NHRA MILE HIGH NATIONALS - EVENT NOTEBOOK
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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK - SUNDAY NOTEBOOK – SHOCK AND AWE DRAG RACING STYLE; WILKERSON BAR FIGHT AND GREG ANDERSON “MOUNTAIN MAN”
SHOCK AND AWE – Rev-limiters can’t stop him.
Rule changes don’t even come close.
The last hope the Top Fuel field had of slowing down Tony Schumacher was 1,000-foot drag racing and that obstacle only proved nothing more than a hiccup.
“You’re clicking at four tenths of a second earlier, that’s it,” Schumacher said. “Getting the car to go down the track, it’s not like we’re spinning down there at 1000 foot. The rev limiter has cost us some races…when our rev limiter comes in and we get passed at the end, we’re not going to see that now. Coming in [to the race] I said thousand-foot would be to our advantage and a couple of other guys.”
Schumacher easily sent former U.S. Army teammate Antron Brown to the showers with a 4.007 elapsed time at 304.07 miles per hour.
He admitted the thousand foot course took some getting used to after years of running the quarter-mile.
“You know the only thing you see down there are cones,” Schuamcher said. “I think they moved the cones at the quarter-mile out so you don’t see them, it’s not like we know where we are shutting off and I was a little worried about that. If you had more cones at the quarter-mile, if you were going to move those, you have a real tendency to start judging what cones to shut off at and you start looking at them and looking at them. So you drive over there.”
Schumacher’s legendary tuner Alan Johnson never mentioned a thing to him about the cones. His only advice was to hold on tightly early in the run.
“He said ‘Hey man this thing has to leave as hard as it can leave so that when it hit’s the part that is hot it already has momentum,” Schumacher said. “What are you going to do? Second guess him?”
Schumacher’s Top Fuel final round represented the 78th of his career and 8th of this season. The five-time world champion clinched his berth into the Countdown to the Championship two weeks ago and thus far is the only driver to do such.
A REAL RIVALRY – Schumacher looks forward to building a rivalry with Brown. His Denver victory marks his fourth win over Brown in five races during the 2008 season.
“He makes me sit up in the seat and drive hard,” Schumacher admitted. “He’s going to have some tough lessons coming up, I think. He hasn’t had it really hot yet where the car is smoking on every run but he’s a great driver…he will catch on fast. He’s just got to go through the same thing we all went through and that’s just experience. He listens well….he makes the right calls, you know…he knows who to listen to and what advice to take and what to leave aside.
“If it’s me and him at the end battling it out, I’d be proud to have him as my adversary down there. Now that’s a rival.”
Essentially Schumacher is throwing out the drag racing version of “shock & awe” early in the 2008 season. He’s gone 15 races without a first round loss dating back to last season. His previous streak was 17 races.
“This is unbelievable,” Schumacher said. “As your career goes different things happen at different times. I always said my 13 years of racing have not been decided on the starting line. It has been decided by big moments and last year we’d have a car that would smoke the tires as we did in Chicago, as we did in Englishtown but the other guy wouldn‘t and that’s just bad luck. This year we are having the good luck and I just think it goes around and equals itself out.”
Schumacher’s victory marked the 110th for Don Schumacher Racing.
WHAT A ROOKIE SEASON – Brown may not be eligible to win the NHRA’s Rookie of the Year award, but his peers know he’s doing well for a freshman driver.
Brown really wanted to win that final round with Schumacher.
“Man, that was a tough one to lose, but it was a great weekend for our Matco Tools team,” Brown said. “It’s tough racing up here on the mountain, but Bandimere Speedway is an awesome facility. We wanted to win this one for Lee Beard being his hometown race track and we came close. Tony (Schumacher) and that Army team are awesome. They motivate us to keep working harder and that’s what we’re going to do. It was a great start to the Western Swing and we’re going to try and get one round further at Seattle next Sunday.”
Brown has won two events thus far in his rookie season in four final rounds.
NOT HAPPY – Rod Fuller’s new t-shirts worn by himself and the crew at the Mopar Big Block party went over as well as flatulence at the dinner table. The controversial shirts in question portrayed a circus monkey image holding a glow stick. On the back, “Welcome to the Dark Side” was emblazoned brightly in reference to his jab at Don Schumacher Racing earlier this year.
Both sides were in reference to jawing between Fuller and current world champion Tony Schumacher.
One might think the greater offense was taken by the Schumacher camp, but such was apparently not the case.
David Powers Motorsports crew chief Lee Beard, who tunes the Matco Tools dragster piloted by Antron Brown, according to sources, didn’t take too kindly to the joke. According to sources, the shirts were done unbeknownst to the upper management at DPM.
The issue remained mum for the most part throughout the weekend. When NHRA top end announcer Alan Reinhart asked Schumacher a question as to whether the final round match would be a battle between rivals, the floodgates were opened.
“They’ve got a little turmoil in the middle, and Lee Beard wasn’t too happy with those t-shirts,” Schumacher said. “Antron is a great dude and he called me to tell me that he wasn’t a part of that [the t-shirt]. I know that for a fact because he was my teammate. He has a lot of class.
“Just because those guys are teammates you can’t classify them the same way. They’re tough. They show us respect and we show them respect.”
OUCH – Top Fuel Bob Vandergriff Jr. fired a salvo into the supposed Schumacher and Fuller rivalry.
After his first round win, Vandergriff added, “I need to get up there [in points] to catch up with Tony Schumacher and Rod Fuller and get some of that action in the Midget Wrestling Association.”
MOUNTAIN DO – Tim Wilkerson admitted he entered the event fifty-percent worried about the debut of his new Murf McKinney
chassis.
The fifty percent of confidence made all the difference in the world. The fact he stopped worrying helped too.
“We were a little bit nervous of the chassis and I decided I just wasn’t going to over think this place. Usually I do, I’m usually like, “oh we have to do this and that at Denver….we didn’t do any of that. Came up here and looked at how we ran at Vegas, tweaked the thing a little bit. Went out there and stepped on the gas and it responded so I think before we really just over thought this place and we just really tried to have this power I knew I had to have.”
Wilkerson stopped defending event champion Jack Beckman in the final round and that proved a battle to the stripe. In fact, Wilkerson had many wars en route to that final.
He knocked out three of the four John Force Racing cars in the first three rounds of competition.
“Those guys are always tough and you know when you’re racing anything that says Force on it, it’s going to be tough but luckily for us like you said the Mustangs went one, two and three gone to the Impala, and that’s what we like to hear,” Wilkerson said.
Essentially, Wilkerson found the biggest team in the proverbial bar and knocked them out.
“No sense starting with the sissies,” admitted Wilkerson. “You’re going to get wore out quick might as well go after the big guy. I don’t know, that’s just the luck of the draw and there’s no good draws out there that’s a tough group…there’s what a tenth between the 10th and the 16th? That’s good racing and I think this 1000 foot is going to show you more than that.
“I had a good car from 1000 foot on. Now them guys…I think you’re going to see them picking on me now. But we’ll see.”
Wilkerson’s chassis had only one event on it and that was a match race in Eddyville, Iowa, the week prior. This weekend’s event marked the official implementation of the new Funny Car chassis design as required by the NHRA.
Wilkerson’s chassis is identical to the one utilized by Tony Pedregon, who qualified low in Denver and has won two of the last three events this season.
“That stinking thing goes right straight down through there,” Wilkerson said. “We were a little bit nervous coming into this weekend. I went and did a little match race last Saturday just to shake the car down and it worked out well. I don’t get too wound up about stuff like that.
“I’ll say I was about 50% worried about bringing it into here. Tony Pedregon’s guys and I talked to [Pedregon crew chief] Dickie Venables and he said man you’re going to love that new car. Boy I’m sure he regrets telling me that now but hopefully it’s a good western swing for us. We’re real excited about going the rest of the way; we’re excited about running 1000 feet at the next couple of race tracks.”
PAYBACK IS A MUTHA – Greg Anderson admitted Alan Johnson gave him an old fashioned spanking two weekends ago in 
Norwalk, Ohio, during the race-within-a-race, $50,000-to-win K&N Filters Horsepower Challenge. He returned the favor at Johnson’s sponsor’s race. The loss in Norwalk was also at Anderson’s sponsor’s race.
The victory marked the fourth consecutive victory in 2008 for the 56-time winner.
“We ended up spoiling his party, but it wasn’t easy,” Anderson said. “He beat me pretty bad in Norwalk but when I got in the car for the final round I didn’t think about that stuff. If you think about those kinds of things, you’ll lose focus and get beat. That’s the tough part of being a driver, racing your own race.”
Anderson left on Johnson and led him to the stripe with a 7.024 elapsed time at 196.39 miles per hour. Johnson gave a close battle with a 7.028, 195.79.
THE HOT TIP - Anderson bragged in the post qualifying press conference about the Bandimere racing surface. His opinion didn’t change in the post-race.
“I don’t want to get off the mountain now,” said Anderson. “I can’t say enough about what the Bandimere family has done for this race track. This track is the wave of the future and I think you’ll see other track do this. Everything they’ve done to this track has made it for the better. It got hot and the track never gave an inch. I look forward to coming back next season and I can’t say that I’ve always felt that way.”
Anderson believes if Bandimere Speedway were at sea level, it could easily be the quickest and fastest on the tour.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of tracks follow what the Bandimeres have done if they can find the finances and time to do it,” Anderson said. “They need to do that. I’ve always wondered what we could do to improve the heat factor on these tracks; we can’t put an awning over them. These guys have figured it out.
“We have a race next weekend and it will be completely different.”
LAID BACK AND WINNING – Funny thing happened to Matt Smith this season. He’s stopped working as hard and still wins.
The defending NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion captured his second win of the season in as many final rounds by stopping a determined Steve Johnson in the final round.
Smith wouldn’t say his lack of dominance as of late was due to the other teams catching up.
“We brought in the same tune-up we had here last year,” Smith said. “We kind of stopped our research and development program after Houston this year. It doesn’t seem like we can catch up because every time we do, we get slapped with weight.”
“I didn’t know if I had to get after him because we had been consistent all day,” Smith admitted. “I didn’t want to push the tree because I knew I had a fast bike.”
Smith added only one of the Suzuki teams are doing their homework.
“The Schumacher team is doing a good job with their team,” Smith admitted. “They have a lot of power but the other Suzuki teams just sit and wait for the NHRA to take the weight off so they can catch us. We’re just going to try and not work so hard and spend as much money. We’ll have to see if they take weight off of us.”
PLAYING THE GAME – Smith admitted he tried to reverse starting line tactics on Johnson in the final round.
“Steve is one of those guys who likes to stage first,” Smith admitted. “He likes to roll up there and double stage, then back up. I told myself that we were going to have fun today so I was going to race up there and beat him into the lights. I almost beat him in and double-bulbed. He got in there before I could.”
Smith still nailed Johnson with a .005 reaction and used the .038 starting line advantage to win easily with a 7.326 elapsed time at 180.74 miles per hour.
This victory marked his second consecutive Denver victory and eighth overall.
TEAM PLAY – The first three pairs of Top Fuel featured head-to-head battles amongst team cars. Doug Kalitta stopped Dave Grubnic to open the show and to also crown the first thousand foot round winner.
Morgan Lucas then got the best of J.R. Todd.
The quickest of the three pairs belonged to Antron Brown who recorded the first three-second run of the session to drive away from Hot Rod Fuller.
GLAD TO BE BACK – Peggy Llewellyn was so enthralled with her return to Pro Stock Motorcycle that she decided to hang around until the semi-finals.
Llewellyn, who qualified 15th, stopped Chip Ellis and Chris Rivas before losing a tough battle to defending world champion Matt Smith.
“I am so glad to be back out here,” Llewellyn said. “I have to thank the Rockland Motorsports team for giving me this chance. We knew this was going to be tough but my crew came together and made it happen.”
Llewellyn showed very little rust in her riding despite being sidelined for the first half of the season.
“It took a few passes to get back,” Llewellyn admitted. “We tested in Chicago, so it is all good.
YES, THEY’RE FAST. YES, YOU CAN BUY ONE – Mopar rolled out its Dodge Challenge drag racing package in grand style. After an unveiling on the starting line, drag racing icons “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Judy Lily squared off in a debut match race.
Lily snagged big on the starting line and appeared on her way to the win but Garlits caught her in the lights with an impressive “street legal” 11.248 elapsed time at 121.52 miles per hour. Lily had run a 7.114, 96.96 to the eighth mile.
The new Dodge Challengers will come equipped with either a 5.7 or 6.1 Hemi.
SCELZI SAYS GOOD JOB GOODYEAR – Gary Scelzi wasn’t the only driver singing the praises of Goodyear’s new D2550 nitro tire which was mandatory this weekend.
"This was the first time on the new Goodyear tires, and I don't think they've ever built a tire as good as the one we have now,” Scelzi said. “We're spinning the tire to the finish line, and there's not any shredding or chunking. They're round, they're balanced, they're fabulous. Kudos to Goodyear. They've done a great job and they need to be commended on it."
STAYING OVER – Pro Stock veteran Jeg Coughlin Jr. reached the quarter-finals of the event, and while he could have headed for home, he’s staying over in Denver for an important appointment.
Coughlin has a private tour of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in nearby Colorado Springs scheduled for Monday. NORAD is celebrating its 50th anniversary and Coughlin saluted the program with a special NORAD helmet design and logos on his racecar. He will present the helmet to Lieutenant General Charlie Bouchard of the Canadian Armed Forces, NORAD's Deputy Commander, for placement in NORAD's extensive museum.
"I'm really excited to see the inside of that place," Coughlin said. "I've heard it's awesome. It's an honor to be invited."
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - COOLING SYSTEM IS A HIT; CORY MAC SET TOP FUEL MARK
RACERS PRAISE COOLING SYSTEM – Bandimere Speedway’s innovative underground cooling system needed only one professional qualifying sessions to feel the love from the drag racers.
Racers in both the sportsman and professional ranks are singing the praises of the new inner cooled race track which, in the midst of 90-degree ambient air temperatures, measured 101 degrees on the starting line and 120 within 100 feet of the starting line. Last year the starting line track temperature hovered in the 140-degree range.
Bandimere Speedway calls their system simply “track cooling system” and transpired as a joint venture between facility manager Larry Crisp and P.J. Harvey with VHT and PJ brands. The idea came forth when the two were discussing methods of cooling the track to work better with the traction compound.
“You know we just want to put on a good show, we want side by side racing,” said Jeff Sipes, director of Marketing Media & Special Events for Bandimere. “We’ve been brainstorming for years, if we could cool that track somehow. So what we did was we resurfaced our track, we went concrete from half track through the finish line.
“Once we started that project we began to cut out the starting line pads, we came 40 feet behind the stage beams and went 120 feet down track in each lane and ran some cooling lines.”
Sipes said the cooling lines are 480-feet in length and each lane carries 17 lines. The track has two storage tanks buried on the east side of the track, with each holding close to 12,000 gallons of water.
“We’ve probably got about 25,000 gallons of water right now in the system,” Sipes admitted. “Father’s Day weekend we ran our Lucas Oil Drag Racing series event, we just had ground temperature water that had just been taken out of the fire hydrant. We had water temperature that started at about 65 degrees and on Friday that night we ran our alcohol cars. The area that is cooled we had a track temperature of 105 and down track it was 120. So we knew that it was working well.”
Sipes added those temperatures represented the surface temperature.
“We’ve also got in-track probes that help us measure that,” Sipes added. “But our problem was extracting the heat from the water overnight. We really weren’t very efficient at that, so we’ve since added a chiller. We’ve got a chiller installed just on the east side of our grandstands behind the fans. With that chiller we can get water down to 40 degrees if we absolutely needed to.”
The goal is to enable the high horsepower cars to get a running start at the transition where the water cooling unit ends. The wheel speed is crucial towards ensuring the car makes it to the finish line under power.
The value in this program might not be immediately noticeable to the race fans in the stands, but to the crew chiefs, the value is quickly noticed in the tune-up.
The week before the NHRA Mopar Mile High Nationals a large contingent of 500-inch Pro Stocker tested the racing surface without the cooling mechanism in place and deemed the surface a winner already. The cooling unit only enhances what they say was already good to begin with.
“It seems to me like this track is incredibly consistent at this point in time, much more than in the past, much more than last week because the cooling system wasn’t on because they were working,” veteran local Pro Stock driver Gaines said. “Just from a visual point of view, I think it might be the best thing to come along in a while especially for summer drag racing.”
Nitro Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon drove his way to the provisional top spot on Friday. He has nothing but praise for Bandimere in what he admits is setting the standard for all drag strips with this cooling system.
“We can manipulate the power just past 100 feet and the first 150 feet are crucial to us,” Pedregon said. “We’d love for other track operators to look at what they’ve done here. If you can get a car up and running in that first 150 feet then you have a tremendous head start on the run. It has been talked about a lot but it was Bandimere who stepped up to the plate and made it happen first.”
The transition from cool to normal temperature is one that Gaines said offered no difference. He admitted it was a seamless transition.
NHRA Fuel Racing liaison Dan Olson admitted the cooling system has made the track preparation process for hotter weather conditions much easier.
“It works extremely well,” said Olson. “We are seeing some things like we’ve never seen before like the rubber buildup. It’s not causing issues. There is no problem with it.”
During the summer months, extreme track temperatures can make tuning a race car a challenge. Sipes hopes this program will eliminate some of the guesswork from finding a combination on a fluctuating track temperature.
“Our goal is to have a consistent track,” Sipes said. “We can adjust the chiller, I’m not sure we are able to fine tune it yet because it’s so new to us we can’t fine tune to make sure it’s the exact same temperature every time. Our goal is to just get it cooler. If it is 70 degrees outside with cloud cover and the track temp is 80 we don’t really need to be doing anything. But if we can get it down from 140 to 120 then we can have better success getting cars down the track.
“It’s going to be one of those deals where as we learn the system and have more experience using it then we can try and get the track temps more consistent so it’s less of a variable for the crew chiefs as well.”
PEGGY'S BACK -
RACING THE INVISIBLE MAN - There was no way Cory McClenathan was celebrating Friday’s provisional low qualifying effort.
The veteran Top Fuel driver has been around the game long enough to know one thing is for sure, anyone can be beat at any time, unless you have a bye.
“Especially with that U.S. Army team and Tony Schumacher, they can lay down a run at any time,” McClenathan said. “Not only them, but the Kalitta’s, Bernstein and the rest of the field. There are a lot of good cars out there and you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
McClenathan’s Friday-evening 3.929 elapsed time stands as the quickest-ever official 1,000-foot race course pass. His performance grants a bye-run in the first round due to a 15-car field.
Having a first round bye run will enable McClenathan to sleep well this evening.
“It’s a great gift and dumb luck, so to speak,” McClenathan said. “When there’s fifteen cars, you always want to be the person who qualifies No. 1. Unfortunately, that’s Tony most of the time that gets the bye. This is a cool thing for us and we’ll take it. I’d rather race someone and work for it. Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
This marks the second low qualifying effort for McClenathan in 2008, and 32nd of his career.
Even though he’s getting a bye run to start the event, McClenathan is still leery of the “invisible man”.
“My record against him is pretty good,” McClenathan said. “But, I have found a lot of ways to lose races in my years of racing. I’ve rolled out and did a burnout only to back over my own parachute. You never know what could happen.”
NOW THAT’S A TAB – McClenathan and the entire Don Schumacher racing operation was treated to dinner last evening by sponsor Gates Belts. He admitted their product held up exceptionally well within the confines of racing in Denver, a lot better than his wallet could have.
“That’s a pretty scary thing when you take that many people out to dinner,” McClenathan said. “I wouldn’t want to have to pay that tab. I don’t even know if I’d want to pay the tip because that would be my entire Don Schumacher Racing paycheck.”
CAMPAIGN 2008 - McClenathan hosted a special guest in its pit area during the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway, thanks to assistant crew chief Neal Strausbaugh and his family. Former Colorado House Representative Al White, a native of the same hometown of Hillsboro, Ill., as Strausbaugh and his dad Dan and mom Jean, visited a drag race for the first time.
White, who is running for Senator in the 8th District in Northwest Colorado, was full of amazement during his inaugural visit to an NHRA national event on Friday. "I'm having a heck of a good time," said White, who has a home in Winter Park, Colo. "This is just amazing when you see those cars streak by and feel the vibrations rumble all the way through your body from your head to your toes.
"It just amazes me to see the combination of mechanics and speed all at work in fluid motion. And the tremendous noise. It's a very exciting and thrilling experience for me. This is just wonderful. My wife Jean and I couldn't be having more fun. It's a really fascinating sport."
White has been in the Colorado State House for eight years. There's an eight-year term limit so he is now running for the State Senator.
"Al has been friends with my son and our family for years so we invited him to come to a race. He's never been to a drag race," said Dan Strausbaugh. "He's been out here more than 25 years. We were old classmates at Hillsboro High School. Al and my very good friend Jim Beck were Vietnam veterans and we were in Vietnam together, and that's really how we are tied together now.”
HOMETOWN HERO
He went into Sunday with an unproven chassis that wasn’t scheduled for implementation until this weekend’s NHRA Mopar Mile High Nationals in Denver, Co. The chassis has been proving itself ever since the accident.
“I think you go back when we had five first round losses and I don’t attribute that to anything but the little increase in weight where we were just trying to fine tune our combination,” Pedregon said. “It was hard for me to get discouraged because I knew we were on the right track. If at anytime I felt we weren’t, I would have made changes.
“It’s encouraging to me to know that if we’ve lacked one thing in the last month and a half, it’s that we’ve been unable to qualify in the top five. We’ve gotten that back.”
Pedregon’s low qualifying effort marks his second of the season since the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., last March. He holds 33 career No. 1 efforts in his career.
“We’ve gotta catch Wilkerson,” Pedregon added. “He’s out there but at the same time we are looking at those guys behind us. It’s still early but at some point the qualifying points are going to become important.”
PEDREGON QUOTABLE – “I sure am lucky to have Chevrolet on our side. I started with six bodies and now I am down to two.”
NO MONKEY BUSINESS -
THEY’RE ALL TOUGH – Greg Anderson has been around Pro Stock racing long enough to know when the odds are stacked
“It’s like they gave these Mopars a weight break because they are running better than ever,” Anderson said. “There are so many Mopars in the field that tomorrow is going to be a knock-down drag out. It’s impossible to come out here and pick a favorite.”
It’s not only the Mopars that has Anderson looking over his shoulder. Everyone in the class has him second-guessing.
“I’m on the inside; I should know who the person is to beat. It’s almost like inside trading or betting, but I cannot pick a winner tomorrow. It’s going to take a perfect performance from whoever wins. It’s going to take a lot of luck, too.”
Anderson attributed his performance standards of 7.010 seconds at 196.10 as proof positive the staff at Bandimere Speedway has done an incredible job refurbishing the racing surface. The in-track cooling system, in Anderson’s eyes, is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
“I really hope other tracks pay attention to what they have done here,” Anderson said. “This track is so much better than it’s ever been. That’s why the cars are feeling better. It’s fun for us to run fast like this.”
What is really fun for Anderson is that if the track could speak, he admits, it would be screaming for more.
“Every run, we are learning something and it’s as if we can’t throw enough at it. We can’t make enough power. We’re trying to find ways to make more power and make the cars more aggressive. When the sun comes out and you figure the track is going to go the other way, it stays the same.”
Weekends similar to this has the cagey Anderson counting his lucky stars that he’s not a fuel racer. He would rather get beat up, than run to only 1,000 feet.
“I love the quarter-mile and I love speed so much that I’d run a half-mile,” Anderson admitted. “We have so much to do in the first thousand feet that we’d still be shifting going across the finish line. You don’t get a chance to enjoy the speed running at 1,000 feet.”
This low qualifying effort marks his third of the year and sixty-fifth of his career.
CONFIDENT KRAWIEC - For the second event in a row, Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Eddie Krawiec will start Sunday’s eliminations
from the lofty top spot. The Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson rider established a new Bandimere Speedway track record 7.328 elapsed time at 181.74 miles per hour.
Krawiec’s success of late has been aided by a measure of confidence.
“I think mental confidence has played more of a positive role than finding a groove,” Krawiec said. “I have a great tuner in Matt Hines, who has won four events here. I think having that [Hines’ experience] provides an advantage.”
The top qualifier confirmed the team had tested at Bandimere a few weeks ago with Andrew Hines riding both bikes. Krawiec admitted he gained a good measure of confidence by riding just as quick as Hines.
“That experience gave me a lot of confidence that I needed on the track,” Krawiec admitted, who is designated as the team’s second rider.
The track record was icing on the cake for Krawiec.
“Any time you can do that, it’s awesome, no matter where you’re at,” Krawiec said. “When you’re up on the mountain, it’s hard to make horsepower, and when you can come out of here with the record, really puts a smile on your face.”
HORSEPOWER
BEST START OF 2008 - Mike Edwards powered his Penhall/Young Life Pontiac GXP to the No. 2 qualifying position, with a 7.021, to
“This is a great way to start the Western Swing, coming out and making a couple solid runs and being close to the top of the class,” said Edwards. “We came here right after Norwalk and tested heavily for two days, and I believe that time really paid off.”
Edwards run, which was only bettered by Greg Anderson’s 7.010, nearly made history at the mile-high facility, as the first car to dip into the six-second zone on the mountain. “The Bandimere crew has done an awesome job with this facility,” he added. “That starting-line cooling system does its job and always all of us to be aggressive enough to produce this awesome runs. I think this is the wave of the future for all tracks. I tip my hat to everyone involved with this huge endeavor.”
Edwards, who won in Denver in 2002, will open against Johnny Gray, the 65th different racer he will face in his Pro Stock career. “Racing someone for the first time is always a big challenge because you don’t know exactly how they race nor do certain thing. Unlike when you race someone nearly every week, you know how long of burnout, if they like to stage first, and all that stuff, so you can prepare.
“I’m just going to go out there, let the clutch out and do everything we can to get the win light.”
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - JOHNSONS PACE PRO STOCK CLASSES AND ANOTHER NITRO SIT OUT CANDIDATE?
HOW TO EARN $1000 – Steve Johnson was excited about speaking to the students at a local Denver tech school the day
Johnson’s presentation was impressive to say the least as he showed the students how he won, the importance of living respectable lives and how one can make a good living at drag racing.
His presentation may have inspired one student to possibly get a head start on his career. One minute Johnson's laptop was with him and the next it was gone. Stored on the hard drive, important personal information including bank records and sponsor contracts.
“Thousand dollar reward for anybody I mean if they can tell me it’s in the trash can in an Arby’s parking lot,” Johnson said during a press conference on Friday. “I’m having all this bad luck, right? I’m frustrated.”
Not letting the loss get him down, Johnson his Snap-on Tools Suzuki to the provisional top spot with a 7.367 elapsed time at 178.00 miles per hour.
“The crew did there jobs, they made the right decisions,” Johnson admitted. “They got ramps with the MSD, they got carburetor adjustments, timing adjustments, they’re pulling it out here, they’re adding it here. The gear ratio, we did some really neat stuff with the transmission and the gear ratios they changed that motorcycle 1000% from when it’s ever been and look what we did. Numero Uno.” And the funny part about this whole thing is I’m texting Dixon I’m like ’Wow, we’re number three did you get number one?’ He texts me back and says ’No, we got number two.’ I said ’Let’s both do better.’ He texts me back ‘it’s a deal’ then I text him back and go ‘What’s up baby!’ So I’m waiting for him to text me back.
Johnson is pleading with the person who stole his laptop to return the unit and he’ll ask no questions.
“It’s got our runs on it,” Johnson said. “[Crew chief] Mark [Peiser] is over there scrambling trying to get runs together recovering old notes and stuff like that. It’s not life or death, I’ve been heartbroken before and it feels just like that.”
Johnson said jokingly that he’ll know who took the laptop if a new Suzuki team shows up with a familiar sponsorship.
“I’ll be pissed off because guess what, they’re going to have a name on the side of their bike and it’s going to be my proposal and my marketing package that they smoked and they got a deal from it,” Johnson said with a sour smile.
JOHNSON’S PRIORITIES - At the top of Pro Stock driver Allen Johnson’s list is to show up at his sponsor’s race ready to win.
Johnson briefly lost and reclaimed the top spot with a mark of 7.037, 195.17.
“The first run on the track was pretty hot,” said Johnson. “Everyone was trying to get from A to B to get some info for tomorrow. Tonight’s run, the track was awesome. It really cooled down, and you can really get at it when the track get likes that.”
Johnson had the strongest car during testing at Bandimere leading up to the Mopar Mile-Highs, leading many to believe he has the car to beat this weekend.
“We’ve tested probably more than anybody here the last two or three years,” Johnson said. “Mark [Ingersoll, Johnson’s crew chief] hit on some stuff last year testing and it really works, and that’s what we stuck with. Dad’s [Roy Johnson, Allen’s engine builder and father] engines really perform well here for some reason. Dad shipped in an engine this morning. He tweaked it a little bit just for up here [in the Mile-High altitude]. It’s not a lot different, but it is a brand-new engine.”
Johnson’s top qualifying run today comes on the heels of his victory in the race-within-a-race $50,000 K&N Horsepower Challenge at the NHRA Norwalk event. Johnson also posted a quarterfinals run and low ET at Norwalk. His recent performances have the Greeneville, Tenn. native feeling good for this weekend and beyond.
“We’ve felt momentum coming our way the last couple of races,” Johnson remarked. “We’ve had a top five car every race this year and not won any races. I would have thought that we would have won two or three races by now. So, yeah, I really feel the momentum shifting and we’re going to use this race and the Western swing to really amplify that.”
ON THE CUSP OF HISTORY - Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan grabbed the provisional pole position for the first 1000-ft. race
"We all kind of had some numbers in our mind coming in here," said McClenathan. "We wanted to run in the high 3.80-second range at 310 mph. So to go out and run what did earlier (4.023/298.27) put us in a position to kind of get after it knowing that we were going to be the last pair, that the track was going to get better and our teammate Tony Schumacher was in front of us.
"When Tony ran his 3.493/307.16, I'm sure Alan Johnson (crew chief on the U.S. Army dragster) came back and told Mike Green (FRAM crew chief) and he turned the nozzles a little bit and the FRAM car did exactly what it was supposed to do. Team cars follow each other. We just kind of went out there and followed their lead.
"You start getting these new situations like racing to a 1000 feet and in my eyes right now it's the right thing to do. It might not be later - they may do something different - but, for right now, it's the right thing to do."
PEDREGON’S EARLY DOMINATION - Tony Pedregon saw a lot of similarities between racing to the 1,000-foot mark and
"I think it's important for us to be provisional No. 1," Pedregon said, "because as well as we've been running recently, we haven't been able to qualify top three. I think that's something that we lack. I hope that if we can hang on to this position, that will be even more encouraging and tell us that not only can we win on Sunday, but it's going to be important for us to start accumulating these qualifying points. It's going to make a difference when it comes down to the wire. We'll be elated if we can hang on to this spot."
Pedregon was forced to debut his new Funny Car chassis [mandatory starting this weekend] during the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Chicago, Ill., and has won two of the previous three events.
The defending Funny Car world champion admitted many of the teams made adjustments due to the many variables presented this weekend and many proved successful. Pedregon admitted the combination of a good track and good racing made for a great experience for the fans.
"I think all of the drivers have to make a little adjustment because of 1000 feet," Pedregon said, "but I think it's just something that we're all going to have to pay attention to. But anytime you can give that quality of racing to the fans, you know they're going to be on their feet. It was just a good run and we put everything together. At this track, at a mile-high up, aerodynamics play a pretty big role, and we've got great support from GM and their engineers. Every little bit you do to the car at this altitude matters. And the track surface itself is in excellent condition. We have a track surface that is close to 100 degrees, and then on top of that we've got a water-cooled track. For a little over 150 feet we've got a little over 80-degree track temperature. Overall, these were optimum conditions for us."
NITRO SIT OUT? - The rising cost of doing business has forced a handful of teams to sit out qualifying runs. Many teams,
Top Fuel team owner Ken Black never thought he’d see the day he’d be forced into such a cost-cutting move. The successful businessman admits the latest price increase of nitromethane has him almost assuredly planning to skip some sessions with his Top Fuel dragster driven by Hillary Will.
“If we do well that first day of qualifying, I think that’s what I am going to do, have to do,” said Black. “It’s the only way I know of that I can protest an unfair situation. When you get price increases like they [official nitro supplier of NHRA] are giving us I think somewhere we have to take a stand.
The cost of nitromethane has increased a little over $600 per barrel since the start of 2008. The price will increase another $200 next week in Seattle. By Indy, the price is expected to reach $2,000, a 100% increase in a year.
“I may get myself in trouble, but sitting out some rounds in qualifying will put the pressure on the NHRA to do something about this. They are going to revise their thought process on this [official distributor] thinking. I really haven’t figured it out. Things that supposedly are in place, I don’t think are in place as far as supplier and actual supplier.
“We don’t have a sponsor to please other than my own wallet. This is my last resort and I hate to do it. I hate to do that to the race fans but when your prices have doubled, this is the only thing to do.”
Black’s crew chief Jim Oberhofer is in total agreement with his team owner.
“We’ve done a lot of things, we’ve shortened up our warm up routines, saving us about three gallons for warm ups,” Oberhofer said. “It’s to the point right now where it’s just ridiculous. If we’re going to continue to race and continue to try and compete we’re just going to have to cut back seriously on a lot of different things to go out there and help Ken out. It doesn’t matter how much money a man has or anything like that - it’s business. Right now, having to pay this much for Nitro is ridiculous.”
Oberhofer said the situation could be rectified if more of the individuals involved in this situation would be open-minded.
“I think sometimes there is just too many emotions going around with all of this nitro stuff that’s gone on and people aren’t looking at things the right way,” Oberhofer said. “The racers need help and I’ve gotten a notice that they are not going to charge us for oil downs any more. That’s fine, we’ve never had to pay for any of that before. To me it’s nothing for our team that can benefit our team. Maybe for other teams it might but for ours it’s not going to help.
“In my opinion, if there’s a better product out there it’s just like a gas station. You’ve got four gas stations on each corner and you look at all those gas stations and one guy is charging $4 per gallon another guy is $4.10 a gallon, another guy is $4.15 per gallon but then you got this other guy over here that’s going to charge you $3.90 a gallon and it’s all the same stuff. I’m going to go where the $3.90 per gallon stuff is and I think most people would probably do the same. If there are some other options out there where teams can get some relief to buy fuel cheaper, why not?
“I’m sick of hearing about a shortage when there really isn’t a shortage. Whether it’s Don Schumacher that has nitro or it’s somebody else who has the nitro. I think everybody has to put behind the differences they have with different people, you just have to take a look at this from the business side of things and do what’s right for drag racing. And right now drag racing needs help…and the fuel cars need help…because if we keep going in this direction there are going to be more and more teams who I think will drop out. We got 15 cars here, you can always say it’s Denver. Yeah but we had 15 cars at Norwalk, we had 16 cars at Englishtown. You know we don’t have full fields. First of all, it’s because people can’t afford to travel to these races. Second of all, just for them to start there cars it’s going to cost them a fortune.”
Black admits the nitro conservation isn’t the only area he’s cutting back. In his personal life, he’s cutting back on his personal gasoline consumption.
“I’m not going off as much,” Black admitted. “I’ve cut my mileage in half over what I used to drive in my truck. It’s something in my power to make a statement. If only everyone else would do the same.”
FORCE-A-BOOBOO - John Force raced to the No. 2 qualifying position and ran the fastest mph of the day for the Funny Car
class (294.84 mph) but not before making his first 1,000 foot mistake.
Racing beside former teammate Tony Pedregon Force got wrapped up in the competitive spirit as he and Pedregon reached the new finish line.
“I was chasing (Tony) Pedregon and I forgot where we were at. I just trucked on down there and I thought, ‘Man I am going to catch him.’ Then I realized I was out the back door,” said the winningest driver in NHRA history.
THREE FEAT - Mike Snively was the first into the fives.
Eddie Hill (although racing in IHRA) ran the first four second run.
On July 12, 2008, Antron Brown clocked the first sub four-second 1,000-foot pass in NHRA history Friday evening at Bandimere Speedway as the two-time Top Fuel winner clocked a run of 3.998-seconds in his David Powers-owned Matco Tools dragster. Brown finished in the provisional No. 4 qualifying position.
The Matco Tools dragster, which advanced to the final round at the Denver race last July, experienced a mechanical error on Friday’s opening attempt as Brown coasted to a pass of 12.020 seconds at 64.86 mph. Crew chief Lee Beard, who scored his first career win as a crew chief at the 1980 Mile-High Nationals (Jerry Ruth), made the necessary adjustments as Brown powered to a run of 3.998 at 287.11 to finish fourth in the 15-car Top Fuel order.
“Like always, my guys made the right call,” Brown said. “My Matco team is awesome. To get that first three-second pass was cool. We’re happy with that run. We’re just going to come out on Saturday and try to stay consistent in the heat.”
RUNAWAY TRAILER – Mike Buckner shudders when he imagines what could have happened.
“We were coming up the hill, the safety chains were attached and the electric brakes were on,” Buckner said. “We reached an apex point where the trailer went upward and the tow vehicle was straight. It just released and popped and the trailer came off. The trailer started going straight back down the hill.”
Bucker said at that point, he could only watch in horror.
“We just tried to get as many people out of the way as possible and luckily there was nobody in the car the trailer hit and the driver in the bus was able to back up in time,” Buckner added.
Buckner confirmed the trailer was a total loss but the inventory was salvageable.
“The trailer is pretty much a lost cause and we’re waiting for the insurance company to give us the final word,” Buckner said. “The trailer was probably rolling about 35 miles per hour.”
The souvenirs from the damaged trailer will be available all weekend on the Tony Schumacher U.S. Army trailer.
THE TASK FORCE – The NHRA announced on Friday the members of a task force created to investigate, analyze and determine ways to implement the initiatives recently outlined by NHRA to continue to enhance safety.
The current task force is made up of NHRA officials and Top Fuel and Funny Car crew chiefs and conducted its first conference call among its members earlier this week.
The task force is headed up by Dan Olson, NHRA director of top fuel and funny car racing. He is joined by: Austin Coil, crew chief for John Force Racing; Jim Head, Funny Car driver/crew chief; Alan Johnson, crew chief for the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster; Jon Oberhofer, crew chief for the Doug Kalitta-driven Top Fuel dragster; Mark Oswald, co-crew chief on Melanie Troxel’s Funny Car; and Tim Wilkerson, Funny Car driver/crew chief. Other representatives from NHRA and the Professional Racers Owners Organization (PRO) will also participate.
“This task force provides a more structured process for NHRA, together with crew chiefs within the racing community, to tackle emerging technical issues and find solutions to build upon the sport’s long standing safety record,” said Graham Light, senior vice president of racing operations, NHRA.
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