EVENT RESULTS (sun) EVENT NOTEBOOK (sun) POINTS AFTER EVENT ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS SPORTSMAN RESULTS

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SUNDAY

‘IT’S BEEN A GOOD WEEKEND TO BE STEVE TORRENCE,’ TOP FUEL WINNER SAYS -  The 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season has just begun, but Top Fuel racer Steve Torrence said Sunday he wishes it were over already.

That’s because he drove his Capco Contractors / Rio Ammunition Dragster to a 3.735-second, 326.48-mph victory over final-round opponent Doug Kalitta at the Circle K Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.

And the Kilgore, Texas, native finds himself in the points lead for the first time in his Top Fuel career.

“This is the most optimistic I’ve been going into any season. I’m really optimistIc about this season,” he said. “To get this head start – to come out and qualifying well and run well on race day – it’s huge for us. I’ve never been in this position and I kind of like it.

“I think we have a great caliber of team. I feel like we can fight all the way to the end. Right now it’s way too early to make any predictions. I think we can continue to build on this performance,” Torrence said.   

Doug Kalitta, making his 82nd career final-round appearance, challenged with a 3.753-second elapsed time at 324.36 mph in the Mac Tools Dragster on the 1,000-foot Auto Club Raceway course in this season-opening showdown between the Nos. 1 and 2 qualifiers.

Torrence sent a message to the rest of the class that this new alliance he and crew chief Richard Hogan have with tuning tsar Alan Johnson – and, by virtue of Johnson’s arrangement with John Force Racing, a fulltime data-sharing partner with Brittany Force’s team – that he is ready to climb from mid-pack status.

“Right now I feel like I’ve got a lot of bullets and big gun right now,” he said in accepting his sixth overall Wally trophy.

Torrence was careful not to overlook his faithful crew, now that Johnson has joined the mix and has been steadily making a difference since signing on with the Brownsburg, Ind.-headquartered team at the start of last fall’s Countdown.

“This team – Richard Hogan, Alan Johnson, Bobby Lagana, every one of those guys on that crew – that’s the people who put me where I’m at. That’s the guys who pushed me to the front. Without ’em I wouldn’t be here,” Torrence said. ‘And I have to say thanks for everybody who stood behind us.”

Torrence had won five times in 11 previous final rounds, so this wasn’t his first victory. However, it was his first triumph in this renewed program, the one that is buoying his championship hopes.

“Alan is that thorn in Richard’s side that keeps poking him [prodding him to continue excelling],” Torrence said. “That (3.)73 is a representation of that. And Morgan Lucas Racing put us together a hot rod that has been unbelievable.

“It’s been a good weekend to be Steve Torrence. We’ll do what we can to keep this momentum going,” he said. “Now I get to go to Phoenix, and maybe we can write another story just like this.”  

The story these days is the JFR connection, he said. “It has been a big deal. Anytime you can go to the racetrack and get twice as much data as opposed to being a single-car team, it’s a huge benefit.”

In earning his first victory since last July at Denver and first in Top Fuel at Pomona, Torrence reached the final by eliminating Steve Faria, Morgan Lucas, and Richie Crampton.

Torrence denied Kalitta his 39th victory, first in 106 days (since last Nov. 1, at Las Vegas), and second at the Winternationals. Together with Funny Car winner Ron Capps, he also helped stretch Kalitta Motorsports’ streak of unfulfilled chances to score double-nitro victories to 12 races.

 “We brought out a new Mac Tools chassis this weekend, and we are pleased with the results,” Kalitta said after competing in his fifth Winternationals final round. “However, when you get that close, you always want to win. And we came up short today.”

Kalitta defeated Scott Palmer, Antron Brown, and JR Todd to advance to the final.

Torrence, who won for the first time in front of mom Kay, has raced with dad Billy at a handful of races for the past couple of years. But the Johnson-Force deal gives him information sharing on a fulltime basis. When Billy Torrence rejoins his son in a second dragster later this season, he will just add more data to the folder.

“We’re probably going to speed that program up with this performance today,” Steve Torrence said Sunday. “He likes to come out here and have a good time with us. We’re a family race team, and we’ve raced it as a family forever. Got to bring Pops out. Hopefully he doesn’t show me up like he did last year, though.”     

Nobody was showing up Steve Torrence this weekend. Susan Wade
 

CAPPS GETS BIG VALENTINE’S DAY WIN IN POMONA, SNAPS 18-RACE WINLESS STREAK - Love was in the air Sunday in sunny southern California.

Not only was it Valentine’s Day at Auto Club Raceway, but a lot of drivers got to experience that magical bond that you can only find between soulmates. The bond between a mother and son. The bond between a husband and wife. And, of course, that unmistakable bond between a driver and his crew chief.

And that is exactly the bond that helped Ron Capps snap an 18-race winless streak and race to his first win since April of last year as Capps claimed the 46th win of his illustrious career at the 56th annual Circle K NHRA Winternationals in Pomona.

“Rahn Tobler and I have grown so much together that it is almost like a marriage. He teaches me a lot on race day and it is invigorating waking up in the morning knowing that I have a guy like that in my corner,” Capps said. “It may not always be roses, but like a marriage, there are little things you have to get through. Sometimes you disagree, sometimes it all comes together, but it all comes down to the respect I have for him and how much he teaches me still.”

In the first Funny Car final of the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season, Capps squared off against defending series champion Del Worsham and the pair produced a race for the ages. In a battle between the two strongest teams from the previous season, Capps took a slight advantage at the starting line, but Worsham battled back and, at least to the naked eye, it was too close to call.

Multiple replays showed the two drivers crossing the stripe at nearly the same time and it was only when ceding to the intricacies of the NHRA timing system that Capps was awarded the win - by .0008 seconds, or roughly five inches.

Capps earned the win on a holeshot with a 3.981-second pass at 324.28 mph, while Worsham ran a quicker and faster 3.962 at 324.36 in the runner-up effort.

“Del is a good friend of mine, a great racer and the defending champ, so all that together makes it bigger than just a final round. Del brings out every bit in me for sure,” Capps said. “I have got the best team in the business and they have given me a great racecar. There is no holeshot win without the car that we have.”

Capps raced to the season-opening win on the strength of seven runs in the three-second zone and another just shy of that mark. He faced an extremely tough lineup of drivers on race day, culminating with the matchup against the defending series champ.

He earned round wins over the tire-smoking pair of Jeff Diehl and Chad Head in rounds one and two, before facing what Capps called a “final in itself” against Robert Hight.

Hight, who had one of the faster cars all weekend, gave Capps all he had, but it was the driver of the NAPA-sponsored Dodge Charger R/T that came out ahead with a 3.938 to Hight’s 3.949.

“We were the only car to have all three-second runs in qualifying, so I knew we had a good racecar,” Capps said. “Once we got to race day, the people we had to race was crazy. Robert Hight in the semis, that is like a final itself racing those guys. It was big to win like we did.

“The whole weekend was big, bigger than we have ever had with all of the changes, being on Fox Sports 1 - everything - there is just so much excitement in the air about a change in our sport. Peter Clifford, everybody at NHRA, it has lived up to the hype and what better way to wrap up this weekend than being the Funny Car driver that got to go up there and get that TV time.”

Event runner-up Worsham had wins over Cruz Pedregon, Alexis DeJoria and John Force.

To make the weekend even more special for Capps, his mom, Betty, who turned 70 during the weekend, was on hand to see the win and was even the first to greet him at the top end.

“We surprised her last night with a party and it was really a great time. She actually drove a dragster when I was a kid, which made all of this kind of normal for me,” Capps said. “She is a big reason I am even in the sport. And to have her here and the first to hug me made it that much more special.”

While Sunday’s Winternationals win was certainly a confidence booster for Capps after going nearly a year without one, he knows that with the competition as competitive as it is today, it is going to be a long road ahead.

“If I looked confident out there, you don’t know the full story. Of course you want to be confident, but I have been doing this a long time and I bet if you asked Del Worsham, who just won the championship three months ago, he will tell you the same thing, that it is just an act,” Capps said. “One of my favorite football players, Joe Montana, I got to ask him one time how it really was and he was throwing up every morning. He was a wreck and he still went out there and played at an MVP level.

“So I think that just kind of proves that if you stop getting that feeling, you need to get out of the seat. When you are given a great car like I have, you are the last piece of that puzzle. So you had better not go out there and mess it up.”

Capps will try to keep the momentum going when the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series returns to the track February 26-28 at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals in Phoenix. Larry Crum     
     

ANDERSON MAKES HISTORY WITH FIRST WIN OF EFI PRO STOCK ERA AT WINTERNATIONALS - It’s a whole new ballgame.

And Greg Anderson is just happy to be playing.

After an offseason filled with change, Anderson made history on Sunday by becoming the first driver to win in the new electronic fuel injection era of NHRA Pro Stock racing at the 56th annual Circle K NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway.

And he did so in absolute dominating fashion.

“I am honored to be the recipient of the first trophy of this new era,” an elated Anderson said following his victory. “This was a fantastic team effort. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the job this KB Racing team has done over the past two months. If you could have see where we were at the beginning of this process compared to where we are right now, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Struggling throughout the winter months with an engine program Anderson could only describe as “pretty ugly,” the four-time world champion surprised everyone - including himself - during the season opener with the quickest run in qualifying followed by four chart-topping laps on Sunday to claim the 79th win of his career and the first in an EFI-powered car.

Anderson had low elapsed time in all three of his early-round matchups on Sunday, culminating in a showdown with his KB Racing teammate in the first final of 2016. In the history-making matchup, the two Summit Racing Equipment-sponsored Chevy Camaros put on a show, but it was Anderson who came out on top on a holeshot as the two were separated by just .01 at the line.

Anderson won with a 6.617-second lap at 207.85 mph with a .014 reaction time, while Line crossed the stripe with a 6.609 at 209.82.

“I felt so confident all day long until that final round. I honestly felt like the underdog in the final,” Anderson said. “(Jason) came up with a great light in the semifinal and his car ran every bit as good as mine, so I knew it was going to take something special

“Apparently it was just my day. Jason still had a great day, the entire KB Racing team had a great day, but the sun was just shining a bit brighter on me today.”

Anderson had little trouble throughout the weekend, proving quickest right out of the gate.

Anderson claimed the top qualifier award on Saturday, leading to low ET in five consecutive rounds heading into the final.

He collected wins over Matt Hartford, Jeg Coughlin and Drew Skillman, all with relative ease, to give the Chevy driver an early lead in the championship standings.

“Everybody had a steep learning curve this offseason, so coming in here this weekend, I wouldn’t know who to put my money on. But I feel great about the effort we have put in so far,” Anderson said. “It could be a completely different ballgame come Pheonix. There is just so much more to learn about these cars. We are just scratching the surface on what they can do.”

While earning the win was certainly a plus, Anderson says the real benefit of his Winternationals victory is the extra passes he was able to make as he adjusts to the new configuration.

“It is getting better every run and I think that is the greatest joy of being able to go four rounds on Sunday. It gave us some more track time and more experience. That is going to pay off down the road” Anderson said.

But while many of the teams struggled with the new combination during the opening weekend, Anderson believes it is only a matter of time before the rest of the field figures these cars out and the competition is elevated to a whole new level.

“We got the jump on everybody, but I guarantee everyone here is leaving this pit area tonight not happy,” Anderson said. “They are going to go home, they are going to work hard and it is going to be a completely different ballgame in Phoenix.

“We are going to enjoy this tonight, but we are not crazy enough to think this is the way it is going to go week after week. That is the beauty of a new challenge like this. There is room to grow with it and we know we are just scratching the surface.”

Now it is back to the drawing board for the rest of the Pro Stock teams as they try to catch up to the KB Racing team - and they only have two weeks to find that edge. Next up is the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals February 26-28 in Phoenix. Larry Crum

RANDOM NOTES FROM RACE DAY:

NOBILE HITS WALL, JOHNSON’S DART WONT START, HAGAN’S PLAN TO FLIP 2015 RESULTS OFF TO ‘GOOD’ START, BOOMING SPEED FOR COURTNEY FORCE, McMILLEN PULLS OFF ONE OF FOUR ROUND 1 UPSETS, ENDERS SPUNKY AFTER OPENING-ROUND TIRE SHAKE

NOBILE SMACKS WALL IN WILD ROUND 2 - In a crazy second round of Pro Stock eliminations that saw premier driver Jeg Coughlin red-light and Jason Line get a solo pass because Allen Johnson’s car broke even before the burnout and was pushed back off the track, Vincent Nobile sustained the most damage.

Nobile’s Mountain View Chevrolet Camaro immediately went into nasty tire shake in the right lane that pushed him sideways across the center line, just behind opponent and Elite Motorsports teammate Drew Skillman. The car flat-sided the left flank against the opposite guard wall. The impact happened at a relatively low speed, and Nobile was unhurt.

He assumed the blame right away and said, “This is definitely going to put us behind the eight-ball.” Because he drives the same car that Erica Enders drove to her second straight championship, Nobile lamented, “Last year, this was the fastest car on the planet.”

With a little bit of fabrication work, he’ll be back in business when the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour moves in two weeks to Phoenix.

Johnson, meanwhile, is left to figure out whether the troubles with his Marathon Petroleum / J & J Racing Dodge Dart is the same one he encountered in the final qualifying session Saturday. His father and engine specialist, Roy Johnson, tossed his hands up in the air, indicating he had no idea initially what caused the car to shut itself off. When the Johnson team was scrambling to get the car restarted, Erica Enders rushed over to lend any help she could. And Justin Elkes, crew chief for Shane Gray, who sat directly behind Johnson in the next pairing, also dashed up to Johnson’s car, offering help.

“The car had made awesome runs all weekend,” Allen Johnson said. “We just couldn’t get it to the finish line today. The gremlins that bit us in the first round downtrack [in a victory over Alex Laughlin] showed up again but in the burnout box.”

It turned out a loose wire was to blame.

“The new EFI system has a new wiring harness, and it must have a loose ground wire somewhere,” Johnson said.

But he put a positive spin on it: “This weekend, we learned a lot of what not to do, and that is a very big positive, especially with all this new stuff. We found some gremlins. I hope we found all of the gremlins. You can always take a positive out of a negative, and that’s the way we try to do things over here.”

HERE’S TO ANOTHER 100 –Alexis DeJoria’s 100th event as a professional Funny Car driver had its highlights, even though it ended earlier than she had hoped.

The Kalitta Motorsports Tequila Patrón Toyota Camry driver qualified fourth with a career-best elapsed time of 3.942 seconds Saturday. But her own teammate and reigning class champion, Del Worsham, outran her and left her spinning her tires at half-track.

“I was trying too hard,” she said.

“We qualified well in fourth and won the first round. I had to race my teammate in the second round, and that didn’t go as planned, unfortunately. But I’m looking forward to Phoenix, and luckily that’s not too far away,” DeJoria said.

She had made history at this event two years ago, as well, becoming the first woman to post a three-second pass in a Funny Car.

DeJoria said her husband asked her if she ever thought when she first started racing that she would be marking 100 events in a Funny Car. Her answer? “Damn right I did,” she told him.

She noted that her family has no racing background, that she pursued her career by “passion and drive.”

YOU’D BETTER NOT POUT – Don Schumacher Racing’s Matt Hagan might take some measure of comfort that he’s getting a first-round loss out of the way early. Chad Head, who had lane choice, eliminated him early Sunday. Hagan won this season-opening race last year but faded down the stretch. He had said Saturday he wanted to flip his fortunes.

"Everybody says that it isn't how you start, it's how you finish, so I guess we get to figure that out," Hagan said. "All in all, when you have some new crew guys, new car, new everything, you can't get upset over one race. We have 24 of them. I want to win them all – I'm greedy – but you take every lap, every run and learn from it.

"We'll figure out why it didn't get down the track that run, why it didn't get down the track last night in qualifying," he said. "We'll do that. We're surrounded by smart people here at DSR. If we have a question, we ask. If we don't know the answer, we go find someone that does. It's just a matter of time that we'll get it figured out.”

Hagan knows he has to keep the big picture in mind and keep his team in happy spirits.

"The biggest thing is that you have to put a positive spin on it for your new guys," he said. “You don't want to come out here and pout in front of them, so you have to keep your head up, keep moving forward, and figure out what the problem was."

 

McMILLEN SHOCKS SCHUMACHER – Tony Schumacher, the eight-time Top Fuel champion, came to town fresh off a head-turning run of 3.683 seconds in testing his U.S. Army Dragster for Don Schumacher Racing at Phoenix. He blasted to the top of the provisional order Friday. But Terry McMillen, fresh off a frustrating season in which his expensive oildowns cost him thousands of dollars and made him consider quitting the sport, defeated Schumacher in the first round in his Amalie Oil “Xtermigator” Dragster.

McMillen’s ambush was one of four opening-round upsets. In other pairings that round, JR Todd beat Brittany Force, Shawn Langdon beat Antron Brown, and Morgan Lucas beat Dave Connolly.  

Schumacher’s car dropped a cylinder at the beginning of the run.

“We’ve got some parts and pieces that are really, really great, but they’re not exact, yet,” Schumacher said. “Sometimes there’s just no reason for them to do that, so you’ve just got to suck it up and go to the next race. We’ve got a really great race car. You can’t judge it by that one run. You hate to start off the season that way, but it is what it is.”

McMillen fell in the quarterfinal to Todd.

NOT IN LOVE WITH THE VALENTINE’S DAY – This trip to Auto Club Raceway at Pomona wasn’t nearly as much fun as the last one for reigning Pro Stock champion Erica Enders . She lost to Elite Motorsports teammate Jeg Coughlin in the first round, as she experienced tire shake immediately and got out of the throttle of her Dodge Dart.

“We just finished putting our motors together on Wednesday in Phoenix. We can only go up from here, and I know that with all my heart. It is a very tough pill to swallow. I hate losing, I hate losing first round. If there's any consolation to it, at least it was to my teammate," she said.

"We've got to do some work with these race cars," Enders said. "That run marks run No. 15 under our belts, and that's nothing, considering I had over 300 runs on my other car. We'll learn it, we'll get it, and we'll be back to the top, you bet your butt."

She has accepted that changes to the class will make this year difficult at the start, but she said she hadn't expected tire shake that severe.

"The track was way different today than it was the whole weekend," Enders said. "We run behind the fuel cars, and they did zero track prep, which is pretty detrimental to our class. Of course, being first out doesn't help, but that was our own fault.

"All things considered, coming here we figured we'd be a middle-of-the-pack car, and that's exactly what we were,” she said. “We're going to go home and go to work on this stuff. We've got a couple weeks until Phoenix, and in between Phoenix and Gainesville there's another couple of weeks. I fully expect by the Gatornationals to be a lot more competitive. We'll keep moving in the right direction."

SATURDAY - TORRENCE TALKING A LITTLE FUN SMACK, CLEAN SLATE FOR BROWN, DENSHAM CRASHES INTO SAFETY NET BUT UNINJURED, HAAGAN’S CAR STILL A BIT OF A MYSTERY, BECKMAN AND ANDERSON SHARE OPINIONS, GRAY AND SON RACING A CONTINENT APART, ALLEN JOHNSON CONQUERS PRO STOCK GLITCH BEFORE IT BITES HIM IN ELIMINATIONS, ONE-TIME TOP FUEL CHAMP GIVES 100-GRAND TO DSR MAKE-A-WISH PROGRAM, CELEBS SHOW UP AT POMONA

 

TOP FUEL

 

NO ENTITLEMENTS – Antron Brown said his first step toward a back-to-back championship will be just like everyone else’s first shot at a title – no “gimmes” and a tough opponent. He’ll face Shawn Langdon in the first round.  

"It's just like I always say about the year after you win a championship the slate is wiped clean when the new season begins. So this year my record is 0-0 against Shawn," the Matco Tools/Toyota/Army Dragster driver said. "Our Matco boys will have to be on their 'A' game, because there's nothing tougher than racing one of our teammates. And I'll have to be on my A-plus game at the line, because Shawn is one of the best leavers out here."

Brown said, “We're running Shawn, which is something we don't necessarily want to do in the first round. I think we'll be really competitive for race day tomorrow. We didn't qualify where we wanted (No. 7), but we did have a good lap that last time. It was a good lap, not a great one, and we've got something we can build on. Now it's time to go to work and push hard."

PAIRINGS – A couple of Steves will square off against each other in Sunday’s first round: No. 1 Steve Torrence and No. 16 Steve Faria. Two champions will meet: Antron Brown and Shawn Langdon. One Bob Vandergriff Racing driver will go against a former one when Leah Pritchett takes on Clay Millican. Other matches feature Dave Connolly and Morgan Lucas, Richie Crampton and Troy Buff, Doug Kalitta and Scott Palmer, Tony Schumacher and Terry McMillen, and Brittany Force and JR Todd.
 

FUNNY CAR
 

DENSHAM UNHURT IN CRASH INTO NET – Funny Car veteran racer Gary Denham walked away from a spectacular-looking wreck during Saturday’s third overall qualifying session.

It left him and his Dodge Charger wrapped up in the catch net at the end of the shutdown area.

The parachutes on his car failed to deploy after he crossed the finish line with his career-best 4.050-second elapsed time at 307.30 mph. The car skimmed across the sand and left him and the car wrapped up, cocoon-like, in the safety netting.

That pass secured for him the provisional 11th spot in the 16-car lineup.

But Densham, who walked away from the scene on his own, was more disgusted than hurt.

“It's hard to tear up a perfectly good race car,” he said before sharing a hug with wife Joanne. “We don’t know what happened. Referring to the emergency rescue crew, he said, “It's great that the Safety Safari are who they are and they do what they do for us.”

As for the car, which ended up in more than one piece, Densham said, “When it don’t stop, it don’t stop. These cars are going awful fast, and when the parachutes don’t work, the brakes aren't quite enough in a case like this. That's the way it goes.”

The NHRA emergency service officials evaluated and released Densham.  

STILL TRYING TO LEARN HIS CAR – In 2015, Matt Hagan started the season looking almost unstoppable, winning the first two events and leading the points for much of the time, through the summer and the Western Swing. But even with victories in June at Englishtown, N.J., and Bristol, Tenn., he slipped to fifth by year’s end.

His goal this year is to flip that model and win races in the Countdown and earn a third championship. But testing at last week’s Nitro Spring Training at Phoenix wasn’t much help.

"We really struggled in testing, but we’ve never really done well in testing. For the last three years that I can remember, testing has been to get the guys acclimated to going rounds and service. It just seems like we go places and sometimes the prep’s different and it kind of gets you a different direction. And that’s kind of what happened to us. We have a brand-new car, a bunch of different new parts we were trying out. And we just couldn’t get it to work. We had to get it go past the tree, and it just wasn’t. It’s true that’s frustrating. There’s no way around that. Five days of that, it’s hard on your body and hard on your mind. You get up in the morning and you have a hard time breathing with your ribs. It shakes you all to pieces. Then we come to Pomona and we go right down the racetrack twice (at 4.110, 308.78 and 4.028, 313.22) and you go, ‘What in the world?’ But it’s just because conditions are different.

‘And Dickie’s a smart guy,” Hagan said, complimenting crew chief Dickie Venables. “I wouldn’t trade him if they said, ‘You’ve got your pick of any crew chief out here.’ And I’m not saying that because he’s with me now. I truly believe it, and I mean it in my heart. He’s that guy who’s so methodical. There are some guys out here who run big numbers and they do really good. But you see them go through cycles where they can’t go rounds. And I think Dickie’s going to put a car underneath you that can win rounds. When you win rounds, you win races and you win championships.”

The two-time champion would know – and he has learned to ignore testing results if it doesn’t go as planned.

“That’s my mentality. You can’t take anything from testing. You just throw that out the window. It was good for the crew guys to get out. Other than that, it wasn’t very beneficial,” he said. “You want to go out there and shake the car down. I came in here to Pomona with one run on the car and didn’t know anything about it. It’s got a new steering box on it. It’s got new levers on it and everything. You’re thinking, ‘Can I get it stopped here at Pomona?’ Everything’s running through your mind, and after you get that first lap out of the way, it’s all gravy from there.”    

Hagan used Saturday’s third overall session to clock a 3.993-second elapsed time at 323.35 mph. But in his final chance to improve, he encountered a problem and clicked off the engine early for a 4.349, 203.80. So when he starts No. 10 in Sunday’s eliminations against No. 7 Chad Head, Hagan still might not have a real handle on his Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots Dodge Charger.

FIRST-ROUND FOES – Meeting in the opening round of eliminations are No. 1 Jack Beckman and No. 16 John Hale, champions Del Worsham (5) and Cruz Pedregon (12), and another pair of Southern Californians, Ron Capps (2) and Jeff Diehl (15). Also battling it out will be Tim Wilkerson (8) and John Force (9), Alexis DeJoria (4) and James Campbell (13), Chad Head (7) and Matt Hagan (10), and Robert Hight (3) and Tommy Johnson Jr. (14). No. 6 Courtney Force had a date with former John Force racing driver Gary Densham (No. 11). But she appears to be set for a free pass to the quarterfinals, as Densham’s accident Saturday likely will keep him from answering the bell Sunday morning.  

 

PRO STOCK
 

IT’S GROWING ON HIM - Pro Stock's Greg Anderson said initially he had hated the wholesale changes to the class the NHRA ordered during the off-season. But he admitted that he’s starting to like the new way of operating.

“I'm from Minnesota. I'm a stubborn person. I don’t like change. And it's major, major change, especially at the age I'm at. I'm not a spring chicken anymore,” he said after proving in qualifying that maybe it isn’t so bad after all. “To completely rock our world, it was a shock. But we [he and teammate Jason Line] had a great trip overseas to Kuwait and visited troops. That really helped get Jason's and my minds straight about what we had to do when we got back home.”   

SWAPPING STORIES - Shane Gray has had a lot on his plate weekend in Southern California, and he has been concentrating hard on it. But at the same time, his mind has been a continent away.

His 16-year-old son Tanner is at New Smyrna Beach Speedway in Florida, participating in the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing. Tanner Gray finished 19th in the Super Late Model race Friday night, and he'll be racing all weekend.

"Sure, I wish I was there to be with him," Gray said. "But he's in good hands, and we'll talk about his races all weekend."

PROBLEM FIXED, DRIVER READY – Allen Johnson began the weekend in decent shape with his Marathon Petroleum/J&J Racing Dodge Dart. But in Saturday’s final qualifying session, he hit a bit of a snag at about the 330-foot mark. He didn’t hurt his engine, and he figured out what was wrong. So he said he feels better heading into race day, where he’ll meet first-time opponent Alex Laughlin in the first  

“We found the problem that’s probably been plaguing us. I think we’ll have something for them tomorrow,” Johnson, the No. 10 starter, said.
 
“On race day, I just race myself. I don’t pay attention to who is in the other lane. We won this race in the fall,” he said, “so we’ll go in and let the driver do his job.”

MATCH-UPS – In his first time back after his latest hiatus from Pro Stock, Jeg Coughlin will have to go against new Elite Motorsports teammate Erica Enders in the opening round of eliminations Sunday. KB/Summit Racing’s Greg Anderson and Jason Line qualified first and second, and they will face No. 16 Matt Hartford and No. 15 V Gaines, respectively in the first round.

Other match-ups include Friday’s provisional leader Bo Butner versus Deric Kramer, Drew Skillman versus Joey Grose, and Vincent Nobile versus Aaron Strong. Alex Laughlin will start his day against Allen Johnson, and Chris McGaha will race Shane Gray.
 

OF GENERAL INTEREST
 

LEGEND ALLEN DONATES $100,000 – Tommy Johnson Jr. drives the Make-A-Wish Dodge Funny Car that Terry Chandler funds for Don Schumacher Racing. So he has been racing for a purpose since the team debuted in 2014 – and meeting many of the special children with life-threatening illnesses whose wishes the foundation grants. Now, thanks to Top Fuel racing standout Jeb Allen, the 1981 champion named one of the NHRA’s Top 50 drivers during the Golden Anniversary year, Johnson will meet even more.

Allen, now 62, has funded 20 wishes for a total of $200,000 to Make-A-Wish of Northern California though his company, Palomar Builders. He added $100,000 to that Saturday, donating to Chandler’s efforts and allowing Make-A-Wish to grant 10 more wishes. He made the announcement along with Chandler, Johnson, and Schumacher during a break in the qualifying action at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

The Make-A-Wish announcement reunited Allen and Funny Car pioneer Schumacher, who shared the winners circle at the Summernationals at Englishtown, N.J., the day Allen earned his first trophy and Schumacher his third of five. That made Allen, age 18 at the time, the youngest ever to win an NHRA national event.

“That’s how I got to meet Don,” Allen said. “He befriended me, and when I raced through Chicago he invited me into his home and later helped me when I had some hard times. He’s quite a man. Don Schumacher said to me one day, ‘If there’s ever anything you can do for one of Terry’s charity cars you should do something.’ ”

Since he retired from professional drag racing, Allen began working in construction and learned to build homes. With wife Sue Tsai, he has built their Palomar Builders into one of the largest in Northern California and biggest in Redding, Calif. Allen said Saturday, “This just warms our heart. This gives us an opportunity to give back and bring awareness to the joy and power of giving.”

David Williams, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish America, thanked Allen and Chandler for the generous contribution.

“We are thrilled that Jeb Allen has joined a number of people within the NHRA community who are committed to making wishes come true. Just like our good friend Terry Chandler, who funds the sponsorship of the Make-A-Wish Funny Car, Jeb realizes the lasting impact a wish-come-true has on seriously ill children and the families who support them,” Williams said. “Jeb’s contribution allows our chapters to reach even more children in their communities.”

NEW TIRE – Goodyear has a new compound for its Eagle rear tire, officially the “D2747,” that Top Fuel and Funny Car racers will have to use exclusively after the April race at Houston. Company spokesman Lee Elder said the new tire features new materials but represents “very, very incremental changes.”

GARLAND CONTINUES AS RFC DRECTOR – Craig Garland is starting his second season as the Racers For Christ Director of the NHRA National Event Ministry.

His career of combining his faith with racing and being the support to countless racers and their families started at Texas Motorplex in 2004, where he started as the track chaplain. Craig and his wife, Beverly, also were series chaplains with the Southern Drag Boat Association.

“I eventually moved into the series chaplain position for the Lucas Oil Drag Boat Series and the Assistant Boat Racing Director, but in 2008 I accepted the position as the NHRA Division 4/South Central Region Director for Team RFC.” Garland said. “I finished the requirements for ordination, and I was ordained at the 2010 Racers for Christ National Conference at Waxahachie and started ministering full time.

“At the same time,” he said, “I stayed on as the Texas Motorplex chaplain and attended as many races as possible to be with our incredible race family.”

In January 2015 Garland was promoted to the Director position, and he’s been on the road with the national tour ever since.

CELEBRITIES GET TASTE OF NITRO – Among the entertainment luminaries on hand Saturday to watch the final day of qualifying for the Winternationals were film and TV actress Jane Seymour, Mötley Crüe drummer and co-founder Tommy Lee, and boxer Sugar Shane Mosley.

Seymour, a guest of Forrest and Charlotte Lucas, felt the full sensory experience of a Top Fuel launch from a stand set up between the two lanes just behind the Christmas tree. After her up-close-and-personal encounter with drag racing’s most extreme class, the British actress whose many credits include her stint as a “Bond Girl” in James Bond films, said, “I have tears still running down my cheeks. It’s hard to breathe. It was exhilarating . . . exciting . . . a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”     

Lee has been familiar with drag racing from the early days of his heavy metal band. Years ago, Adria Force liked Mötley Crüe and took her reluctant father, John Force, to see a concert. He didn’t share her enthusiasm, just didn’t fully embrace the style. Later a promoter trying to help Force get some exposure for his budding Funny Car career hooked Force up, through a series of deals, with the band for a gig at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. He had his cars onstage and years later laughed about how the aborted plan was to fire up the engine for a truly over-the-top experience for the crowd. He said the notion of toxic fumes hadn’t crossed his mind and shuddered that he came close to asphyxiating Mötley Crüe before it had the chance to become famous. Even Force thought the moment was a wild one – and said he put his foot down when the band wanted to beat on the Funny Car with their guitars.   

Pro boxer and three-class word champion Sugar Shane Mosely, who grew up in Pomona, absorbed the sensory punch of nitro-powered race cars Saturday. “This is amazing. Man . . . unbelievable,” he said. Mosley won titles in the light middleweight, welterweight, and lightweight classes.

FRIDAY - VIRAL-VIDEO STAR LANGDON SEES PROMISE, GRUBNIC IN TUNING GROOVE, TORRENCE HAS AMMO, A.J. A-OK, SCHUMACHER STRONG ONCE AGAIN, McMILLEN HAS GREAT DAY AT TRACK, LUCAS ACQUIRES TASTE FOR MICRO-SEASONS, PEDREGON RELIES ON ‘FRANKENSTEIN,’ CAPPS LOVES WINTERNATIONALS, WORSHAM KNOWS VINTAGE FUNNY CARS, WILL YEAR OF MONKEY COULD BE LUCKY FOR LAUGHLIN, HARTFORD LATE AND PAYS FOR IT, McGAHA EXHAUSTED BUT NOT SHOWING SIGNS OF IT, DRIVERS WELCOME FOX SPORTS, SEMA CHALLENGES EPA PROPOSAL, INDY CAR HAS PRESENCE AT POMONA

TOP FUEL

LANGDON SEES PROMISE – Thanks to a video posted on Don Schumacher Racing Facebook’s page, more than one million people have some idea of what Shawn Langdon experiences in a 1,000-foot run in the Red Fuel / Sandvik Coromant Dragster.

Langdon himself isn’t quite sure what he’ll encounter at this first race on the 2016 Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule. But he has pretty strong idea, based on his test sessions last week at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, near Phoenix. He made it down the track an estimated “75 percent of the time.” That might sound like his data was incomplete. But for the Todd Okuhara-Phil Shuler-led team, that meant a fantastically productive preseason warm-up.

“We were able to gather a lot of information and data that we'll be able to use at the first two races of the year,” Langdon said. Moreover, he said, “One of the runs we had a cylinder out downtrack, but by our calculations, that would've been our quickest elapsed time to date. That shows a lot of hope and promise."

The team’s best clocking was a 3.733-second pass at 313 mph during the four-day test session. What’s more, Langdon sat out most of one day to allow ambitious young Troy Coughlin Jr. the chance to finish his Top Fuel licensing procedure.

Langdon said, "The team did a lot of homework in the offseason. They looked at a lot of things that they gathered throughout the past year.” It was a year in which Countdown-qualified Langdon became the third driver for that team when Alan Johnson Racing parked their Toyota/Knuckle Sandwich car. Spencer Massey drove it until the U.S. Nationals, then Khalid alBalooshi filled the seat at that race. Langdon joined the team at the start of the six-race playoffs – and won the season finale here in November to finish sixth in the standings.   

“They've tried to put a lot of focus on improving the chassis, the tune-ups, everything. There were a lot of changes that we made, and we were very happy with the progress of it all,” Langdon said.

He hopes that will give him a fourth overall victory at his home track here.

That viral video from www.facebook.com/shoeracing shows a driver’s perspective of a Top Fuel run. And it can do nothing but enhance the NHRA’s push to expose more people to the sport and get tem excited enough to follow it consistently.

"It's pretty cool that so many people enjoyed that video," Langdon said. "The video was a great example of what a driver goes through for a run. When I hit the throttle the video blurs a bit and then gets clearer as I go down track, and that's exactly how it is when I make a lap. When I deploy the ’chutes, it gets a bit blurry again and then clears back up. It's such an adrenaline rush, and I think the video captures every bit of that."

 

TESTING PROVES GRUBNIC ON RIGHT TRACK – Many fans who watch testing sessions, such as last week’s PRO-sponsored preseason warm-up at Phoenix, understand that a partial pass is not necessarily a disappointment or a failure. One strong example is that of Clay Millican and the Parts Plus/Great Clips Dragster from Stringer Performance.

Second-year crew chief Dave Grubnic had planned had aborted runs – early shutoffs of the engine – for almost the whole week of testing, to try various scenarios with their new tuning set-up. Millican pulled stout incremental clockings from the car each day. Their lone run Saturday also was a planned early shutoff just past half-track, but it turned out to register 3.739 seconds at 280.89 mph. That was the quickest E.T. for most of last Saturday, until Brittany Force brought the Monster Energy Dragster to life with a 3.721-second, 319.07-mph pass.

Millican said after that run of his, “We called [owner] Doug Stringer, and he gave us the OK to make a ‘hero run. It was going the quickest that I’ve ever been until it broke a blower belt that had too many runs on it. It was an unbelievably great run. The best part is that we didn’t hurt a part all week.”

The West Tennessee native’s career-bests are 3.729 seconds (set here at Auto Club Raceway last November in the closing race of the year) and 327.27 (which hasn’t changed since the 2013 event at Norwalk, which Millican knows like the back of his hand from his days compiling six consecutive IHRA Top Fuel championships.)

The Stringer Performance team has two new crew hands, Nick Falcon and Matt Covault. Paul Elliot and David Wheeler have come onboard to help execute Stringer’s vision of an improved hospitality experience.

TORRENCE HAS AMMO – With a new chassis beneath him, a legendary tuner beside him and a new sponsor behind him, Steve Torrence understandably has high expectations for this season. Returning to collaborate on how to set up his new Morgan Lucas Racing dragster are veteran crew chief Richard Hogan and industry standard Alan Johnson, who has forged an alliance for the Capco Contractors Inc. team with John Force Racing. Added to the avid outdoorsman’s arsenal this year is Texas-based sponsor Rio Ammunition, a global leader in the manufacturing of shotgun ammunition for the military, law enforcement, and sporting markets.

Torrence, whose career-best numbers settled at 3.717 seconds, 329.99 mph by last November’s visit here at Pomona, tested last week at Phoenix with elapsed times of 3.739 seconds twice, 3.729, 3.731, 3.750, and 3.753. That, noted his public-relations representative, Dave Densmore, has to include him with the other Top Fuel racers in “the 3.60 second, 330 mile-an-hour sweepstakes that has become NHRA Top Fuel racing.”

Said Torrence, “Two years ago, 3.75 was a stout number. Last year, you had to run low 3.70s to be a player. This year, it’s going to be 3.60s. The price of poker keeps going up.”

During preseason testing at Wild Horse Pass Motorports Park, he figured to be on career-best 3.60-second pass. It ended up being a 3.739. But after that, a happy Torrence said, “We didn't even go all the way to the end. I clicked it at about 700-750 feet, but it (still) went 2.96 to half-track. This new chassis is working wonders for us, and I can’t wait to start racing for real. My team worked their tails off all winter to get this car going. I'm glad all of this hard work is coming to fruition.

“Last fall, we brought Alan in to give Richard and Bobby [Lagana] another set of eyes,” he said.  “Those guys are friends, and they’ve worked together before. So it really worked out for us.  It was hard not to get excited once we were able to put all the pieces in place for the season.”

Then Torrence invited Johnson on board for the Countdown last year. Johnson also is a consultant to Brian Husen, crew chief for Brittany Force on the Monster Energy Dragster. The arrangement is convenient, physically, for Torrence shares shop space with John Force Racing at Brownsburg, Ind. Torrence calls it “an informal strategic alliance,” designed to enhance performance for both teams by data exchange.

“We’re still racing rivals,” Torrence said of Brittany Force, “but this is a way for both teams to get extra data which you really need to compete for the championship against [the multi-team operations of] [Don] Schumacher, [Connie] Kalitta, and [Bob] Vandergriff.”

He’ll start by trying to improve his 4-6 elimination-round record in the Winternationals. Last year he survived the first round but exited in the quarterfinals. In 2014, he qualified sixth here and reached the semifinals. So Torrence is aiming for uncharted territory this time. And helping him take aim is Rio Ammunition.

“I’m excited to be representing Rio Ammunition,” Torrence said. “One of the things I really enjoy outside of racing is shooting, whether it’s deer, birds, or skeet.  So it’s a good fit for me personally and for our program.  Plus, it’s another East Texas company so that just makes it a natural fit for us. We’ve been looking the past several years for a company we could partner with. Rio Ammunition is perfect because they believe in building for the long term and building from the ground up, just like we do.  Together, we are committed to the growth of both of our brands.”

Torrence and his family are from Kilgore, Texas. Rio Ammunition is headquartered at Marshall, TX.

Rio Ammunitions inventory is available at most distributors of outdoor gear and sporting equipment in every market in which Torrence will be competing this season. In addition to its new involvement in racing, Rio also has begun a conservation partnership with Delta Waterfowl and is the sponsor of numerous youth and college shooting competitions and gun safety programs.

“We’ve been working with the Torrence team for several months to finalize this partnership and couldn’t be more excited about our future together,” said Patrick Thomas, national sales manager for Rio Ammunition. “After spending significant time with them, it was very apparent to us that the Torrence Racing family, and to a greater extent the CAPCO Contractor team as a whole, operates by a mutually shared set of values for which both our brands are known. With their being from East Texas and with the natural correlation between the racing fan bases and the shooting sports markets, this partnership made complete sense to us from every angle. We couldn’t be more excited about the beginning of our partnership, starting with this weekend’s race in Pomona.”

Torrence said, “I’m proud that we can introduce Rio, a non-automotive company, to Mello Yello drag racing. There are a lot of shooters and enthusiasts in our sport, which is good for Rio. And I think there are a lot of potential drag-racing fans in Rio’s customer base, which is good for the sport.  It’s a win-win deal.”

Now all that’s left is for Torrence to do is, well, win.

A.J. IS A-OK – So how’s that Alan Johnson alliance working out so far? Pretty darn well, if Friday’s qualifying is any indicator. Brittany Force, in the Monster Energy Dragster, blasted to the top of the provisional qualifying order with the lone 3.7-second pass (at 3.794). And Steve Torrence, her data-sharing partner, followed in the tentative No. 2 position at 3.815 seconds.

LOOK OUT FOR SCHUMACHER – Tony Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster have become celebrated for pulling off improbable victories and championships. That didn’t happen last season, although the eight-time titlist finished second in the standings, leaving Don Schumacher Racing the spoils. Schumacher and Brown have combined to earn the last two Top Fuel championships and three of the last four. Two of those have been Brown’s. But in preseason testing at Phoenix, Schumacher made a loud-and-clear statement for his chances to grab a ninth crown.

He reeled off a 3.683-second elapsed time at 325.37 mph last Friday at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park that was topped the class’ three-day charts by more than three-hundredths of a second. He backed it up with another blast at 3.718, 320.58 mph later that day. Both runs surpassed Schumacher’s official career-best E.T. – 3.719 seconds from the first round of eliminations last May at Heartland Park Topeka. It also came within two-thousandths of a second of Brown’s official national E.T. record 3.680, set last August at Brainerd (Minn.) International Raceway.

That Nitro Spring Training workout – relocated back to Phoenix after several year at Jupiter, Fla., on an IHRA-sanctioned track the NHRA tour never visits – oddly was Schumacher’s first test since he competed here at Pomona in November.

“It has been a long, long time – many years – since we’ve gone as long without running a car down the racetrack,” he said. “We ended in Pomona and haven’t been in a car since then. Usually, in early December we head out to West Palm Beach and test. This year, it’s just a different world. We decided we would start things at Phoenix. Ultimately, it was a great call, because we don’t race at West Palm, as good as that track is. So we got out there at Phoenix and got after it, and I think we have more than enough laps to be able to go out and race. I’ve enjoyed the time off to be with family and friends, but it’s time to go racing.

“As for our success at the Phoenix test,” he said, “sometimes you try new stuff and nothing works, but it was running fast with new parts and a lot of new people working on it. It’s pretty cool getting to work with some new crew guys that used to be adversaries on other teams. The test went well, and now we’re ready to do it for real.”

Schumacher has adopted the theory that “it’s going to come down to winning the most important races, which are the six Countdown races at the end of the year.”

But he qualified that, saying “I don’t think most of us start out trying to be conservative at the start of the season. Most of us go out and try and go fast right off the bat, especially the way the rules are set up and the way the schedule is set up. You don’t have to win the first bunch of races – you have to win the last six. So we’re going to hit it hard and figure it out at the beginning of the season and do a lot of testing right away. We’re going to start figuring out what our end-of-the-year combination is going to be because, early in the season, the conditions are most like they are at the end of the season. We race in Pomona and in Vegas at the beginning of the year, and we also go back to those places at the end of the season. So, we’ve got to find those tune-ups as quickly as we can so we can try and close the season with wins at those places. To win the championship, you have to win at the end of the season.”

‘MICRO SEASONS’ SUIT LUCAS – The Circle K Winternationals is the first of seven races in which Morgan Lucas plans to compete in Top Fuel this season. He plans to enter the events at Gainesville, Fla.; Sonoma, Calif.; Brainerd, Minn.; Indianapolis; the second Las Vegas race; and at the season finale back here at Pomona.

Lucas has scaled back from a fulltime driver to immerse himself in the day-to-day operations of Lucas Oil, his parents’ business, and to build his family. He and wife Katie have a son, Hunter, and are expecting a second little boy in May. But the 32-year-old said, “This year, we're going to try to take it a little more seriously. We went testing with the car and tried to get some things ironed out before we start the season. That way we're a better benefit to Richie and the full-time team. We learned a lot, and it's going to give us good stuff to be competitive.

"My excitement level is the same as it's been the last couple of years,” he said. “I like to be consistent. I'm not a big fan of dramatic change if I don't have to have it. These little 'micro seasons' are fun. They're exciting and it makes you appreciate getting to drive the car that much more."

He has won here twice, a feather in his cap in front of the Lucas Oil Products employees from headquarters at nearby Corona, Calif. Born in Southern Indiana but raised in California, Lucas said, "It's always fun to win one of the bookend races. Pomona has a lot of heritage. It's right down the street from Glendora, and it sounds cliché but it's the truth: So much of the history of the sport of drag racing is built right into that racetrack. Hopefully, we can continue to make our own mark on the history books."
 

FUNNY CAR

PEDREGON JAZZED – Cruz Pedregon is a serious racer who seldom gets giddy. But he said he has been especially energized, anticipating the start of his 29th season of drag racing. “I always look forward to the start of the racing season, but it’s been years since I’ve been this enthusiastic about what’s ahead for the drivers, teams and fans of the sport,” he said.

“We’ve got more live shows on a new TV network. I’m thrilled for my brother Tony, who I’ve grown up racing with, and his move out of the pit beside me to become a commentator. And we’ve got a lot of really good things going on with the team, our sponsors and the car,” the Snap-on Toyota Camry driver said.

The two-time Funny Car champion said his car was a decent one last season but lacked what he called “that killer instinct.” However, he said he was pleased with his preseason testing results: “After using Phoenix to test all the work we did on the Snap-on Toyota in the off season, it’s clear we’ve got a car that’s going to give us what we want this year. The testing we just completed allowed the team to really come together and learn to work with the new things we implemented during the off season,” Cruz said. “We got a good 4.008 run out of our work in Phoenix, and I’m confident we’re ready to go.”

Working on his new chassis with a crisp, new white-on-red paint scheme for the body are Pedregon’s new crew members Jacob Chan, Duane Doffing, and Alex Eherenman. Donnie Bender is the crew chief, who has to contend with “Juan Mota,” Pedregon’s storied tuning alter ego. Chris “Warrior” Kullberg returns as car chief.

The car Pedregon rolled out here this weekend has a hybrid body, of sorts, that he calls “Frankenstein” – to complement his “El Guapo” (The Handsome One), El Chingon (The Badass), and Scarface versions. Half of this primary car comes from the one in which brother Tony Pedregon rode out an engine explosion at the 2013 Winternationals. The other half of the car was from his own that he wrecked in 2013 at Phoenix.  The fused product, he said, is his lightest body in stock.

WINTERNATIONALS HAS SPECIAL PLACE IN CAPPS’ HEART – Ron Capps is the second most successful racer in Funny Car history with 44 victories. A 45th – from here at Auto Club Raceway – would be special for the driver who grew up in San Luis Obispo as the son of drag-racing parents and lives in Carlsbad, near San Diego.

"I always brag about the Winternationals,” the NAPA Dodge driver for Don Schumacher Racing said, “because it's more than a race at my home track growing up in California. All you have to say is 'It's the Winternationals at Pomona.' It's always been an exciting time, a fresh race to come to, whether you're a racer or a fan. Everybody has new paint schemes, brand new parts, and everyone is well rested. All the guys on our NAPA team are ready to get back after it and have that feeling of competition again."

This 56th edition of the Winternationals could produce Capps’ third season-opening victory. He won here in 1998 and 2009 and was runner-up four times (2015, 2013, 2010, 2006). But last year he didn’t make it out of the first round. "You should be happy about getting to the finals, but you hardly remember those times," Capps said. "I'm just another sports fan, and we usually only remember who won."

He said at last week’s testing at Phoenix, “we tested a lot of new parts, and [crew chief Rahn] Tobler was only having me go to halftrack on our early runs," he said. "We ran good throughout the week and ended on a high note." He was referring to his 3.919-second, 320.66-mph Saturday pass. "We got everything accomplished that Tobler wanted. Most importantly for me was seeing what Tobler, [assistant crew chief Eric Lane], and the NAPA guys accomplished with improving the steering.

"We saw during the last half of last year that as hard and as quick as the Funny Cars were running, they were becoming a bigger handful to drive,” Capps said. “They have done as much as they could to help me better steer this NAPA Dodge when it wants to run in the 3.80s – and we're going to be seeing a lot of those runs this year."

WORSHAM ENJOYS PAST, PRESENT AS HE EYES FUTURE – Worsham, who clinched his 2015 Funny Car championship here three months ago, is a marvelous ambassador for the NHRA’s 50 years of Funny Car racing. He’s well-versed in the history of the class, and he recounted some of the iconic Funny Cars have stood out to him through the years.

“As a kid, I was a fan of the Blue Max, Army, and Super Shops cars, but as I got older, the Budweiser King definitely stood out,” Worsham said.

“Since I began driving, three of my rides have burned their way into my memory: my first Funny Car that I was able to drive to a win in Atlanta for the 1991 Southern Nationals, my 2004-2005 Checker, Schuck's and Kragen (CSK) machine due to the amount of success that I was able to achieve in that car, and then my 2015 DHL Toyota Camry,” he said.

“It was already iconic and this championship definitely gives it a place in history,” Worsham said, paying respects to the late Scott Kalitta, who drove the DHL Toyota and whose name remains on the car today. “I think Funny Cars that have stood out in my mind are the ones that have had success. They ran hard and won races and championships.”

Like only Bernstein and Gary Scelzi before him, Worsham has a Top Fuel title, as well. His next feat would be to score back-to-back championships.

“I am ready,” he said. “I feel as excited as I did in 1991, just starting out. I did not defend my 2011 championship, so it will be exciting to run the No. 1 and go out and try to defend our title.

“I definitely took some time and enjoyed (the championship), but we are always focused on the task at hand. My crew is entirely the same as it was for the 2015 championship run, and they have continued to work hard. Led by Jon Oberhofer, Nicky Boninfante, and Dave Boyer, these guys have put in the hours to make sure we do not come into Pomona behind because we know our competition worked hard in the offseason to try to defeat us.”

When qualifying got under way Friday, only Robert Hight and Courtney Force clocked quicker passes. His 3.973-second elapsed time was third, as Hight led the field with a 3.942 and Force was seven-thousandths of a second behind.

Worsham values a team that has continued to stay intact. That camaraderie and stability has proven invaluable, and Worsham doesn’t take that for granted: “It is amazing.  I have the same group as last year, and it just speaks to what [team owner] Connie Kalitta has built. The team is like a family, and I feel extremely lucky to drive the DHL Toyota Camry.”

 

PRO STOCK

NO MONKEYING AROUND – The Chinese lunar New Year celebration began this past Monday, kicking off “The Year of the Monkey,” according to the Chinese Zodiac. And Pro Stock driver Alex Laughlin, driver of the Gas Monkey Energy Chevrolet Camaro, isn’t monkeying around as he joins Richard Rawlings’ popular and expanding Gas Monkey Garage empire.

The 27-year-old Pro Stock novice from Bluffdale, Texas, announced his connection to the worldwide Gas Monkey Garage brand in January at Dallas. That’s when Rawlings unveiled his Gas Monkey Energy drink promotion with three motorsports teams – Laughlin Motorsports in the NHRA, Viper Exchange in IMSA, and IRL’s Dreyer & Reinbold - Kingdom Racing for the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

(Gas Monkey Energy, an innovative beverage with a light, sweet honey taste, will be produced in two flavors, Regular and Zero, and will be packaged in a 16-ounce specially designed can. A special promotion for “Gas Monkey Energy” initially will come online this month, and the first wave distribution is set for Texas and the eastern half of the U.S.  A second wave will come later in 2016 for the rest of the western half of the country.)

Laughlin has seven Pro Stock appearances, but he’s a veteran in motorsports. He began competing in go-karts when he was nine years old. He moved to Legends cars and finally drag racing, in the NHRA’s Top Dragster class. Pro Mod builder Brandon McKinney was the one he said “got me hooked on drag racing,” although Laughlin’s father, Kenny, races in Comp Eliminator at selected NHRA events.

Through McKinney he met Rawlings and master mechanic/fabricator Aaron Kaufman at Gas Monkey Garage through the people at 360 Wraps. Said Laughlin, “They wanted to run in the Pro Stock class in NHRA. So we are very excited to run the entire 2016 NHRA Mello Yello campaign.”

Laughlin has gotten comfortable on ovals and road courses and said switching to a Sportsman-level dragster was neither traditional nor natural. But he said he had gotten a lot of help from

Johnny Gray and the Gray Motorsports operation.

“The Grays build our motors, too. It’s a major adjustment to move into the Pro Stocker. Just the staging and burnout process can be very difficult. Then driving with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the shifter the entire track is a wild experience. But I’m doing pretty well in the learning curve,” Laughlin said.

He made his Pro Stock debut last July at Sonoma, Calif., and competed in six more events, including the November 2015 Auto Club Finals here at Pomona. Despite an impressive 13th-place start in a weekly buzzsaw of a class, he said he was a little bit anxious to come downstate to Pomona. He said his jitters had less to with the history of the facility than its configuration.

“I’ll admit I was nervous last November coming to Pomona for the first time. There was a short shutdown area, and I wasn’t sure I could get the car stopped in time. But after the first pass, it was just another track for me. I’m anxious to race in my first Winternationals in a Pro Stock,” he said before making his first of four allowed qualifying attempts Friday.

“The move into the Pro Stock class felt a little crazy at first,” Laughlin said. “I had absolutely zero experience in the car before the Sonoma race. I had driven a lot of things, and you have to just start getting to where you can slow everything down. Then you actually process what you are doing one step at a time. But now I have been able to gain the needed experience for 2016.”

Rawlings said and Laughlin is aware that the Gas Monkey Garage brand is strong, and Rawlings predicted even before the car rolled off the trailer that “Alex and the Gas Monkey Garage Pro Stock Camaro will be a crowd favorite this year.”

Laughlin has a lot of promote with Rawlings, including Rawlings’ cable-TV show “Fast N Loud” that airs on the Discovery Channel. “It’s great to have the following with Gas Monkey Garage and their new energy drink,” he said. “You know that the Fast N Loud show is one of the top cable shows in the world. The show is in over 200 countries and in 38 languages, so people come from everywhere to see the car in action. Now I want to put in a good performance for Richard, Aaron, and all of the Gas Monkey Garage folks.”

McGAHA TIRED BUT NOT SHOWING SIGNS OF IT – If Chris McGaha should win the Pro Stock final round at this year’s Winternationals, he definitely will want someone to hand him the Wally trophy – which would be his fourth overall. He might also want to receive a pillow and blanket.

“I can’t even tell you the last time I had a day off to just do nothing. The off-season was brutal,” the Odessa, Texas, racer said.

That breakout 2015 season only motivated him to jump back into the shop and get his Harlow Sammons Chevrolet Camaro in compliance with all the new Pro Stock rules the NHRA has ordered, starting this year. McGaha builds his own engines and supplies motors to fellow Pro Stock competitors Joey Grose and Deric Kramer.

He said, “Testing went good. Actually, it went better than expected, because we hadn’t been down the track besides a few burnouts until we got there. The car is definitely different to drive with the fuel injection on there, but I can see myself and others taking to it very quickly. It’s just a matter of getting used to it.”
 
It looks like he has already. McGaha opened qualifying by taking the early No. 3 spot in the order, behind tentative leader Bo Butner and Butner’s KB/Summit Racing teammate Jason Line. McGaha ran a 6.641-second pass, .035 of a second off Butner’s early pace.

Said McGaha, “My first goal for 2016 is to win a race on fuel injection. We’ll try to win on fuel injection first and then try win another. And then if you start stacking ‘em up, the Championship will come to you.”

 

OF GENERAL INTEREST

 

DRIVERS WELCOME TO NHRA FAMILY– The enhanced TV schedule features live coverage of Sunday’s elimination rounds at 17 of the 24 events this season and 500 hours of total coverage on its family of networks. Sunday’s elimination rounds from Auto Club Raceway at Pomona will be carried live on the FS1 channel from 5 to 8 p.m. (EST), with additional delayed coverage of Friday and Saturday qualifying rounds each night.

And the pro-class drivers have offered their support and co-operation.

Tony Schumacher, eight-time Top Fuel champion, said the switch from longtime carrier ESPN “was necessary. As good as ESPN was to us, we weren’t getting the love. And our sport is too darned good. It’s my favorite sport, and there’s been a need to take it to the world live every single chance we get to. We’re going to be on live TV most of the time with our new TV deal, which is the way it should be.

“You wouldn’t watch a poker game if you knew the outcome ahead of time, because it’d bore you to death. It’s the same thing with drag racing. You can’t not know what’s going on after seeing it all over social media in real-time. In the old days, maybe you could get away with it but, now with social media, it was impossible to not know what happened by the time you saw it on TV,” Schumacher said.

“The FOX network is also going to bring us exciting, new people. We need that. We need new people who come in and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.’ We kind of lost that after a while and it wasn’t getting much better,” he said. “We’ve got the greatest sport in the world, and I think we need to let people know that.”

Two-time Funny Car champion Matt Hagan said, "It's an exciting time for the sport. There's a lot of changes, and it's going to be neat to see the fan response this year. Our guys are really going to have to be on top of it for all of these live events, and that brings a whole different element into it that I think the fans will really enjoy."

NHRA President Peter Clifford has assured that the sanctioning body took safety considerations and the quality of the show for the TV audience (and on-site fans alike) when setting a 55-minute turnaround time between elimination rounds. And Alexis DeJoria, one of Hagan’s competitors in the Funny Car class, echoed most of their colleagues in saying that doesn’t pose any concern.

“No, it doesn’t,” she said, “because I’ve seen my guys turn the car around in 35 minutes. They can do it.”

Even without hurry-up servicing, cars have been known to have problems even at the starting line – for example, Doug Herbert’s engine detonation here at the Finals one year, Robert Hight’s exploding tire  during qualifying at Seattle another year, and the mishap at Indianapolis with Tony Pedregon’s car that injured crew chief Dickie Venables. And, of course, plenty of teams have had downtrack concussions and fires that showed the crew could have benefited from extra prep time. But, DeJoria said, “Things are a lot safer today. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but because of those certain situations, we have more safety things implemented in our cars. Hopefully we won’t go down that road again.”

Two-time and reigning Pro Stock champion Erica Enders said she’s excited that the FOX team will be presenting behind-the-scenes activity and explaining some of the sport’s technology.

“I think that makes it definitely more interesting for the fan,” she said. “I know I enjoy that aspect of it, watching NASCAR on TV, that they go and show you the technical side of things and explain things as to what's going on. I enjoy that aspect of it, so hopefully we're able to teach the fans more and show them more about where we come from and what we're made of.”

FOX, through cross-promotion, has boosted interest in NHRA drag racing more than any other network with which the sport has been associated.

Last week DeJoria and current Top Fuel champion Antron Brown attended the Monster Energy AMA Supercross race at Phoenix, promoting the straightline sport on TV. They were on live, in the booth, encouraging viewers to tune into FOX’s Winternationals coverage.

Before that, Funny Car’s Ron Capps appeared in a live interview at the Supercross opener at Anaheim, Calif. "That will be a whole new feel on top of everything the Winternationals has offered in the past," Capps told the TV audience. "It's a brand new era for NHRA Mello Yello drag racing."

SEMA CHALLENGES EPA PROPOSAL – SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Market Association, alarmed the motorsports industry this week, informing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation that sounds like it could spell trouble for auto racing in America.

In a prepared statement, SEMA said the EPA’s proposal would “prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into race cars.  The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles—Phase 2.”

Terry Blount, vice-president of public relations & communications, said Friday, “NHRA is aware of these proposed regulations, and we’re keeping our eyes on the situation. But it’s our understanding that this does not effect on-track racing.”

According to SEMA, “The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track.  While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles, it is clear that vehicles built or modified for racing, and not used on the streets, are not the ‘motor vehicles’ that Congress intended to regulate.”

SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting said, "This proposed regulation represents overreaching by the agency, runs contrary to the law, and defies decades of racing activity where EPA has acknowledged and allowed conversion of vehicles. Congress did not intend the original Clean Air Act to extend to vehicles modified for racing and has re-enforced that intent on more than one occasion."

SEMA has legally objected to the regulation and has met with the EPA to confirm the agency’s intentions.  The SEMA statement said, “The EPA indicated that the regulation would prohibit conversion of vehicles into race cars and make the sale of certain emissions-related parts for use on converted vehicles illegal.  Working with other affected organizations, including those representing legions of professional and hobbyist racers and fans, SEMA will continue to oppose the regulation through the administrative process and will seek Congressional support and judicial intervention as necessary.
The EPA has indicated it expects to publish final regulations by July 2016.”

SEMA represents the $36 billion specialty automotive industry of 6,633 member-companies. It is the authoritative source for research, data, trends, and market-growth information for the specialty auto parts industry.

INDY CAR STARS WATCH STRAIGHTLINE RACING – IndyCar Series drivers James Hinchcliffe, Josef Newgarden, and Conor Daly are in Toronto, promoting the "Indy 500: The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" exhibit at the Canadian International Auto Show and taking in some of the NBA All-Star Game festivities.

Meanwhile, two of them spent the day at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, watching drag racing. Recently retired Dario Franchitti attended as a guest of Funny Car driver Chad Head, who used to be IndyCar’s Director of Operations. For Graham Rahal, it was a family reunion that brought him here. He’s married to Courtney Force, who’s from Yorba Linda in Southern California, and he got to see her take the tentative No. 2 qualifying spot.

Just as the NHRA pros tested for this season-opener near Phoenix (at Chandler), so did IndyCar drivers as they prepared for the March 13 start of their 2016 schedule. Chevrolet conducted a test Monday at Phoenix International Raceway, at Avondale, with six drivers. Two days later, Chevrolet ran six drivers through the paces at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California, while three Honda drivers were testing at Auto Club Speedway at Fontana, Calif. Just down the highway from Pomona. All Verizon IndyCar Series teams will participate in a two-day open test at PIR later this month.