IHRA PRO STOCK DRIVER HAS WON A CLOSE CHAMPIONSHIP AND LOST ONE TOO …

You can recite the famous catchphrase from the old ABC Wide World of Sports television show when you’re around Pete Berner. Chances are the mechanical contractor from Crete, Illinois, will get a rise out of it. He doesn’t need a reminder. He watched the show for many years and he can apply it to his most recent championship runs in the IHRA’s Pro Stock division. 

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition… this is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

Yeah, Berner remembers the show and the action-packed intro. He recalls seeing the images of those athletes celebrating victory – that was him in 2006 as he came from the third place in points to win the Pro Stock championship by edging out Tony Gillig. 

Last year? He felt like ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose dreadful mishap coincided with the infamous words … and the agony of defeat. Back in October, Berner surrendered the points lead at the season-ending NHRA World Finals in Rockingham, NC.

Berner trains hard - running ten miles every morning before heading to work - and is considered a competitive driver thanks in part to ten final round appearances since 2005. He took the misfortune in stride with a promise for a better ending next year. 

We've got a brand new car coming from Rick Jones, and that car will probably be half worn-out before we get to the first race in San Antonio.

“I'm still really pleased with what we accomplished this season,” Berner said. “We did fall a tad bit short of winning a championship, but I think we beat ourselves.  There were too many first-round exits through the season, which we didn't have before.  We're going to work harder to have our best year ever - I don't think has happened yet.

“I'm not upset about it at all, Robert (Patrick) did a little better job than we did at the last race but I think we beat ourselves at winning the championship.  There are a lot of tough teams out there and we've just got to control what we do.  If we control what we do then we could do good.  That's what we're going to look forward to doing here in the next year and hopefully the year after.” 

Berner’s 2007 championship runner-up season included five final rounds, two wins, five “Last Man Standing” awards, and in 12 out of 34 qualifying runs, he was the quickest of the session.

If you think those are pretty stout numbers, just imagine what he has in store for next season. 

“We've got really good motors coming from John Kaase,” Berner said. “We've got a brand new car coming from Rick Jones, and that car will probably be half worn-out before we get to the first race in San Antonio. We're going to test like crazy and we're going to fix what's broken.”

Berner will replace his Pontiac GTO with a new Pontiac GXP, the sport version of the G6. 

“It's actually being built right now,” Berner said. “We're going to take delivery sometime at the end of December I'm hoping.  As soon as we get it we'll start testing with it.  We've got two new motors being built plus the motors we have and we're actually going to test with the old car -- that was only a two-year old car. 

“We're actually going to be testing here in two weeks with the GTO, trying some new parts on the car and hopefully if they work well then we can put them in our new car.  We expect that car to be better than what we have.  This one is pretty awesome.  We won't run it until it is better - let's just put it that way.” 

Berner said there are no real changes planned for his team and he expects to bring back the same core group, including carburetor specialist Dave Braswell, who is expected to be at ten events in 2008.

We're kind of looking forward to seeing what happens with this little bit of research and development work that we're doing here,” Berner said. “If we build on it and do good with it maybe the next step is another championship.  Our goal is to go 500-inch racing, but that won’t be until we finish what we intend on doing here first.”