Semi-final finish in Houston goes long way to erase bad memory

ESPN2/Motel6 Vision

Tony Bartone refused to experience flashbacks during the recently
completed NHRA O’Reilly Springnationals in Houston, Texas. The
determination clearly overrode the memories from one race earlier in
Gainesville, Florida.

Tony Bartone's semi-final finish in Houston was a momentum-builder for the Canidae Pet Foods team. (Roger Richards)

Bartone’s car left the Houston Raceway Park starting line, then the
tires smoked and the car began to move around. Instinctively, Bartone
realized his first round opponent Bob Tasca III was having the same
traction problems.

Bartone, an accomplished Top Alcohol racer in both the dragsters and
Funny Cars, began pedaling. The front wheels hiked up and at one time
all four wheels came off the ground.

Still, Bartone drove to the win light, carding a 6.32 winning elapsed time.

Rules adjustments be damned. Defending world champion Matt Smith came to Houston intend on

Matt Smith raced the weekend fearless of rules reprimand. (Roger Richards)

running as quickly as he can and winning as much as he can. If he’s penalized on Monday, no big deal – he’s used to it.

“That's a fact,” Smith said. “I didn't care if they threw 10 pounds on
us, we wanted to come out here and show a point.  The weight definitely
slows us down but instead of griping and complaining and bitching and
crying we went to work and found some power instead of trying to get
weight added to it.  We did our job.”

Greg Anderson has experienced some weird weekends in his career, but few can parallel his encounters in

Anderson’s
latest victory moved him into fifth place on the NHRA’s all-time
professional wins list. He’s won twice in 2008 and currently leads the
championship points. (Roger Richards)

Houston. The 47-year old driver of the
Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac GXP deflected the potential misfortunes
en route to winning his 53rd NHRA POWERade national event title by
defeating Kurt Johnson.

Anderson emerged as the champion in Houston just like he did in Pomona. However, that’s where the similarities ended.

“We did it and it was a completely different win than the first one in
Pomona,” Anderson said. “We just had a flawless weekend.  We showed up
and we ran great.  We qualified number one.  I think we ran low ET
every run and everything was smooth sailing.

Antron Brown figured with the infrastructure in place at David Powers Motorsports he would gain a

The Houston victory made Antron Brown the first driver to win a national event in both Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle. (Roger Richards)

measure
of success during his rookie season. Four races into the freshman tour,
he’s nailed down his first victory, not to mention a pole position in
his first outing, Pomona.

Brown is reveling in the fact he’s undefeated in final rounds. Okay, so
he’s only reached one. The facts are on his side at least until the
next final.

Bob Vandergriff, Jr. confirmed his team will soon make an announcement
regarding a second Top Fuel dragster but quickly pointed out this
expansion could merely be scratching the surface of things to come. The
driver of the United Parcel Service dragster admitted a third and
fourth dragster is already in the works.

“We will be running a 2nd team next year and we'll probably have an
announcement out on it next week,” Vandergriff said. “We'll then
probably have a little more details for everyone at the Las Vegas
race.  If things go according to plan, we might have not just the
second car but a third and fourth one as well.  We'll see how things
shake up in the next couple of months but we have some opportunities
and if they go as planned then we could have those extra teams next
year.”

Did Vandergriff all of a sudden find the fabled pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow? Not quite, but close thanks to a few NASCAR connections.

Ken Black wished he had the budget the Pro Stock competition
believed he had. The notion he’s got an unlimited budget is something
he refers to as a great misnomer.

“I'm sure there are people out here that have more than I have,”
explained Black, owner of the Pontiac GXP Anderson has driven to three
world championships. “I'm comfortable and I do this because I love the
sport.  I like to think it's not an ego thing or anything like that. 
We're not financially stressed but things are a little tight right now
with the economy and especially with our business in Vegas and stuff. 

“We're being a little extra careful right now.  I don't feel that in
the past we've been extravagant.  We've spent our money wisely, I
think.  I've spent some money on property and equipment and stuff but I
consider those to be assets or investments rather than just throwing
good money chasing bad.”

Reigning POWERade Pro Stock champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. has an
enviable race day record of 355-165, one of the best winning
percentages ever. So when the 52-time national event winner gives away
a race by fouling out at the starting line, like he did Sunday at the
O'Reilly Spring NHRA Nationals, it's noteworthy.

For just the
ninth time in his career, Coughlin left before the green light came on,
negating a sure quarterfinal win over a broken Allen Johnson that would
have kept him in the points lead. Instead, Coughlin left Houston Raceway Park
three points behind eventual race winner Greg Anderson, who held the
points lead after the first two races of the season before Coughlin
took it away with his win in Gainesville, Fla.

Number 2 qualifier Tony Bartone and the Canidae Pet Foods
Funny Car team will have to wait until Las Vegas for a chance to
improve on this weekend’s impressive performance after smoking the
tires and losing traction at the start of their semifinal heat against
Ashley Force Sunday and handing over the race.

“All in all, we
are very happy with this weekend’s runs but everyone on the team can’t
help feeling a little let down after that one,” said Bartone.  “I think
we were a bit overheated going into the race against Ashley and that’s
what knocked us out. A tip of the hat though to Jim, Jon and the crew. 
What a great job they did. The fact that they were able get us here in
time and ready for Houston after the Gainesville thrashing of the car is a victory in itself,” added Bartone.

Four-time NHRA world champion Gary Scelzi faced a tough
match-up in Sunday's opening round of eliminations at the NHRA Spring
Nationals. As the No. 16 qualifier in the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger
R/T he was forced to meet up with the No. 1 qualifier Cruz Pedregon.

In
a brand-new Brad Hadman chassis under the Mopar/Oakley Dodge body,
Scelzi drove up to the starting lights with confidence and bluster, but
expectations fell short as he lost traction at the hit of the throttle,
slowing him to a 13.823-second run at 72.29 mph, while Pedregon pulled
out a 4.937/304.74 pass to win the round.

John Force had a chance to race daughter Ashley and
make it an all Force family final round but his Castrol GTX High Mileage
Ford Mustang was vanquished by Worsham in the semi-final round.

“Worsham is a hell of a racer. He was way overdue and hungry. He had
a car that was just fast. A lot of these cars have been carrying this
weight since last year. They have more runs on them tan us but we’ll
learn,” said winningest driver in Funny Car history.