Competition Plus’ Water-Cooler Topics From The NHRA Vegas 4Wide Natinals.

1. Tony Stewart adds “drag racing winner” to his crowded resume, says he’s ‘having fun living my life now’ - By three ten-thousandths of a second, Tony Stewart added “NHRA drag-racing winner” to his already resplendent résumé Sunday at the Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Minutes after Stewart claimed the Top Alcohol Dragster trophy, his Funny Car driver, Matt Hagan, put the team’s Haas Automation Dodge Hellcat into the winners circle, establishing his command over the class with his third triumph in the season’s first four races.

They joined Antron Brown (Top Fuel) and Dallas Glenn (Pro Stock) atop the winners podium at the conclusion of this fourth of 21 races on the Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule.

Borrowing a line from the movie “Talladega Nights,” Stewart wisecracked, “I feel like Ricky Bobby: 'I don’t know what to do with my hands,'” at the top end of the track shortly after climbing from his Mobil 1 dragster. Within minutes, he put those hands to use, high-fiving his team for its first double-up victory.

“I got tired of looking at Leah’s Wallys, and I wanted to know what it feels like to have one of my own,” Stewart said after edging runner-up Todd Bruce in the final so-called “quad” in just his fourth national event.

The four-wide format, which has confounded even the most seasoned drag-racing veterans, hasn’t fazed Stewart. He said he figures it’s a bit of an equalizer.

“I’m pretty excited about it, honestly,” he said. “I looked forward to this event when we were doing the schedule. I got excited about it, because there’s no way I’m going to sit here and say I’m not at a disadvantage when you’re going up against guys who have been drag racing for years. But they don’t race four-wide a lot. So that kind of gets ’em out of their comfort zone, gets ’em out doing something different – and it’s all different for me. If anything, this would be a bit of an equalizer, and I wouldn’t be at quite a disadvantage. I embraced it. 

“There wasn’t anything that caught me off-guard, necessarily,” he said. “There’s nothing about the four-wide that I haven’t liked so far. I feel like the approach I’ve been going with every round of qualifying has been a very solid approach. You hear drivers talk about getting disoriented on which light they’re looking at. I’ve found the lights to be easy to stay with.”

He likened this unconventional style to “having the opportunity to run a road course or dirt track in the [NASCAR] Cup Series -- do something that’s a little different. So, doing the four-wide version, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s kind of like a heat-race format, I guess, for short-track racing. You don’t have to win. You just got to finish in the top two until you get to the finals, then you’ve got to go for the win, obviously.”

All in all, he said, “I think it’s pretty cool. I’m excited and appreciative that I get to run it here at Vegas and can’t wait to go to Charlotte and do it again.”

The NHRA is challenging its drivers with back-to-back four-wide races. The action will shift to the East Coast for the April 28-30 Circe K Four-Wide Nationals at Concord, N.C.’s zMAX Dragway.

As for whether his business associates in other endeavors are weary of hearing about his newly discovered excitement for NHRA drag racing, Stewart said, “I don’t give a s---. I don’t care if NASCAR is mad. I don’t care if anybody’s mad. I’m having fun, living my life now. I’m able to control my life. I don’t have to do all the things that I had to do with my previous jobs. I have more control of my life. I have great teammates that drive for us, a great wife, and [Pruett and Hagan] have been the best teachers you can ask for and get advice from.

“They all know I’m having fun. I think it’s the opposite of what you thought,” he said. “The comment I get the most is how happy I am: ‘You look happy. You look at peace.’ And I haven’t had that for a long time. So I’m at a very good spot in my life right now.”

And his team is at a really strong spot right now. Hagan is the Funny Car points leader. Pruett is fifth in the standings among the Top Fuel leaders after winning her opening round Sunday and advancing to the semifinal. And Stewart has mastered the track that denied him in the final against Madison Payne in his previous appearance here last fall.     

Stewart has won at every venue on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway property now.

“The Bullring is their pavement short track, and we won in a USAC spring and a USAC midget car on the same night,” he said. “We’ve won on the dirt track in a 360 winged sprint car.  And I won my first USAC Silver Crown race at the dirt track ... then in the Cup car on the big track ...  and here today. Plus in 1997, our only IndyCar championship finished here at Vegas.”

2. Shawn Langdon calls out Josh Hart at top end after his Top Fuel semifinal staging snafu - In a tough-down-the-line Top Fuel semifinal quad that promised to produce a close finish, a starting-line miscue resulted in Shawn Langdon timing out, Mike Salinas losing traction early, Steve Torrence winning in spite of his momentary confusion, and Josh Hart getting the blame.

Langdon took responsibility for his performance, but he threw massive shade at Hart in the R+L Carriers dragster when he emerged from his DHL dragster.

“I screwed up,” he said, before launching into criticism of Hart. “Josh has been hanging a lot of people out. He’s a good guy. I like Josh. But he’s slow, and everybody knows it. Everybody in the class talks about it.

“Bottom line, I’ve got to get my s--- together. That was uncalled for on my end,” Langdon said. “My guys deserve better than that. I’m very, very disappointed in myself. I know how to race better than that. I know the [seven-second] count. I knew to get in. It’s 100 percent on me. I owe everybody an apology for my sponsors.

“That’s just how we race Josh. The whole class knows he takes a long time. The result is I screwed up,” he said.

Torrence was annoyed, even though he advanced to the final round and eventually finished as runner-up to quasi-teammate Antron Brown and reclaimed the points lead. (In the end, he didn’t fare poorly, for he has won or been runner-up at eight of the past 10 four-wide races, and his six four-wide victories are twice as many as anyone else has earned in any class.)

After slamming his harness on his CAPCO dragster when he stepped from his car, Torrence said, “I just missed the Tree, didn’t do my job. Got caught in some kind of stupid game that was going on with somebody.

“Drag racing is drag racing. We do what we do. Everything that you do is within the rules. I don’t know what was going on, but I just caught myself blinking. I saw the whole bulb was on,” he said.

Hart was anything but apologetic.

“If I was playing games, I wouldn't have been the one that timed out,” Hart, recognized as one of the quickest drivers off the starting line, said. “I guess sooner or later you see everyone's true colors, but I didn't time out. I didn't do it intentionally. I am anticipating the pain from the launch because of my neck, and you can't go out here and start whining about your pain. You have to muscle through it. You got these guys out here busting their butts constantly. So you know, I just did the best that I could. Other drivers obviously are not approving of that, but I didn't do anything wrong. I am racing within the confines of the NHRA. I can't change the rules. I just follow them.”

3. Matt Hagan establishes early dominance in Funny Car class - Matt Hagan’s fifth victory at Las Vegas and 46th overall was an extra-special one, because he shared it with boss Tony Stewart, the Top Alcohol Dragster winner Sunday.

The Haas Automation Dodge Hellcat driver benefitted from nemesis Robert Hight’s loss in their first-round foursome, as well as first-round exits by Ron Capps and Bob Tasca III in their opening-round quad. In the final round, Hagan defeated runner-up Tim Wilkerson, who was competing against the car he consults on and his own son Dan Wilkerson tunes, and a rejuvenated John Force, who is rebounding from a sub-par performance at the previous race, at Pomona, Calif.

Hagan and crew chief Dickie Venables are on a roll, after winning at Gainesville and Pomona, too.

Hagan called Stewart “a wheelman at anything he steps into” and said he wasn’t feeling any real pressure following Stewart’s achievement in the Top Alcohol Dragster final – until Stewart sent him down the track with what was supposed to be encouragement.

“I was like, all right, he’s won -- no pressure,” Hagan said. “Then he comes and crawls under the car and says, ‘I just won. You better win. Let’s go.’  Was like, ‘Ah, I feel a little pressure now.’

"Nah, but it’s great. To win and share this victory lane with Tony Stewart is a huge highlight of my career. People don’t realize what type of guy he is. I had no idea who Tony Stewart was, didn’t follow circle track or anything. [He’s] just a genuinely good dude, man. And those are hard to find nowadays. I’m not just saying that because he’s my boss. He could fire me tomorrow, and I’d say it again. He's the kind of guy you want to win for then drink a beer with afterward.”

 

 

4. Dallas Glenn records back-to-back victories in Pro Stock - The third-year RAD Torque Systems Chevy Camaro driver for KB Titan Racing followed his Winternationals victory at Pomona with his sixth overall victory and second at Las Vegas. He edged Troy Coughlin Jr. by about three feet – a mere 0.0092 of a second.

It was atonement for top qualifier Glenn, who reached the final quad here last season and broke at the starting line.

He said, “I didn’t feel I did my job the best that I could’ve” Sunday and was "pumped" to see that he had won, especially against the cagey Coughlin, who launched at about the same moment, and against Cristian Cuadra, who had cut excellent reaction times all day, and against Deric Kramer.

“Even though I was not the best today, I was barely good enough to get it done,” Glenn said. “And that’s kind of what matters in four-wide.”

5. Antron Brown posts first Top Fuel victory of the young season - The three-time series champion, owner-driver of the Matco Tools Toyota dragster at AB Motorsports, earned his 56th Top Fuel victory and 72nd overall, outrunning Steve Torrence by about seven feet in the final round.

“Man, [Force] beat us in the first round by four-thou, the second round by nine-thou, but we got ’em on the third try,” Brown said. “Third time’s the charm. We knew we had to step it up against them because that car has been so consistent. It’s a Xerox machine. That’s why they’re the defending champs.

“When you’re racing four-wide, everything is crazy,” he said. “It’s kind of a battle royal, and the final round was no exception. Every round was a tough match-up. Look at the final today:  you’ve got the four-time champion Steve; Brittany, a two-time champ; myself; and Josh Hart. To come up with that win, that was definitely a statement for our Matco Tools / Lucas Oil / FVP / FDC / Hangsterfers’ / Sirius XM team. That was a heck of a win. I’m just super-pumped, super-proud.”

Nearly half of the top 10 drivers in the Top Fuel standings were gone by the end of the first round: points leader Justin Ashley, No. 5 Austin Prock, No. 8 Doug Kalitta, and No. 10 Tony Schumacher. No. 11 Clay Millican got sent home early, too.   

6. John Force fights back, bites back - John Force took a vacation with his family since his debacle at Pomona, but it didn’t do much to make him feel better about the accident that he triggered that collected J.R. Todd and wrecked both of their race cars. However, once he got back to the racetrack, he started to recover, and started getting his mojo back.

After his second qualifying pass Saturday, one of his PEAK Chevy Camaro crew members came to him and shook his hand. And some made a little much of that gesture, he seemed to think. He said it simply meant that the crew has his back.

“It’s just a run – and I’ve made five million of these runs,” Force said. “You’ve got to watch [out]. This is a mental game. It can make you mental.”

Although he clearly is growing weary of talking about the Pomona incident, Force said Saturday afternoon, “I’ve always lived on the edge.

“I went to my guys [Friday] night,” he said, “and I asked, ‘Do you believe in me? I believe in you. But do you believe in me? ’Cause if you don’t, I need to go home.’ When that stuff [like the accident] happens, especially when you tie up another driver, that’s when OK – you figure this out or get out. And I’m not getting out.”  

Then Sunday he said, “I’ve had drivers coming up to me, and I know they’re not happy with me. I get it. But they always say, ‘You’ll be OK.’ Ron Capps was one of the first – even said he loves me. That matters to me. It keeps my head in the game. This game will beat you up. It beat me up bad.”

After earning a spot in the final round Sunday, Force said, “I’m just the luckiest guy in the world, coming back from being an embarrassment. I’m just glad I can be able to race with these kids.”

He finished third in his quad, but he’s starting to regain that 16-time-champion swagger.

Force did say he’s still evaluating exactly what went wrong with his car during qualifying for the Winternationals. But he said he’s sure of one thing: His age didn’t play a factor in the incident, and he isn’t planning to quit. He discredited a rumor that one or more racers approached him at the Lucas Oil Winternationals and urged him to step away from the cockpit.

“We're going to address my car. My crew chiefs have addressed me. Robert [Hight, his teammate and company president] has addressed me, like, ‘You push it too far.’ I’ve done it before, trying to get qualified and doing stuff, but this wasn't a good time to push it because it got me,” Force told Competition Plus just before this edition of the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

He attributed the accident to “a combination of things. I oversteered it myself. My fault. Maybe the track was really narrow, and I learned a good lesson on that. I'm going to go out and make some runs and see where I'm at with the car. Nothing's wrong with me. No different, other than I'm just getting older. But bottom line, after I make some runs, then I can probably give you some answers. Maybe we'll know what went wrong. And I'm not arguing – I was part of it.”

His 74th birthday is May 4. And not unpredictably, talk turned to Force’s age following the crash, especially considering he also had his final qualifying pass tossed out because he drove across the center line again. Inevitably, as well, rumors swirled at the racetrack that a group of drivers encouraged him to quit.

But Force said, “No, it didn’t happen. Not even one. If there was somebody who said they came to me, well, tell me who they are, because they didn't. If anything, people were probably staying away from me out of respect. I'm sure there's people that don't want to see me hurt, because at my age, if you get hurt, it'd be different than a 30-year-old that gets hurt in a car. But no, I’d tell you if somebody came to me. J.R., he didn't like it. But nobody asked me to retire. I'd tell you if they did.

“Five years ago, I got over the center line, and people were after me then because nobody likes to see that. Then they turn around and do it the next day, and then they're saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, I did it, too.’ Well, who knows why? I don't blame nobody. We just go down the road,” he said.

“Is my age a factor? I don't believe so,” Force said. “But you ask anybody, ‘Why would you be 70 years old and driving a race car?' Why? Because I love to drive them. I'm trying to help the sport. I'm trying to keep cars out there. I don't do it for the money. I made enough money, I can retire. I do it because I love the driving. I love the battle. I love the camaraderie. I love being with the people and the cheer of the crowd, all that s---, you know what I'm saying? But time tells me it's time and I'll know it. And that's all I can say about that.”

 He said he’s ready to keep on fighting the good fight: “Yeah, well, it's what I do.”

Force is reconciled to the fact that observers will have their own opinions and that not all will be favorable – or even unfavorable. He said, “There's two sides to everything. And I don't follow the Internet, but I've heard a lot of people are upset on the Internet. Some are for me, some are against me. That's the way the world is.”

 

 

7. J.R. Todd doubly disappointed - For the second straight race, DHL Toyota Supra Funny Car driver J.R. Todd said he had experienced “definitely a forgettable weekend.” But the Kalitta Motorsports driver assumed responsibility for the failure to qualify that wiped out his crew’s phenomenal repair-and-replace effort for which they earned the “Never Rest Award.”

“I put the blame on me. I should have done a better job earlier in the weekend and keeping the thing in the groove and not come down to Q4 to get in the show,” Todd said Saturday afternoon.

“All in all, I feel bad for my guys [after] all the work they put in this past week to get this DHL GR Supra back on track. All the guys back at PBRC [Precision Built Race Cars] and everybody at Kalitta Motorsports and back at the fab shop for busting their asses to get us back out here,” he said. “This is a tough pill to swallow, but I’m sure we’ll stay and run on Monday to get this thing figured out. It's still early in the season, and there’s a lot of racing left.”

Todd said, “I told these guys I’m sorry. They deserve better than this, and I wanted to get them a win this weekend. That’s the way I can pay them back.”
 

9. Chad Green continues Funny Car momentum - With a pair of semifinal finishes and a $10,000 victory in the second Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge bonus race to start his season, Chad Green was on a roll. Then his car wouldn’t roll off the starting line at Pomona in Race No. 3 of the season. So the Midland, Texas, oil-well-servicing company owner said “it’s so imperative” to have a strong performance here and not break that momentum.

“For that to happen to us [at Pomona] was really unfortunate, and we don't want something like that to just kill our momentum. So it's really important that we get right back on track right now, this race,” Green said.

And he did, advancing to the final round. Although according to NHRA four-wide rules, he will not get credit for a final-round appearance, he knows he was racing for the trophy that went to Matt Hagan. But he was in there, digging, alongside runner-up Tim Wilkerson and resurgent John Force, as well.

It wasn’t smooth sailing for Green the whole weekend, though. He bumped into the field on the final pass of qualifying Saturday, knocking out Terry Haddock – the year’s other “surprise” driver. Green emerged from an opening-round quad that saw Ron Capps and Bob Tasca III bow out, leaving Blake Alexander to advance along with him.

Winning the Mission Foods Challenge at Pomona, Green said, “definitely has given me a lot of confidence. And along with that, it's given the whole team ... a lot of confidence. So there's nothing better than success for the team to breed more success.”

He said the team “changed a few parts in the off season, so we're still trying to get the tune-up dialed in. But we're confident we're going to get back in the [3.]80s.”

Green said Sunday that crew chief Daniel Wilkerson “is coming into his own, and it’s cool to see that happening. This is our second year with the same team. We’ve really come a long ways.”

10. Memorable quotes from the weekend - “This is kind of gnarly – and I really enjoy it.” - Blake Alexander, Funny Car racer for Jim Head Racing, regarding the four-wide format
 
“This team has earned this. This was no gimme. We don’t want gimmes out here. This is kind of my father’s dream. I wish I were surfing 70-foot waves. This is for him. He instilled this in me.”
- Jeff Diehl, Funny Car owner-driver, after advancing along with Matt Hagan in his first-round foursome, as Robert Hight and Alex Laughlin were eliminated