What a race!  What a race!  This is the part where we should say, We told ya so, but why belabor the obvious?  This was one of those events where you had to watch every race of every round just to keep up.  This was also one of those races where emotions ran the gamut from the highest of highs to the deepest depression possible.  After the fiasco that was the Las Vegas Nationals, the Auto Club Finals was like being in another world.  Every competitor gave it his all.  Every tuner dug deep into his bag of tricks to pull out a victory.  It was a race in which age very much played a part, as youngsters tried to unseat established stars – and sometimes succeeded.  It was a race in which a cagy veteran, the sport’s most popular driver, came from seemingly out of nowhere to win again.  It was a race that had, well, everything a fan of the sport could ask for.

With Greg Anderson having clinched a very deserved Pro Stock championship Saturday, three pro titles were up for grabs today, and the least exciting of them was in Top Fuel.  Now, we know what you‘re thinking – how could Top Fuel not be exciting?  Okay, we’ll acknowledge that the racing was terrific, but there was little tension about the title.  It was Larry Dixon’s to lose, and he didn’t.  End of story.  But not quite.  Tony Schumacher and tuner Mike Green also gave it their all, but the odds were heavily stacked against them.  Dixon had enough of a cushion that he would have had to lose in the first round, and Schumacher would have not only had to go to the final and win it, he’d have to rotate the earth and set an elapsed time record during the spin.  Green said it best when asked about their chances.  “Ideally, their car won’t start.”

 

The Finals Lived Up To The Billing With Jaw-Dropping Action

What a race!  What a race!  This is the part where we should say, We told ya so, but why belabor the obvious?  This was one of those events where you had to watch every race of every round just to keep up.  This was also one of those races where emotions ran the gamut from the highest of highs to the deepest depression possible.  After the fiasco that was the Las Vegas Nationals, the Auto Club Finals was like being in another world.  Every competitor gave it his all.  Every tuner dug deep into his bag of tricks to pull out a victory.  It was a race in which age very much played a part, as youngsters tried to unseat established stars – and sometimes succeeded.  It was a race in which a cagy veteran, the sport’s most popular driver, came from seemingly out of nowhere to win again.  It was a race that had, well, everything a fan of the sport could ask for.

With Greg Anderson having clinched a very deserved Pro Stock championship Saturday, three pro titles were up for grabs today, and the least exciting of them was in Top Fuel.  Now, we know what you‘re thinking – how could Top Fuel not be exciting?  Okay, we’ll acknowledge that the racing was terrific, but there was little tension about the title.  It was Larry Dixon’s to lose, and he didn’t.  End of story.  But not quite.  Tony Schumacher and tuner Mike Green also gave it their all, but the odds were heavily stacked against them.  Dixon had enough of a cushion that he would have had to lose in the first round, and Schumacher would have not only had to go to the final and win it, he’d have to rotate the earth and set an elapsed time record during the spin.  Green said it best when asked about their chances.  “Ideally, their car won’t start.”

As Schumacher said on Sunday morning, “(Dixon’s) gotta get beat in the first round.  That’s all there is to it.  They’ve got a helluva team over there.  They’ve done a helluva job all year.  They’re not doing that well now, but there are only six races in the Countdown.  We messed up.  At a couple of races all we had to do was slide (the car) down through there (to win) and we didn’t get it done.  What probably hurts the most is that we’re really running good right now.  We’ve got a great car now, but it’s the end of the season.  It’s all good, though.  All good” 

 

Schumacher pounded Dom Lagana in the first round, but a little more than 3.854 seconds later Dixon conquered Mike Strasburg, and the championship chase was over.

 

Jason McCulloch, Dixon’s crew chief (yes, yes, we know it’s Alan Johnson’s car, but McCulloch is the tuner of record), said, “We came here to win the race.  If we can do that everything else will take care of itself.”  Well, they didn’t win the race.  That first round win was enough.

As Dixon put it at the finish line, “The is the biggest reception I’ve ever gotten for a first round win.”  He had little time to enjoy it.  Round two was coming.  He would win that round, but then lose to former Super Comp racer Shawn Langdon in the next, going down on a holeshot to a quicker Reaction Time.  We mentioned Langdon’s Super Comp background purposely, because those guys (and girls) cut lights like a surgeon wielding a very sharp scalpel.

Remember when we said, earlier in the weekend, how everyone but the championship contenders was being ignored?  Well, guess what.  We’re as guilty as the next person, because we haven’t mentioned Antron Brown’s name until now.  He’s your event winner.  Before he got to Langdon he downed Steve Torrence, Tony Schumacher and Morgan Lucas.  His was not the easy half of the bracket, but then again, there was no easy half.

We saw something on Sunday that we’ve seen before, but never really thought about – until now.  Of the four pro category champions, only John Force was able to double up with an event victory.  We didn’t spoil anything by telling you Force won, did we?  We thought not.  But to our point.  The three champions who lost, Dixon, Anderson and young L.E. Tonglet, were probably so emotionally overwhelmed by having won those titles that they had nothing left to give in the rounds that followed their title-clinching efforts.  They’d dug so deep, and worked so hard, that even if their vehicles had optimum tune-ups it wasn’t going to matter.  When you win the big one there’s bound to be an emotional letdown, and even if you try to keep the adrenalin flowing, it’s a difficult thing to do.  After your body’s been flooded with the stuff, when it wears off it’s like the crash that follows a dozen cups of coffee in two hours.  Try as you will, there’s no way around the crash that follows when the caffeine wears off.

 

 

 

 

Force.  Okay, you want the story.  He is the story, of course, but how it all came down is worth paying attention to.  He literally owes this, his fifteenth

championship, to Bob Tasca III, who took out Matt Hagan in the first round.  That sounds oh-so-simple, but there’s more.  Rumor has it – and we honestly doubt the veracity of this one – that Tasca may have received tuning assistance from the Force camp.  Crew chief Chris Cunningham may be considered “young,” but he’s very good.  He probably didn’t need the help.

 

But, did Tasca hang Hagan out to dry on the starting line?  Did he come close to hitting the seven second automatic redlight timer during staging?  That appeared to be very likely, but that’s all conjecture.  All we know for sure is that Tasca got the win light, and Hagan’s championships hopes were dashed.  He climbed from his broken Dodge and walked steadily away, leaving the media behind.  “I’ve got nothin’ to say,” he said over his shoulder to ESPN’s Gary Gerould.  He walked a hundred yards or so from the gathered photographers and TV cameras, and slumped down next to a parked trailer.  He was devastated by the loss, later telling us, “This isn’t like NASCAR, where you get out of the car and have some time to get yourself together.  Here the cameras and microphones are right in your face the second you climb out.  I just didn’t want to say something that I’d regret for the rest of my life.”  Now, that’s a smart young man.

Strapped in his car when Hagan lost, Force keyed the mic on his radio and said to his guys, “Be calm, be calm.  Focus, focus, focus.  Believe…”  Now that’s a smart older man!

Hagan said before the racing began, “We’re gonna try and keep it simple.  If we lose we’ll just start drinkin’ earlier, and drink later.”  Not to worry, this guy truly has his head on straight.  He has championships ahead of him.  You can bank on it.

Just as Dixon had to win his first round race for the title, Force had to win his second against Bob Bode for his.  As his daughter, Ashley, prayed for his victory at the finish line, he got the job done, clinching that 15^th crown.  “It’s special to me when you can fight a kid like Hagan, who treats you with so much respect,” Force said as the fireworks went off behind him.  “I know this hurts him right now, but he’s got his whole life ahead of him.  My time’s runnin’ out.  I’ve only got five years left (on a new contract with Castrol).  I sucked for three years.  They shoulda fired me!  I don’t even want to race the rest of the day.  I’m done.”  But then, as only the Master can, he got himself together and thumped everyone (Jeff Arend in the finale) to win it all.

Let’s face it, there’s never been another like him, and we’re unlikely to ever see anyone surpass his on-track record or his outrageous comments.  As a senior NHRA official had said earlier in the day about Force, “He could do a stand-up comedy act.  He’s that good.”  Yes, he is.

 

But, while Force did keep it together, Greg Anderson didn’t – and we find no fault with that, none at all.  It’s a grind winning a championship, as Anderson well knows.  In his (at least temporarily) last outing in Pro Stock, Jeg Coughlin put a twelve light on Anderson in the first round and then coupled it with a 6.587 to down the champ’s quicker 6.579 (with a twenty-one light).  Was Anderson bummed?  How bummed can you be when you’re going to get a diamond-encrusted ring and a quarter of a million dollars (to say nothing of bonuses he may have coming from his sponsors)?

 

It would have been nice to see Jeggie win in his swansong, but a once-viable Rookie of the Year candidate, Shane Gray (no offense toward Gray, but if L.E. Tonglet’s stretch run doesn’t earn him that honor there’s no justice in the world).  Anyway, Gray had a killer 0.010 Reaction Time against Coughlin, and he had the numbers too – 6.566 to 6.568.  As we said – wow!

If you thought the first rounds of Funny Car and Pro Stock were stunners, there was plenty of carryover into Pro Stock Motorcycle.  Andrew Hines had to win to keep his chances alive – and he didn’t.  He bulbed against Steve Johnson, who later admitted, “I couldn’t believe he did that.”  Neither could anyone else.  Tonglet came up in the next pair and put a stout 6.874 on Matt Guidera and the chase was on.  One more round win would do it.  Clearly, the gods must have set this one up, because there was Steve Johnson in the other lane.  Would Tonglet bulb as Hines had?  Uh, no.  All he did was couple a double-oh-seven light with a 6.860, and not only was Johnson’s weekend over, Tonglet was the champion.  And wouldn’t ya know it, just as they brought him down the return road for the celebration a Comp car turned turtle at the top end.  The Kid just can’t catch a break!  His race day ended with a thin, but still deadly, 0.001 redlight in the semis.

There was no doubt about the finale.  Low qualifier Eddie Krawiec exceeded his qualifying number with an even quicker 6.811 second destruction of a redlighting Hector Arana.  Top money says both of these guys are wondering where their performances were when they needed them the most – earlier in the Countdown.

The Finals was Southern California at its best, the kind of clear skies and moderate temperatures that make easterners want to move to the Golden State.  The crowd on Sunday was good.  Not fantastic, but good.  And they were enthusiastic, never more so then after Force clinched the title.  We think there’ll come a time when they react to Matt Hagan the same way.  Hagan will never be the madman that Force can sometimes be, but he brings a surprising maturity to a sometimes violent endeavor.  Girls swoon when he walks by.  Kids gravitate to him, maybe because of his substantial size, with a smile to match.  He’s a star on the horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diehard older fans continue to find fault with the Countdown.  They are wrong.  It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do – increase drag racing’s media coverage while adding much needed excitement to the Finals.  Remember, previous Auto Club Finals in which the championships had long since been decided were nothing short of boring.  Only a race title was at stake, not a season championship.  No wonder they called ‘em the finals – just the last race of the year.

 

And everyone needs to face something else.  We are never going back to full quarter mile racing for Top Fuel and Funny Car.  It’s a dead issue.  The teams have saved a ton of money on parts with the shorter track, but don’t worry, they’ll soon figure out how to blow stuff up at 800 feet instead of 1200.  Embrace 1,000 foot racing, because the tuners and team owners like it.  And the drivers?  Few of them will even discuss going back to the quarter mile.  And ya know what?  Thousand foot racing is pretty darn exciting.  Did it matter that Force won in 1000 feet rather than 1320?  Do you think he cared?  Do you think his fans cared?  All they cared about was that he won.

We haven’t a clue what 2011 will bring.  We only know one thing.  Drag racing continues to be the most viscerally exciting automotive endeavor on the planet.  And the Winternationals are right around the corner.  Bring. It. On!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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