Photos by Alex Owens, Todd Dziados
FRIDAY NOTEBOOK – ANGIE SMITH PULLS PRO STOCK BIKE TEAM TOGETHER IN WAKE OF HUSBAND MATT’S ILLNESS; LANGDON, PEDREGON, ANDERSON ALSO TOP EARLY QUALIFYING CHARTS; LEGEND SPICES P.A. CONVERSATION
1 – LANGDON SURPRISES SELF WITH EARLY TOP FUEL LEAD – Shawn Langdon said he and crew chief Brian Husen “came in not expecting to run what we did” after posting a 3.758-second elapsed time at 336.23 mph to take the Top Fuel provisional No. 1 qualifying position Friday at the inaugural Potomac Nationals at Maryland International Raceway. He quipped that “I’m just the steering-wheel holder,” crediting his Kalitta Air dragster team for improving from third place in the opening session and saying that “the track was better than we gave it credit for.”
The tentative order starts out like the current standings, with Langdon, teammate Doug Kalitta, Tony Stewart, and Leah Pruett occupying the first four spots with two Saturday qualifying opportunities remaining before Sunday’s eliminations.
Langdon, who had competed at this venue years ago in a bracket race, is hoping to hang onto that position to earn the first-round bye in the 15-car field.
2 – NOTHING TO CRITICIZE – Funny Car provisional No. 1 qualifier Cruz Pedregon didn’t specify why, but he said he walked the track Thursday, “looking for reasons to not like this place. Believe me, I’m looking to be critical.” But he stumped himself and concluded, “Damn, this track looks pretty good to me. They know their stuff here.” It looked even more appealing after he improved from 14th in the line-up to first Friday with a 3.951-second elapsed time at 323.19 mph in the Snap-on Dodge Hellcat.
Pedregon, who has no radio communication with his crew on the starting line, said that pass “felt pretty fast to me. In the car, I felt it was fast and smooth.” But he said he didn’t count on it keeping him No. 1, as “three or four cars” could out-do his run come Saturday.
He said Funny Cars “have more power than we need. The challenge is to pull it back and not get too fancy and cute.”
Spencer Hyde, at No. 2 overnight in the Head Racing Ford Mustang, was fastest in the class at 323.58 mph.
Pedregon praised the NHRA for courting different areas after losing those in the Englishtown, N.J./metro New York, Atlanta, Houston, Richmond, Topeka, and Denver markets.
3 – TRACK’S A GIFT – Pro Stock veteran Greg Anderson was kind of kicking himself for not keeping data about Maryland International Raceway he gathered about 25 years ago. But he ended up kicking every other Pro Stock driver’s rear end to claim the provisional No. 1 qualifier spot with his 6.494-second, 211.79-mph run.
“We don’t keep data from that far back. We should have,” he said of a time when he was the crew chief for driver Warren Johnson. But he credited the KB team, which grabbed the first four places Friday, saying, “We made pretty damn good guesses.”
Anderson, who edged teammate and points leader Dallas Glenn by three-thousandths of a second, said the Pro Stock class loves nearly sea-level conditions. “We don’t have a blower. We don’t have a power-adder. We don’t have a turbo. We have nothing [to boost power]. We’re dependent on Mother Nature,” he said. “We hope and pray we get races somewhere through the season that have conditions like this. These are fantastic conditions. They’re Disneyland conditions.”
4 – THIS TIME IT WENT HER WAY – Angie Smith has had a stressful two days – and a stressful two weeks, for that matter. But her Pro Stock Motorcycle provisional No. 1 qualifying accomplishment was a salve for some of the strain Friday.
Two weeks ago at Joliet, Ill., she and husband Matt Smith met in the final round of the Route 66 Nationals, and her bike broke at the starting line. She had no first gear – but she had plenty of conspiracy theorists suggesting her husband arranged for that to happen. Irritated, she took to social media to declare that he did not sabotage her motorcycle to ensure his second consecutive victory. He also provided visual evidence in another Internet post of what went wrong.
That settled, they were off to the North Carolina coast to do some mahi mahi fishing before heading to Maryland International Raceway for this weekend’s inaugural Potomac Nationals. He ended up not at the dragstrip, but rather the emergency room of a nearby hospital, grounded this weekend by gallstones.
Instead, Angie Smith took on the task of overseeing the Matt Smith Racing operation this weekend – at least until her husband might be discharged from the hospital and is able to rejoin the team. It all has been overwhelming, and she let her emotions spill out a bit when she established both ends of the track record with her 6.690-second quarter-mile run at 202.97 mph in the first qualifying session Friday.
After the conclusion of Friday’s racing, she said she’s “relieved, to say the least.” After sitting in the emergency room for hours and staying with her husband until he was admitted to the hospital, she didn’t return to the track until nearly midnight – and achieved what she did on about three hours of sleep.
“It’s been a circus. This day has been a blur,” she said. “I’m glad all the bikes went down [the track under full power] and everybody was safe. That was my main goal. I’ve never had this much responsibility. We rose to the occasion, but my whole team stepped up. Everybody jumped in together.
“Matt wears a lot of hats. I don’t know if everybody really knew how much that he did until today,” she said, praising him for orchestrating the team performance from afar. She said it was “pretty remarkable, to me. He’s not here to look at the weather conditions, not here to look at the track. He’s not here to do a lot of things he takes into account when he makes a tune-up call.”
5 – MISSING MATT – Matt Smith’s pursuit of a record seventh Pro Stock Motorcycle championship took a detour – through a hospital.
The namesake and mastermind of the MSR Buell team that includes Angie Smith, Jianna Evaristo, and John Hall is recuperating from gallstone issues and has turned over the seat of his Denso Buell this weekend to veteran racer Chip Ellis. Michael Ray is guiding the team on site, but Matt Smith isn’t out of the equation, by any means. He programmed the first-session qualifying set-ups for the entire fleet of Matt Smith Racing (MSR) bikes from his hospital bed and was communicating directions for the second session by phone.
The collective effort paid off. Hall reeled off a 6.746-second, 202.55-mph pass in the opening session, and minutes later, Angie Smith eclipsed that with her record-setting 6.690, 202.97 that held up for the tentative No. 1 spot. By day’s end, MSR owned three of the top four spots and got their primary bikes in the top half of the field. Vance & Hines’ Richard Gadson spoiled a 1-2-3 sweep by grabbing the No. 2 position overnight. But Ellis was third, Hall fourth, and Evaristo eighth.
An emotional Angie Smith said following her first-session qualifying performance, “What makes me the happiest is that we got all the bikes down the track. I’m sorry I’m crying. It’s been a long two days. Matt’s in the hospital. I just told him, ‘We’re going to do the best we can.’ And [that effort] is a testament to him, because he did all the [tuning] maps. I ran all the laptops back to the hospital. He did all the maps. We come back and this whole team has rallied together. It’s about resilience and being determined, because I really didn’t think that we were going to race this weekend, the whole entire team. These are his wishes. He wanted us to race.”
She called her pass “a really good lap, so we have a good start. So we’ll see.” But her attention was not on herself, it was on her husband. “Matt, please get better. I need you,” she said. “I need my backbone back.”
Angie Smith told National Dragster that her husband began feeling ill Thursday morning, awakening her at 2 a.m. The couple expected the culprit was kidney stones, because, she said, “He has a history of kidney stones, so we really thought that it was probably going to be that. So we were on the way up here, and his pain just kept getting worse and worse, so bad that I drove probably 75 percent of the way. I drove the hauler up here. We got it up here and got parked, and immediately we went to the emergency room. We got there about 12:30 yesterday, and they ended up admitting him last night about 9 o’clock. They ran a bunch of tests. I guess the conclusion is he has gallstones, not kidney stones. Gallstones produce a lot of pain, and so that’s where all the pain’s coming from.”
She said the medical staff is “just trying to keep him comfortable right now. They are giving him fluids, and rest is the protocol. But he made the decision for me to run all the bikes. He is truly the backbone of this team.”
6 – THE SPORTSMAN REPORT – Joey Severance, Bob McCosh, Joe Carnasciale and Michael Cerro led their respective categories Friday as sportsman competitors continued action at the NHRA Potomac Nationals at Maryland International Raceway.
Severance paced Top Alcohol Dragster, McCosh led Top Alcohol Funny Car, Carnasciale topped Competition Eliminator and Cerro claimed the No. 1 position in Top Sportsman heading into the weekend’s remaining sportsman competition.
Severance powered to the top spot in Top Alcohol Dragster with a 5.182-second pass at 279.79 mph. Jamie Noonan qualified second with a 5.231-second run, while Anthony Troyer followed in third at 5.276.
Matthew Cummings secured the fourth position with a 5.309, and Jackie Fricke rounded out the top five with a 5.314-second effort. Megan Smith, Melanie Johnson, Brandon Greco, Richard Bourke and John Ausherman completed the top 10.
In Top Alcohol Funny Car, McCosh led the field with a 5.450-second pass at 267.69 mph in his Camaro. Defending NHRA champion Sean Bellemeur remained close behind in second with a 5.468 while posting the quickest speed of the session at 268.44 mph.
Mick Steele qualified third at 5.489, followed by Christopher Menapace and Bruce Mullins. Melinda Green-King, John Headley and Doug Gordon completed the eight-car field.
Carnasciale secured the top position in Competition Eliminator with an 8.755-second pass in his I/SM Cavalier, posting a .725-second advantage under the index. Monty Bogan qualified second at .692 under, while Michael Hanratty followed in third at .684 under the class standard.
Calvin Hill secured the fourth position at .679 under the index, while Steve Johnson rounded out the top five. Former world champion Bruno Massel qualified sixth with a 6.907-second run in his CC/AT Cobalt.
Cerro paced the Top Sportsman field with a 6.180-second pass at 225.26 mph in his Camaro. Vonnie Mills qualified second at 6.282, while Jeff Brooks followed in third with a 6.398.
Brian Weis claimed the fourth position and posted the fastest speed in the category at 234.00 mph. Dave Muller rounded out the top five qualifiers.
Sportsman competition continues Saturday at Maryland International Raceway with qualifying and eliminations across multiple categories as racers pursue victories at the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals. – Bobby Bennett
7 – WELCOME BACK, CAPTAIN CHAOS – Kenny Koretsky, the loveable “Captain Chaos” Pro Stock driver turned track owner, returned to watch some NHRA action Friday for the first time in about two years. He was hanging out with close friend Bob Tasca III after experiencing health issues that eventually factored into his decision to sell Maple Grove Raceway to IHRA boss Darrell Cuttell.
8 – STILL A TOPIC – Austin Prock, who had a breakout weekend at the previous race, at Joliet, Ill., appears to be experiencing an upswing in his new situation at Tasca Racing. The two-time and reigning Funny Car champion’s surprising switch from John Force Racing, which he has explained from his point of view, apparently still is a topic of conversation.
Top Fuel legend Shirley Muldowney said Friday, “I was so surprised to hear that he made that switch. I thought that he must know something we all don’t know, but from the beginning he looked like he had made a mistake, alright? I think that they had stepped things up and kind of changed things around and let’s see. This weekend they have a wonderful facility here, so let’s see what he does.”
Prock went to the No. 1 spot at the time, and he said in his top-end interview that changing teams is “definitely difficult. You get here and you do as much as you can to diagnose what this place needs, and we hit it right on the head. So, really proud of this PPG team. You know when you can hit it right on the head within a thou, definitely feels good. So watch out.”
Announcer Joe Castello suggested the Prock swagger might have returned. He said he rather enjoyed the bravado: “I like it.” He asked Muldowney for her opinion, and she said, “No comment.” Then Castello said, “It’s hard to talk trash in this sport, though, because the car might not do what you want.” She replied, “Well, he’s good with that, and he’s famous for it. Very confident. I’ve been around to listen a few times. I didn’t always agree. In fact, I didn’t agree at all.”
Castello pressed her: “Some might say that Shirley talked trash back in the day. How would you categorize that? You were confident.” She countered, “Yeah, but I liked getting in their face. That was part of the scene. They had it coming.”
Curiously, Bob Tasca III, owner of Prock’s PPG Ford Mustang, said of the Prock acquisition, “I can tell you one thing. It was a much bigger undertaking than we thought, but they got all the parts and pieces they need. We had a great weekend in Chicago, and we need a little bit more momentum this weekend.”
9 – MIR PASSES MUSTER – Public-address announcer Joe Castello, noting that this is the NHRA’s first trip to Maryland International Raceway, asked drag racing legend Shirley Muldowney about what her experience was when she started racing, barnstorming the country and competing on tracks she hadn’t seen before. He asked, “What was it like going to these different facilities that you had never been to or known of?” She said, “Well, that I never went back to.
“So, I was basically an East Coast racer, and I knew the area pretty well and we had a lot of fairly nice facilities; this one being one that we could depend on to go and get some good numbers down. I just wish I’d had more time on the East Coast with the nitro car. I ran a gas dragster for a good number of years, and that gave me quite a reputation, let me say. Oh, boy, did they hate me. I gave them something to complain about, and it was fun. It made my day, let me tell you,” Muldowney said.
She said the women in drag racing today have it “a whole lot easier” than she did and reminisced about driving a Funny Car at this facility that most refer to simply as “Budds Creek.” She said, “This was a class that I ran for three years, and I cut my teeth on some of these racetracks that were not very forgiving, not as wide as you see today, not lit as well, and not as long as one would like. I guess this is almost like a freeway down there. It’s a pretty long racetrack, so the facility does give you all the amenities that a fuel driver looks for.”
10 – HART HARSH ON HIMSELF – Josh Hart, driver of the Speedmaster Top Fuel entry for John Force Racing, might not have the burden of being a team owner any more, but he can’t escape expectations that define championship performances. He said Friday, “We’re never really happy over here. The 3.81 was what we needed in the first run, so a 3.75 in the second round would have been a good run. [Crew chief David] Grubnic is hard on himself. I’m hard on myself. The team’s doing a good job, but we just need to do better. A good job isn’t good enough. We all know that going into tomorrow, so we’ll see what our chances look like with the conditions in the morning.”
