Jerry Savoie shook the sand out of his leathers Friday night from a freakish Q2 trip into the “beach” at the end of the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona quarter-mile track – and shook the Pro Stock Motorcycle standings, taking the lead by a single point on the first day of the Auto Club NHRA Finals.
 
His White Alligator Racing Suzuki clocked a 6.856-second, 194.38-mph pass (slower than his chart-topping 6.844, 195.93 from earlier in the day). But he couldn’t get it stopped. He saved it from tumbling over and spilling him on the asphalt, but he ended up in the sand.

Funny Car racer Ron Capps clinched his first NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series world championship on Saturday at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Capps, driver of the NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger R/T, had a 92-point lead over second-place Matt Hagan when qualifying concluded and needed an 81-point lead to clinch. Before being crowned, Capps was the winningest driver, with 50 victories, to have not won a championship.

The tone for an exciting day of Sportsman action was set early with a marquee matchup for all the marbles in the third round of Stock eliminator. Recently-crowned Top Dragster champion Jeff Strickland vied for a second championship in the same season. He took on challenger Brad Burton, himself a two-time Stock champion, in a race that would either seal the title for Strickland or provide the opportunity for Burton to pass him with one more round-win. 

Although Jack Beckman came up short this season of winning his second career nitro Funny Car world championship, he isn’t dwelling on the missed opportunity.

Beckman arrived at the season-ending NHRA Finals fourth in the points and out of title contention, trailing leader Ron Capps by 151 points.

With really nothing to race for Antron Brown still didn’t let his foot off the gas Friday.

Brown, who clinched his third NHRA Top Fuel world championship – second in a row Oct. 30 at the Las Vegas race – was still in top form at the season-ending NHRA Auto Club Finals Nov. 11 in Pomona, Calif.

Newly crowned NHRA Lucas Oil champion Jonnie Lindberg provided an object lesson why he is the 2016 NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car champion during second-day qualifying for the NHRA AAA Finals at Pomona Raceway.

Lindberg stepped up in the Q-2 session with a 5.440 elapsed time at 269.73 to go from No. 15 to the top spot. Thursday's leader Shane Westerfield dropped to second with a    5.500 elapsed time at 253.37 miles per hour. 

John Lombardo Jr. jumped from fifth up to third with a 5.507, 270.16  while DJ Cox, who was on Thursday bubble, leaped to fourth with a 5.515,  265.80.

Day 1 of the third annual Fun In The Sun Bracket Race began under (what else) sunny Florida skies. Eighth-mile racing is the order for the weekend and a great group of racers showed up to do battle with $10,000 on the line going to today’s winner. In addition to electronics Super Pro-style cars, footbrake cars were welcomed and ran separately until a winner is chosen after which that winner is fed into the next corresponding Super Pro round. And as has been custom in recent times, door cars were run separate from dragsters for as long as there are door cars.

Eliminations began at 2:00 and over 150 cars made the first round call with 64 of them being door cars. Strange Engineering awarded $200 cash to the Best Losing Package of the first round and the first recipient of any money this weekend was “Disco Dean” Karns.

Ron Capps scored valuable qualifying points and Jack Beckman sprinted to the qualifying lead in Funny Car on Friday at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Jason Line (Pro Stock) and Jerry Savoie (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also were qualifying leaders in their respective categories at the 24th and final event of the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season. The Auto Club NHRA Finals marks the conclusion of the six-race NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

Don O’Neal readily acknowledges his life was heading down the wrong path as he was preparing to graduate from high school.

Searching for options – O’Neal enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 18. O’Neal served in the Army from 1991-2013, retiring as a Sergeant First Class (SFC). He spent some time talking to CompetitionPlus.com about Veterans Day – Nov. 11.

“Veteran’s Day takes on a lot of different meanings to me, it’s more than just raising a glass to my brothers and sisters on my left and on my right,” O’Neal said. “I think about the people who I served with and who got lost. It takes on a different meaning for those people and their families and to those who are still serving who I helped recruit to join the Army and seeing how successful they are. So, Veterans Day means a lot more to me today at age 43 than it did say at age 23. It’s a pretty important day for me.”