dating back to last July 25 at Sonoma, Calif. -- said he experimented a bit because “the conditions were favorable to what we were wanting to do for awhile. We thought the weather was going to be better this morning, so we thought yesterday's qualifying wouldn't hold up -- which it didn't. Most everybody ran a little bit quicker today. But we thought it was a good time to do it. I'm not much on doing that, but it was just the right opportunity, and I really thought it was going to work out.”
 
Plenty has worked out at Seattle for Edwards, who recorded his third Seattle victory last July. But he said he always remembers his 1996 victory over final-round opponent Kurt Johnson. It was the second of his Pro Stock career, and he dedicated it to John Kight, the man who helped him get his start in the pro ranks.
 
“I think about him all the time,” Edwards said. “That was a pretty emotional race for us.”
 
Edwards sat there quietly that day, cradling his trophy, barely able to articulate his feelings at that moment because of a lump in his throat. Team owner Kight had passed away, and Edwards was reminiscing about his friend. The bronze-plated Wally was so precious, for Edwards understood how hard it is to win a single event, let alone win a series title.
 
That's still not lost on Edwards, who'll face in Sunday's opening round of eliminations another longtime racer, another hard-working gentleman in Jim Cunningham. The 73-year-old Mustang driver from Crownsville, Md., finally qualified for the Pro Stock field in his 68th attempt.
 
“It's been a long road from way back when, but it sure has been very rewarding,” Edwards said of his own journey, although he easily could have been speaking about Cunningham's.
 
Of that 1996 Seattle victory -- which he followed with another here over Jim Yates in 1997 -- Edwards said, “We weren't really that fast. It was just meant to be for that weekend, that's for sure. I can honestly say I've lived out my dream.”
 
He said he wouldn't take anything for granted.
 
“Tomorrow's another day,” Edwards said. “Tomorrow's going to be hot. It'll be a tricky racetrack. We'll just go up there and race and see what happens.”
 
He knows how to navigate this notoriously quirky racing surface. Even though he drove to a region he said doesn't have “many dirt roads and cows out here like where I come from,” he is, in a sense, at home.

I’M RACING ON SUNDAY! - Jim Cunningham isn’t listed in the NHRA’s media guide, nor is he in their online drivers listing. However, after qualifying at the NHRA Northwest Nationals in Seattle, the driver who has already passed retirement age; might have ensured a future listing.

For the first time in his career, 67 events and as many DNQs, Cunningham will race on Sunday in the first round of Sunday’s eliminations.

“It’s the first time and I’m hoping to win the race too,” said Cunningham moments after teammate Erica Enders fell short of bumping him from the 16-car field.

Make no mistake about it; Cunningham was pumped as he exited his Mastercam-sponsored Mustang. After all, he was the man largely responsible for inspiring Ford’s return to NHRA Pro Stock.

“Sure I am, I’m going to give it my best tomorrow,” Cunningham exclaimed. “I guess I am going to have to take them down one by one tomorrow. We’ll get the big dog first.”

Cunningham will race the No. 1 qualifier Mike Edwards in Sunday’s first round. And for Edwards, the No. 16 qualifier has a bit of advice.

“If you see the green light, you are too late,” Cunningham said.

OF CLOUDS AND CAUTION - Clouds aren’t usually a good thing when it comes to racing in Seattle. As long as they’re white and block the heat of the sun, they can be an ally for a nitro racer.

Defending NHRA Funny Car champion Robert Hight was hoping for a little insulation from Mother Nature to knock off a few of the nearly 130 degrees reading on track temperature gauges, so he could step up from his 4.194 from Friday evening.

To run that quick headed into Sunday’s final eliminations at the NHRA Northwest Nationals would have been huge for the driver of the AAA Ford Mustang. Close might only work in horseshoes and hand grenades, but for Hight running within .005 bodes well for his race day chances.

“It was a little hotter and a forecast of clouds, which never came,” said Hight, whose No. 1 qualifier represents his sixth of 2010 and the 37th of his career.

“We came close and you saw Del Worsham step up and run a 4.20. The top ten cars are so bunched up that anyone can win this deal. Being No. 1 is a big deal when it comes to earning points but on race day it means nothing. No matter what position you are in, you have a tough race.”

Of his six poles in 2010, Hight has won only one event from the top spot. Twice he’s lost in the first round of eliminations and the second round after getting a bye to open the event.

Hight races Jeff Diehl, a racer who has suffered his share of carnage this season with blown engines and damaged race cars. Still Hight is on guard for the unexpected.

“We had better take him seriously or we’ll find ourselves on the trailer early,” Hight cautioned. “We have to go up there and race the conditions just like we have been.”

Hight and tuner Jimmy Prock have been proficient in two days of qualifying, racing on track conditions of anywhere from 114 to 127 degrees. Their car had been smokeless up until the final attempt.

“We missed it on that one,” Hight admitted. “Maybe that will provide us with the parameters of what we don’t need to do tomorrow.”

Hight picked up seven bonus points from three rounds of qualifying to gain on boss/father-in-law John Force, who failed to grab any special points. This enabled the second place Hight to narrow Force’s lead to just three rounds of racing.

“It’s fun chasing [John] and it’s been back and forth,” admitted Hight. “He would ask me if I thought I was going to catch him, and then I did. Then he caught me again. It’s fun.”

SMOKIN' - Tim Wilkerson battled a race car that, on this day and on this track, insisted upon making too much power in the middle of the run, leaving him with two tire smokers downtrack.  Those two incomplete passes allowed Wilk to slip from seventh to eleventh on the qualifying chart, and with that placement he landed a first-round date with alliance teammate Bob Tasca, who qualified No. 6 here.

“The car's just being a little cantankerous today, and we'll have to sort that out before we take those guys on tomorrow,” Wilkerson said.  “It's been fast early, which is not a bad thing on a track like this, but on the first pass it just got aggressive on us out there before half-track, so we thought we ironed that out on the second pass but it did it again, only a little bit earlier this time.

“We don't like having to race any Fords in round one, but it's very much not on our hit parade to have to face those guys.  We'll just have to worry about our car, do the best we can, and see how that works out for us.  Tonight, we have plenty of work to do to get ready and figure our stuff out.”

MANLY STUFF – NHRA announcer Bob Frey felt the chances of anyone beating Doug Kalitta’s Friday evening run was slim at best.

“If someone runs a 3.88 out here today, I tell ya … that’s a man’s run.”

LANE CHOICE IN PRO STOCK COULD BE A FACTOR - Jeggie Coughlin qualified fifth in the field, which could prove crucial, because the right lane proved to be far superior to the left and lane choice is going to be important.
 
“Lane choice could come into play tomorrow,” Coughlin said. “Unless you are pretty darn savvy and crafty on this slicker track. First round tomorrow will be similar to our Q3 run this morning. I think we’ll be OK then. We’ll have to be on our toes the rest of the day on. The weather today pretty much matched the hour by hour forecast. We’ll track the hour-by-hour really closely and try and map out how our day will run.”
 
Coughlin’s best pass was a 6.611 seconds at 210.01 mph. He squares off against Rodger Brogdon in the first round. Brogdon qualified 12th in the field with a best pass of 6.645 seconds at 208.59 mph.
 
“We feel like we’re going to have to be on our toes tomorrow to work through this crowd,” Coughlin said. “We’ve got a tough field.”
 
Coughlin 210.01 mph speed was second fastest headed into Sunday's eliminations.
 
“That means the power is good and the car gets happy when it gets going at speed,” he said. “What we’re lacking is getting it efficient when you let the clutch out and that first gear change. That’s Pro Stock at its finest right there. The teams that sort that out quick usually perform better.”

AMPED UP, ANTRON STYLE - Drag-racing teams every summer throttle up for a unique experience at Seattle, the city built on Boeing that has embraced an eclectic dining palate, absorbed a jolt of java through Starbucks headquarters, and gained as much fame for its Microsoft-spearheaded technology corridor as for its iconic Space Needle.
 
Top Fuel drivers Antron Brown and Cory McClenathan, his Don Schumacher Racing stablemate, got their competitive juices brewing earlier this week with a special Starbucks experience.
 
Taping a "Gettin' Down With Brown" segment for the NHRA's broadcast on ESPN2, the two joined Willard "Dub" Hay, Senior Starbucks vice-president, coffee and global procurement. Together, Brown said, they explored "all the regular ground coffee that's from Latin America to all the citrus-tasting ones from Africa and different tropical climates."
 
The Matco Tools Dragster driver said the experience "was cool and unique. We got to try a whole bunch of different coffee that they get from all over the world. It's all selective, high-grade coffee. Coffee's just like wine -- they grow it on the side of the mountain, all around volcanic ash. It grows on trees, like little coffee cherries. It's pretty cool."
 
Hay and his colleagues treated Brown to his favorite order -- a white chocolate mocha latte. "They put the cream on top with the full Vitamin D milk in it," he said, eyes as big as clutch plates. "Ah, let me tell you something: that thing was out of control. Out of control!"
 
The process was intriguing, he said.
 
"It's unreal how they actually taste coffee, the way they sip it in and slurp it around, slosh it in their mouths, and spit it in a tub. You slurp it in, right in your mouth, get it on the top of your palate, and  you swish it around, and you spit it out, almost like chewing tobacco, in a little can," Brown said. "You don't want to keep on drinking all that coffee, because you'll be all tore up by the time you taste all the different coffees that they have."
 
He said in tasting, no one has anything, such as sherbet, to cleans the palate between flavors. "You just get after it," he said, "and you taste the difference in each and every one of them."
 
Starbucks executives, he said, "take coffee to a new level. And when me and Cory were sipping that coffee, it was definitely high-octane. It was like 90-percent nitro of coffee.
 
"I was on the ceiling -- and I'm still on the ceiling right now!" Brown said before closing Friday qualifying with a scalding 3.964-second elapsed time that was good for No. 5 in the Top Fuel order for the 23rd edition of the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways.
 
By the end of his high-powered coffee klatch, Brown sounded like a Starbucks marketing manager.
 
"The coffee with chocolate has a lot of calories in it, but the Vivanno (smoothie) sets you back and gives you something nutritional, very low-calorie and healthy for you," he said. "And they've got a new machine coming out that's only at 50 locations right now that's pretty out of control about how you can make all these different blends of coffee. I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me!' "
 
But don't expect to see "Starbucks" emblazoned on the side of his or McClenathan's dragster. No one discussed sponsorship possibilities.
 
"We didn't talk to them about none of that stuff," Brown said. "We went out there for a good time with 'Gettin' Down With Brown.' It was just a treat getting to go out there and hang out with them.
 
"Every time we come to Seattle, it's definitely going to be my main stop, the Starbucks headquarters every year," he said, already planning his return visit.
 
Brown said he drinks coffee but confessed that "I don't drink it every morning." However, he said, "When we're on the road, we always make a Starbucks run in the morning. I always get my white chocolate mocha latte and always get me a Strawberry Banana Vivanno. That's always my stop every morning on the road. They've got my vote. Now I'm kind of addicted. I'll probably get it every day at home."
 
Brown's great-grandmother drank coffee every day, and the coffee pot was on at the Brown household when he grew up in Chesterfield, New Jersey.
 
"But this ain't like the coffee Grandma drank, trust me," he said.

 

A NEW LOOK FOR TUTTLE/TORRENCE - The Tuttle Motorsports team has undergone a name change going into this weekend's NHRA Northwest Nationals.  Driver Steve Torrence unveiled the Capco/Tuttle Motorsports colors Friday.  The new-look race car is now black with red and white accents with Capco Racing prominently displayed.

“Capco is the name of our family pipeline and compressor business,” said Torrence. “We have been funding the team and ran the first half of the season with Dexter Tuttle’s Color Fast business on the car.  We will keep Capco on it until the end of the year.”

Capco is located in Henderson, Texas.

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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - BACK TO PARTY CITY, AND STUFF NO ONE CAN DISCUSS

THERE’S A HISTORY AT PACIFIC RACEWAYS, ALRIGHT - The drag racing history of Pacific Raceway isn’t lost on drag racing veterans of  current and previous generations.

Ed McCulloch has his memories as a driver at the facility located outside of Seattle in Kent, Wash. For current NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel driver Larry Dixon, his memories date back to childhood, riding in the back of the family’s station wagon, the tow vehicle for Larry Dixon Sr.’s Top Fuel dragster.

“Over the years, Seattle has been a great venue for drag racing,” said McCulloch, who never claimed an NHRA win at the facility. “In the old days, we had an awful lot of fun racing up here. [Pacific Raceways] was the key race track in the Northwest … with the key events. A lot of the guys from back east made their way up here to go racing. We used to have a ball.”

Promoters the likes of Bill Doner, Jim Rockstad and the late Steve Evans had a way of incorporating both the thrilling and ludicrous into their shows. There were 64-car Funny Car events, Fox Hunts and even a race with former porn star Linda Lovelace as the race queen.

These kinds of shows brought out the best in race fans, and depending on your moral character – the worst.

“The fans were great,” McCulloch recalled. “They were always good to me.”

Pacific Raceways has and always will attract a unique breed of race fan. Some fans are bold in their approach; such as the one who opened up a porta-pot on 14-time Funny Car champion John Force. Others, as Jim Rockstad recalled during the Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com War Stories Showdown, used the portable toilets as a weapon.

A scorned woman who caught her boyfriend cheating waited until he entered the porta-pot to deliver the final blow of their relationship by pushing it over.

“The fans were out of control and we were a little too,” admitted John Stewart, a former nitro racer who now tunes Top Fuel racer Shawn Langdon. “We all had a lot of fun, but we just can’t talk about it.”

Pacific Raceways has run under both NHRA and American Hot Rod Association sanction, hosting major events in both the fall and spring. The NHRA held its Fallnationals event in Seattle from 1975 until 1980. The track returned in 1988 to host a summer date which eventually became one-third of the NHRA’s famed western swing.

Dixon was a mere pup back in the days of the rambunctious events and remembers the events of the 1970s through innocent eyes.

“It seemed like it rained here all of the time,” said Dixon. “We did have a lot of good times coming up here. We actually drove past the hotel we used to stay in coming up here. It was just a little hole in the wall place; it just kind of reminds you where you have been.”

Now all grown up, Dixon head’s into this weekend’s NHRA’s Northwest Nationals as the Top Fuel point leader on the strength of wins in the last three of four events. His childhood memories were great but as an adult, his favorite visit to Pacific Raceways came in 2003 when he won the race. That victory is the only one in the northwest to his credit.

“We lost lane choice and got stuck over in the left lane when it was really bad here,” Dixon recalled. “[Tuners] Dick LaHaie and Donnie Bender worked up some magic and we went right down the lane. We ended up winning the race and that ranks up there.”

Hard to believe that was seven years ago.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Dixon said.

Having fun is what a lot of racers and fans had at Pacific Raceways, now in its 51st season of operation. During Friday afternoon’s qualifying NHRA announcer Alan Reinhart walked around on the starting line asking many of the drag racing legends to share their stories with the race fans over the PA.

One by one, they declined or were either vague, as Reinhart assured them the Statute of Limitations had run out on their transgressions.

“There are some stories where the statute of limitations will never run out,” McCulloch said with a smile, before turning away from the microphone.

HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION - Since last year's race at Sonoma, Calif. -- a year ago on the Western Swing -- Mike Edwards has dominated Pro Stock qualifying. But Jason Line, with some help from the always-dangerous Allen Johnson, took aim at that statistic Friday at Pacific Raceways during first day qualifying at the NHRA Northwest Nationals.
 
Line wrung a 6.612-second elapsed time (at 209.01 mph) from his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to take the provisional No. 1 position, ahead of Johnson's 6.618-second effort at a class-fastest 209.52 mph. Edwards was third at 6.631/209.20.      
 
“I couldn't be happier. I got six bonus points today -- that's more than I've gotten since they started the bonus-point program! It's the best ever,” Line said, satisfied overnight.
 
However, he said with cooler temperatures predicted, his 6.612 will not remain low E.T.
 
“That's not going to be good enough to get to the No. 1 spot," he said. "But the good news is that we have a car that I think is good enough to maybe go get it again.”
 
The track has been cooperative, he said.
 
“It's maybe a little rougher than it was last year, certainly not bad,” Line said of the racing surface. “The cooler temperatures are definitely going to help. It'll tighten it up and give it some more grip down the track.”
 
While some cars struggled getting off the starting line, Line's Pontiac was content.
 
“The starting line here is a little bit slippery and for our car right now, that's a good thing,” Line said. “For whatever reason, our car's very happy when there's not a lot of bite initially. And there's not a lot of bite, especially when it gets this hot.”

'SWINGING FOR THE FENCE,' HIGHT HITS EARLY HOMER - Funny Car “power hitter” Robert Hight said after Friday's class-leading 4.194-second elapsed time and 291.57-mph speed that crew chief Jimmy Prock “is always swinging for the fence.”

And that, the Auto Club of Southern California Mustang driver said, is what has him in line to earn his sixth top-qualifying position in 14 events this season during this weekend’s NHRA Northwest Nationals.  
 
“He goes out there and he looks at a racetrack and he figures, 'What is the best I can run under these conditions?' And that's the way he sets the car up. He doesn't try to back it off. It's on 'kill' all the time. We won a lot of races doing that and qualified No. 1 doing that.”
 
He led the Ford contingent, which took the top four spots. Ashley Force Hood, Hight's teammate, is second heading into Saturday's final two qualifying sessions, and just three-thousandths of a second behind her is Bob Tasca III. John Force closed the first day of qualifying fourth in the order.
 
Hight said his success -- anybody's success -- “all goes back to the first run here and getting down the track that first run. That sets the tone for the whole weekend.” While he was third in that opening session, behind Force Hood and fellow Mustang driver Tim Wilkerson, that 4.325-second run, showed he was in strong enough shape to throw some more horsepower at the evening pass.
 
“Had we messed up, then we wouldn't have been able to flex to shoot for what we shot for,” Hight said.
 
“It's supposed to cool off tomorrow, so I don't know that, that 4.19's safe. But Jimmy will go look at that run and say, 'Man, I could've done better here, done better there.' He's never satisfied,” he said. “That's what he'll shoot for, if the conditions are there.”
 
The Alturas, Calif., native said he's buoyed by being back out West.
 
“I'm a West Coast guy. We have lots of fans here on the West Coast. It's just different conditions, different fans, different racing on the West Coast. Just love this three-week swing, he said, adding that he wants to “start it out right here and get a win and keep it rolling into Sonoma.”
 
If Hight can hold onto the No. 1 berth, it will mark the eighth consecutive event that a John Force Racing driver has led the field. Force Hood did so at the previous two races, and Hight was low qualifier at the three before that. Force Hood was tops at Atlanta, and boss John Force was quickest at St. Louis.

CHALK ONE UP FOR LANNY - The conditions today were a little hotter than usual for Pacific Raceway. Provisional Funny Car low qualifier Robert Hight did not think that the hot weather had too much of a negative effect and he credited new JFR teammate Track specialist Lanny Miglizzi with giving the JFR crew chiefs an edge.

 “A big addition to our team is Lanny Miglizzi and all that he has brought to this team,” said Hight. “He lives up there on that starting line. He knows what is going on all day long. He has been here two days prior to the event. He is out here at five in the morning when the sun comes up and he is here when the sun goes down. He has track temperatures and maps of the whole track. Our crew chiefs really rely on him and that info now,” said Hight. “He told us the conditions would be hot but it was probably the best scrape job they have ever had here. NHRA was able to get out there and put nice fresh rubber on with their machine. We knew it was probably going to be better than last year. Right now my 4.19 is better than anyone ran last year here and it is hotter today than last year. My hat is off to the Seattle crew for getting this track ready for NHRA to come in here.”

QUIETLY MAKING A MOVE - Doug Kalitta is notoriously quiet.
 
But all his Top Fuel competitors can easily hear the veteran driver coming on strong.

In NHRA Northwest Nationals qualifying Friday, Kalitta blasted his Kalitta Air Dragster to a 3.884-second elapsed time -- the only one in the 3.8 range -- to swipe the early No. 1 qualifying position.
 
He said with cooler weather on its way, he didn't expect to keep the position. However, he said the Jim Oberhofer-tuned Kalitta Air Dragster still has enough left in it to regain the No. 1 even if he gives it up early Saturday.
 
That represents progress for his program, which took a bit of a detour from its strong path.
 
“Our Kalitta Air team has struggled at the last two events (with two first-round losses), but Jim and the guys think they have figured out what was giving us problems.”
 
That appeared to be the case Friday.
 
Although the field has just 14 cars entered, making it two shy of a full field, the dragsters are a close bunch in the standings, with just 355 points separating series leader Larry Dixon and No. 5 Kalitta with just four races (including this weekend's) before the Countdown to the Championship fields are set.
 
Simply by qualifying for eliminations here, Kalitta can secure a spot in the NHRA's Countdown to 1 playoff, joining Larry Dixon, Tony Schumacher, and Cory McClenathan.
 
Keeping up with Dixon is more imperative than qualifying No. 1 to Kalitta, but the bonus points will be invaluable. Friday's accomplishment put him directly ahead of Dixon in the Seattle lineup.
 
“We want to stay close to the front . . .  and move up in points,” Kalitta said.
 
It seems like a simple enough request, and Kalitta has qualified in the top half of the field at all but the previous two races. More impressively, he has recorded four runner-up finishes and four semifinal appearances in the first 13 events of the 2010 season.
 
Kalitta, seeking his first No. 1 spot since the 2006 NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif., has had notable performances at Seattle. He is a three-time runner-up finisher in Seattle with final round appearances in 2003, 2000, and 1999.

TJ BIDING HIS TIME - Tommy Johnson Jr.  races nitro-burning vehicles professionally, however for the last two seasons, he’s performed an impersonation of a back-up quarterback.

Johnson, who is under contract with Don Schumacher Racing, is presently assigned to the Yas Marina team. Earlier this season, Johnson along with Hot Rod Fuller, were named as the drivers for the Abu Dhabi-based team.

Johnson and Fuller made exhibition runs last March for the Yas Marina group with the initial plan of bringing the cars back to the United States to run in select NHRA Full Throttle events. Instead of running both cars, the Yas Marina group will only run the dragster driven by Fuller at four 2010 events.

“I’m just waiting and we’re working on some things, and hopefully I’ll be back soon,” Johnson said Friday at the NHRA Midwest Nationals in Seattle.

For now Johnson is a spectator, holding onto the hope that something will materialize full-time in 2011.

“That’s the plan,” Johnson confirmed. “We’d like to get back out here and race full-time. I’m just waiting patiently and taking this all in and watching some good racing. The goal is to definitely be back full-time next season.”

Johnson’s last full-time ride before joining DSR was in 2008 when he drove the Monster Energy drink-sponsored Funny Car for Kenny Bernstein.

NOTHIN' BUT SEVENS - Tim Wilkerson entered this weekend's NHRA Northwest Nationals in 7th place on the Full Throttle points list, with 777 of those Full Throttle points.  On his first day of qualifying in Seattle, it would seem almost obvious that he'd leave the track, on Friday, in the No. 7 spot on the provisional grid.  Despite the fact he's not known to be much of a gambling man, the Levi, Ray & Shoup driver might want to consider a quick trip to Las Vegas, if the lucky 7s keep popping up.

Wilk was No. 2 after the first run, despite some serious damage to one of the car's cylinder heads, and although he stepped right up to the line with most of the top-half teams in Q2, his 4.277 was the slowest of three 4.27s, and each was a thousandth quicker than the next, with Jack Beckman coming in with a 4.275, followed by Jeff Arend's 4.276, and Wilk's 4.277.  There are those 7s again.  Hello, Mandalay Bay?

“It was trucking right down there on a really nice lap on the first one, but at 3.5 seconds some little gremlin got in the one head and knocked a valve on us, at which point bad things happen in there and that head is now a really shiny piece of trash,” Wilkerson said.  “The incrementals showed us that it was on its way to exactly what we were trying to run, so we knew we had a handle on it, and the fact it was still good enough for seventh with all that carnage going on shows you that it was running good.

“We went back out there to try to run a low 4.20 of some sort, but it just didn't have quite enough snap to it.  It ran fine, and it was right down the middle like it was on rails, but we could've gone faster than that.  I'm glad we're in the top half overnight, but we were trying to do better, and then we got a little unlucky with the three 4.27s all a thousandth apart.  You can pick up a thousandth a lot of different ways during qualifying, but this time we were the pooch out of the three.  We'll see what tomorrow brings, and try to run as well as this track will let us.”

SCARY MOMENT - Howie Stevens, a Competition Eliminator racer from Vancouver, BC, lost control of his C/Altered Mustang during the second session of qualifying at the NHRA Northwest Nationals outside of Seattle.

Stevens' Mustang was running in the left lane when he drifted left out of the groove. He then over-corrected, sending his car into a slow roll in front of Brad Plourd, who was in the right lane. Plourd had aborted his run early.

Stevens made contact with the right wall and slid to a stop upside down.

Stevens was checked by on-site medical personnel and released.

IT'S LIVE BABY - ESPN3.com will air final eliminations from the NHRA Northwest Nationals live in its entirety beginning at 2 p.m. (ET) Sunday. This coverage will be in addition to the regular ESPN2 television coverage that will begin airing at 11:30 p.m. Eastern.

NO TWO TIMERS HERE - It has been 19 years since Top Fuel ace Joe Amato became the first driver to master the NHRA's so-called Western Swing of three tracks -- at Denver, Seattle, and Sonoma, Calif. -- in successive weekends. The task features wildly different atmospheric conditions and puts the burden on the tuners -- and hauler drivers.
 
The order of the summertime grind has varied throughout the years, and this year, for the first time, it starts in Seattle. But it doesn't seem to matter. No one has swept the Western Swing more than once.
 
"That is such a difficult thing to do, to do it once," Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher said.
 
So it's no surprise that Schumacher, who accomplished the feat in 2008, possibly being the first to do so twice wasn't on his radar screen.
 
"Haven't even thought of that. It would be incredible," he said.
 
But he mused about being one to pull off the impossible.
 
"When we had to win in 2006, we had to set a world record on the last run of the year and win the race. Easy task, right? Well, we did it," Schumacher said. "It was the most amazing run ever. Then the next year, we said, 'How are you going to match that?' Well, it comes down to we have to win the last run of the year again. Same kind of thing. You pull it off once. Is it possible to have a team great enough to do this again?"
 
For him, sweeping the Western Swing would be significant, because he would be doing it with a completely different crew.
 
"To be able to go out there and me doing it would be even more gratifying, because I have a whole new team," Schumacher said. "The team I did it with all is Larry Dixon's crew right now. I wouldn't be doing it with the same group, with the same people.
 
"We were also written off last year and went out and won a championship. So I do not doubt my guys in any way, shape or form," he said. "They would be extremely gratified, because these guys, it would be their first time. Yes, I did it. But for them it would be the first time they get to go out and sweep."
 
Dixon earned his sweep in 2003 in the Miller Lite Dragster out of Don Prudhomme's stable. But his chances this year are excellent, too, for he leads the Top Fuel standings (and No. 2 Schumacher by 176 points) and has momentum from his seventh victory of the season in the previous race, at Norwalk, Ohio.
 
If Dixon gets off to a winning start in pursuit of another sweep (or makes it to the money round), he'll break from his tie with Joe Amato and could share with Schumacher the lead on the NHRA's all-time final-round appearance list. Schumacher heads into the Seattle event with 100; Dixon and Amato are at 99. Dixon He is second to Schumacher on the all-time Top Fuel winners list with 55 victories; Schumacher has 65.
 
"We had a great weekend in Norwalk," Dixon, driver of the Al-Anabi Dragster said. "On paper, it might have looked smooth, but the amount of work the guys put in after Bristol to being a better race horse in Norwalk really paid off. They made it look smooth, and they did a great job again.
 
"For our team, the four-race stretch went great," he said, referring to the bigger stretch that began June 3 at Joliet, Ill. "We've been going rounds and defending our position in the regular-season point standings. Six races in seven weeks are grueling, but I won't speak of grueling on me personally.
 
"The drivers have it made in a long stretch like this when compared to the crew guys. They don't get enough credit for how hard they work and how focused they are. And if you go rounds, you have more work to do," Dixon said. "Our Al-Anabi guys won 13 of a possible 16 rounds in the last four races, so they've been hittin' it pretty hard, but they’re ready for more. The Western Swing is more of a challenge for the teams and crew chiefs than the drivers. It has a lot of different track conditions and elevations. Add to that it's a lot of miles, and they still have to arrive every Wednesday to set up. It's tough.
 
Although he knows that "all of the teams try to go into Seattle and win, because whoever wins that race is the only guy that can sweep the swing," he was thinking beyond the trip West. "The big thing for our team," Dixon said, "is that we really want to go into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. The 30 extra points that you get over No. 2 would have come in handy last year."
 
Cory McClenathan swept the 1997 Western Swing in Joe Gibbs' McDonald's Dragster. Now the FRAM Dragster driver, who's third in points with two victories in four final rounds in 2010, he said he's jazzed that the loop begins at Pacific Raceways, just south of Seattle, this time.
 
"I'm excited about that," McClenathan said. "It's a little bit easier to get cracking when you're in the first race of the three-week stretch that used to be the last one. My daughter, Courtney, will be there with me. The weather should be good, and we have a good car. All of those are confidence boosters."
 
Like Dixon and Schumacher, McClenathan already has clinched a spot in the Countdown to One playoffs that are the final six races of the season.
 
But he said he's trying to gain ground on Dixon and Schumacher while fending off some eager and talented contenders, including Antron Brown, who swept the Western Swing last season in the Matco Tools Dragster.
 
"Nobody is ever happy with No. 2 or 3," McClenathan said. "Obviously Larry has a great car, my Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony has a very good car, and they have both won races this year. We also have to look at Antron Brown and Brandon Bernstein. Those guys are right there. Those four were all at least once in the finals in the last few races. We know they're all going to have good cars and be right there in the mix. And you can never count out Doug Kalitta.
 
"Yeah, I'd like to throw down some more wins before we get into the Countdown and move up in the standings," he said, "but when it really comes down to it, I would save it all for the Countdown."
 
The lone Pro Stock driver to sweep the Western Swing is Greg Anderson, and he did it in 2004 with the Summit Racing Equipment, starting his new sponsorship agreement in style.
 
He also could become the first to lasso three Wally trophies out West. The most shocked person if he did that would be him, he indicated.
 
"Like Tony said, it would be huge. Especially for me this year -- I haven't got a run going like I had back in 2004. I haven't been able to be strong at every type of race out there, every type of race condition, every type of atmosphere," Anderson said. "For me to be able to do that this year, it would be a bit of a surprise, to be honest with you, because we haven't been swinging at a hundred-percent clip this year.
 
"So it's going to take just a tremendous effort from us," he said. "For us to pull that off this year would be a major feat and would be a heck of a turnaround for a season that's been a little lackluster.
 
"I think it would mean more to me in the long run, because we're not expected to do it this year. It would be one heck of an effort for our team. I'm not sitting here saying we can't do it, because definitely we can," Anderson said. "The odds are a little bit against me this year, and they were not against me back in 2004."
 
But he found the bright spot: "The good news is, we do seem to be finally now hitting our stride and gaining every week on our performance level and have a chance to go win races again. Back in 2004, we were almost expected to win every time we showed up at the racetrack. Mike Edwards is expected to win every time he shows up at the racetrack."
 
The Swing this year is part of a seven-races-in-eight-weeks string. But Schumacher and Anderson don’t regard it as tough. They said they love it.
 
"I hate weekends off. I love racing cars," Schumacher said. "I think it shows in your performance. It shows in your attitude. I just love racing. Every now and then we need a break. I've been very lucky that I've been able to take my family with me to a couple ones at least at the beginning. It won't make the seven weeks seem long at all.
 
"I love being at the track," the U.S. Amry Dragster driver said. "If I could race a race car every day . . . People ask me, if you won the lottery, what would you do? I'd buy another race car and drive them both."
 
A grind? No, he said. "It is a grind if you are losing," Schumacher said. "I could imagine if you had to go seven weeks and lose first round every time, that would be extremely tough and hard to deal with. You'd have to pull yourself together. That's also when a great leader leads a team.
 
"We have an awesome car right now. We're battling head-to-head with Dixon. He's beaten me the last three. I owe him a few. I'm looking forward to getting up Sunday morning and kicking butt," Schumacher said. "At the end we're going to have a month off. I'm not going to know what to do with myself."
 
Anderson also said he's eager to strap in the car.
 
"I agree with Tony on that. I want to race every weekend. I want to race every day," he said. "That's what we are. That's what we do. We're racers. We love to race."
 
Schumacher mentioned struggling, and that struck a familiar chord with Anderson.
 
"Tony mentioned that it might be a struggle if your team is struggling, (that) you might not look forward to going back for seven weeks in a row when you're sort of behind the eight-ball. You know what," Anderson said, "you can always say we got next weekend. If we lose today, we can come back next week and try again. You don't want to wait three weeks if you're out there struggling. You want to bounce back as soon as you can, try to find a way to get back on track. We love to race every weekend.
 
"Quite honestly, it's not a job to us," he said. "We love what we do. We don't consider it a job. We want to do it every day of our life. The more times we can strap into that car, the happier we are.
 
"I'm not going to sit in here and whine," Anderson, who lives in Mooresville, N.C., considered the heart of NASCAR country. "NASCAR guys don't get a break all year long. We can't sit back and cry. We don't probably have the resources and the manpower they have, but still we get about twice as many breaks as they get. We're not going to whine at all. Absolutely as a driver, as Tony said, we want to get in that car as many times as we can, as often as we can. Not a problem at all. We look forward to challenges like that."
 
If any one of the Western Swing winners has a major challenge, it might be Funny Car's John Force. Sixteen years ago, in 1994, the Castrol GTX driver became the first and only Funny Car driver to record the sweep.
 
With four victories this year -- matching his total for the three previous seasons -- Force is once again crunching numbers. The leader needs to leave Pacific Raceways Sunday night at least 414 points ahead of Jeff Arend to clinch a spot in the Countdown. No one from the Funny Car class has done so yet. (Arend trails Force by 419 points and is No. 11 in the standings, one spot out of Countdown contention.)
 
Although Force has won the Northwest Nationals seven times, he hasn't done so since 2004. Is this Force's year to win out West three times again?
 
Dan Fletcher is the only sportsman-level racer to sweep the Swing, and he did that in 1994 in the Super Stock class.

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THURSDAY NOTEBOOK -

ANDERSON’S MOJO – It’s safe to say the mojo is back for Greg Anderson, at least it is for now following the double-up weekend he experienced two weeks ago in Norwalk, Ohio.

“I feel like a new man after Norwalk,” said Anderson.  “After the year I had up to that point both on and off the track I felt like I had aged 10 years, but the success our Summit racing team had that weekend took them all off.  Now I’m like a kid again, ready to go out, have fun and win races.
 
“However, I’m not about to be overconfident, because that would be a mistake.  As the saying goes, you’re only as good as your last race, so we know we have to go out and prove ourselves all over again this weekend in Seattle.  We’re hoping we will be in even better shape after having a weekend back at the shop to work on our cars, and are looking to have a great Western Swing.”
 
The Anderson-led crew worked through the holiday weekend making sure every component was in perfect working order, as well as planning for any contingencies that might arise over the course of the next three weeks.
 
 “We’re as excited as we have been all year, and want to build on that win,” said Anderson.  “Still, I see our Summit Racing team as a work in progress because we’re not yet where we want to be.  The good news is that for the last 4-5 weeks we have been moving forward, which is all we can really ask for.”
 
Anderson has excelled in Seattle in the past. In eight prior starts at Pacific Raceways, Greg has two wins, 2003 & 2004, making him one of only five Pro Stock drivers in the track’s 25-year history to have scored multiple victories.
 
CONTROL ISSUES - Robert Hight is all about control and that’s why, as a baseball player, he chose the catcher position because he wanted to have a hand in the flow of the game. The defending NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car champion feels the same way about his drag racing.

Last season he had control issues in the months leading up to the final event to determine the Countdown to 1 championship phase of the 2009 season – he had no control, or at least it appeared that way. Only in the last few races of last season did Hight's group resemble a championship caliber team.

This season he’s got a better handle on his fate even though it’s not exactly transpiring by the plan in his mental playbook.

“I have said all season that I want to dominate all year if I am going to have a shot at my second Full Throttle Funny Car championship,” the three time 2010 winner said.

The hiccup at the last race, in Norwalk, a race where a starting line distraction left him sitting still at the line as team owner/teammate John Force raced to an unchallenged victory. This weekend’s Seattle event marks the first of the grueling three races in three weeks known as the Western Swing, an adventure which also takes the tour into Sonoma, Ca. and concludes in Denver, Co.

Hight is not thinking championship or Western Swing dominance right now. He has his eyes focused on going rounds and giving Prock and his team as much information as possible on his Auto Club Mustang.

“We made some changes at the start of June and really what we need is to make as many passes as possible. In May and early June during that four race stretch on Sundays I made sixteen passes going to those four finals. Last year during that same four race stretch I only went five rounds. We got three times as much information this year versus last year,” said Hight. “Last year in the Western Swing I went to two semi-finals but lost in the first round in Seattle. A good start in Seattle could set us up for a strong run on the Western Swing and get us in position for the Countdown.”  

And, a second NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car title.

ROAD TRIP – Funny Car racer Jack Beckman, with wife Jenna and 3-year-old son Jason in tow, will embark on a cross-country tour in their motor coach, beginning with the first race of the Western Swing, the 23rd annual NHRA Northwest Nationals in Washington State, which Beckman won in 2007.

After a weekend off following a grueling three-race back-to-back stretch, Beckman and family have been packing up this week in preparation for the first leg of their trip, Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash. They will then continue on to Sonoma, Calif., and Denver to complete the Swing before the season's final seven races, six of which incorporate the Countdown to 1 playoffs.

“Having the July 4 weekend off of gave us a chance to take a breath because we had four in a row and six in seven weeks,” stated Beckman, third in the Funny Car point standings and winner of one national event so far in 2010. “We had a chance to come up for air, and now we have three in a row. And we get that two-week break before Brainerd, Minn. Then we have three weeks off until the first race of the Countdown in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend. It's very odd the way the schedule has rolled this year.

“We're packing everything up for the rest of the year. Having the family at all the remaining races will be comfortable for me. I've won Seattle before so there's a comfort level there as well.”


BRANDON’S MEMORIES – When Brandon Bernstein thinks of Seattle he smiles.

“Pacific Raceways was the site of one of our sportsman wins when we were driving the A/Fuel dragster in 2001 during the early days of our driving career,” reminisced the second generation driver. “We won here driving the Top Fuel dragster in 2005 and shared winner’s circle with my good friend Eric Medlen, who we lost three years ago as a result of a testing accident.

“With my dad’s team we were runner-up in 2007 and 2008 and No. 1 qualifier in 2006.  So we’ve had a lot of memorable moments here.

“Of course we’ll never forget flying with the USAF Thunderbirds at McChord Air Force Base in 2008.  That was one of the most awesome experiences ever.  We earned our 9-G pin during the flight.  In our dragster we undergo 5 Gs when we launch and another 5 Gs when we pull the parachute.  But 9 Gs really pins you to the seat.”

Bernstein is currently sixth in NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel point standings.

NOT THE GOOD KIND OF MEMORY – Ashley Force Hood will be forever linked to Pacific Raceways via one of the most defining moments of her 2007 rookie season. Lined up opposite six-time series champion Kenny Bernstein in the second round of the NHRA Northwest Nationals, Force Hood had the fine line between in-control and out-of-control clearly delineated for her.
 
At the hit of the throttle, her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang almost immediately lost traction, the result of a clutch malfunction. Unaware of the problem, Force Hood tried to regain control after she saw Bernstein having his own problems further down the track.
 
“I never thought something would happen on that run,” said the graduate of Cal State-Fullerton.  “I just remember I was excited about racing Kenny and I’d just seen dad run, so I was pumped up about maybe racing him later (in the event).
 
“It kept reacting and trying to hook up,” she said of her race car, “but then it would go up in smoke again (lose traction).  Finally, it took off and I thought it was going to go – but then I knew it was gonna hit and I just braced myself.”
 
It was a spectacular accident that included a flash of fire, impact with the guard wall and a full, smoke-filled spinout.  Ashley came out unscathed, but she emerged a much better race car driver.
 
“It taught me that there are limits,” she said.  “You can drive these cars when they’re a little out of control and still get them back (in the groove). You have to find where that line is at. That’s what Seattle taught me. The next time, I knew how far I could go before I was too far.”

HOME IS WHERE THE SUCCESS IS – Pro Stock racer Allen Johnson’s home-away-from-home might well be in the Evergreen State, specifically the Pacific Raceways drag strip near Seattle, Wash. The veteran driver has earned one No. 1 Qualifier Award, two runner-up finishes and one victory at Seattle and will seek his fourth final-round appearance in five years this weekend.

“I can’t really put my finger on it,” said Johnson, a native of Greeneville, Tenn., of his current streak of successful Seattle outings. “It seems like the Mopar Dodge Avenger/J&J Racing team has some good notes there, and our Mopar HEMI® engines really like that air with a lot of oxygen. The track is usually really good. It’s just one of those venues that we’ve got a great setup for and it seems to work each year.”

Johnson and his J&J Racing crew made the most of the holiday break following a grueling stretch of four consecutive races, prepping the Mopar Dodge Avenger and recharging their batteries for the NHRA’s annual Western Swing. The three-event jaunt out West begins in Seattle, continues in Sonoma, Calif. and wraps up at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver, Colo. on July 23–25.
 
“We really relished the break, very much so,” stated Johnson, who is coming off a runner-up outing at the NHRA Norwalk event, his third final-round appearance of the season. “We took a three-day break for the race shop, for the first time in a long time. They had some good luck last week and got our top-three engines rebuilt without any hiccups.”

 

 

 

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