2010 NHRA WINTERNATIONALS - EVENT NOTEBOOK
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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK - THE CHAMPIONS ARE CROWNED IN THE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY
FOR FORCE: AGE IS BUT A NUMBER - John Force believes 60 is the new 40.
For the 14-time NHRA Funny Car champion, age is only a number, and the number he was most concerned with was for the first time in 40 starts, he was able to win a race. The self-proclaimed old man not only won the race but did so on a hole shot.
Force repelled the charge of Ron Capps, the defending event champion, by cranking out a 4.124, 298.67 mph blast to stop Capps’ quicker 4.123, 305.08.
Force faced the assembled media and quickly took them back to a place in time when the winningest driver in professional drag racing history felt like he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag, mentally or physically.
“My legs were broken and they said I might never walk again and that gets in your heard,” said Force, who never fully recovered from the emotional trauma of the injuries related to his September 2007 crash. “I always felt just to come out of the hospital and win would mean a lot. My trainer was here this weekend, and there were times that he would see me down and crying. I was worn out and I told him that no matter how hard I work, I ain’t gonna be who I used to be. That hurts when your kids call you Superman and you feel you’re just a man.”
On this Sunday in Pomona, he was a man with conviction. Those convictions started in the second round when he was paired against daughter Ashley Force-Hood in a bizarre quarter-final race where her car suffered a malfunction and against the odds, provided a competitive race against her father.
Force had no other choice but to give it his all.
“I got back on my game because I really wanted it,” Force said. “Racing Ashley was the hardest race for me. I told her, ‘I love you baby, but I may never get another chance. I’m getting old, and I have to give you all I’ve got.”
Besides if he didn’t, there was a fellow Funny Car racer all too willing to give him the business. Force said he owes Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen a big hug and appreciation.
“He told me, ‘you act like you don’t want to win,” Force said, describing his encounter with McEwen. “I told him that I was doing the best I could out there. He looked at me and told me that it appeared every time I raced one of my teammates that I wasn’t the same guy.
“Then McEwen got mad … and told me I owed the fans … I owed them the chance to see me win. I went up to him today and told him he was right.”
The victory marked the first win for Force since nitro drag racing was shortened to 1000-feet. He’s won 127 times in quarter-mile competition.
In the final round, he beat Capps for the 42nd time in 63 meetings. He holds the championship contender in high regard and each meeting, Force believes, reinforces that respect.
“I know where Capps comes from,” said Force. “I tried to hire him years ago when [Don] Prudhomme snatched him up. The kid is fighting for what he wants and that’s that championship and he’s going to get it one of these days.”
But today, Force needed this win, if not for his sponsors, for his psyche.
“You know when you’re younger and your kids see you win all the time, and all of a sudden, you’re not good anymore. You keep fighting and saying that I’m doing all I can do,” Force pointed out. “Your legs won’t carry you. You can’t cut lights. My legs didn’t have any strength. [My trainer] told me I had to beat on my legs and asked me, 'Do you think you’re the only guy who has ever broken his arms and legs?' He told me to just keep on and I’d be able to drive that race car.
“There were times that I’d try to hold the clutch and my leg was shaking, I’d try to hold it … you can’t drive like that. You can’t cry about it. I started hitting it hard and heavy.”
And today, Force reaped the benefits of his pain with a huge gain.
The victory places Force in the championship lead for the first time since November 12, 2006.
DIXON GETS HIS WISH - Larry Dixon beamed when he recalled the sentimentality on Friday of the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca. Every 
year of his life, he said, has included the traditional NHRA season-opener. And even though he’d won the event three times and his father, Larry Dixon Sr., once, winning the 50th anniversary event would be the ultimate.
He made sure the experience was his on Sunday.
From the No. 2 spot on the qualifying grid, Dixon blasted his way through the field beating legendary names – Chrisman, Bernstein, Schumacher and then defending event champion Doug Kalitta in the final.
“It is beyond words,” Dixon said. “This is a huge event in its own right. Whether it's the first, twelfth or whatever, the 50th and all the hype that has gone into it makes it special. Having a shot at running for it and actually doing it, I feel blessed. I feel lucky. I feel very lucky.”
On a day where he had to be both lucky and good, Dixon stopped all takers, even winning a semi-final race with identical elapsed times and speeds against adversary Tony Schumacher. They both ran a 3.836 elapsed time at 317.03 miles per hour. The difference was Dixon’s .017 starting line advantage. Only three times in national event drag racing history has something like this happened.
Last year Dixon and defending world champion Schumacher battled down to the wire for the championship, in a war decided by only two points.
“Racing Tony in the semis … it was like can't we wait until October to race,” Dixon said. “We've only had about eight weeks off and we're back at it again. I don't know that I have ever seen identical ET and mph run like that. I am sure it happened and being on the right side of it, finally. Boy … that was a great drag yes; yeah for the other guy. To be able to beat them, to have two cars prepared and have it come out exactly equal like that.”
Sunday’s victory marked his 49th career triumph and tied him for eighth alongside Don “Snake” Prudhomme, ironically the team owner he left to join Al Anabi Racing in December 2008.
However, Dixon isn't about to put much stock in his new place in drag racing history.
“To be honest, how I feel about it is probably the same way I felt about it when I tied or passed [Don] Garlits,” Dixon explained. “It's not even fair to be tied. When Snake was in his day there were only three or five or seven events on the tour and he'd win every single one. So, he didn't get to run his numbers up. When he stepped out of the car, he was winning. Had he stayed in the car, not put me in, he would have kept winning. It's just apples and oranges. If I had the winning percentage like the Snake I would pass John Force, but it ain't happening.”
Dixon’s victory marks his fourth NHRA Winternationals crown since 1998 and the irony of it all, is the 50th was won by a pair of second-generation drag racing kids who watched their father’s win Pomona titles.
Crew chief Jason McCulloch’s dad, Ed McCulloch, won the event in 1972, and according to Dixon, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“Jason don't talk much on race day,” Dixon said, cracking a smile. “He's just like his dad from that standpoint. They've got their game faces on. As kids we grew up in this sport. We know how much it meant. My dad winning and Jason's dad winning and now us having a chance to win together. I am sure we'll have a beer or four and talk about it later.”
THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME FOR EDWARDS - The field can shuffle.
New cars and drivers can come into the mix.
But for the Pro Stock class, the more change that comes, the more the end result remains the same.
Defending champion Mike Edwards, dominated qualifying and eliminations, to the point he captured every possible point available short of setting a world record en route to winning the 50th NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca.
For eight consecutive rounds of qualifying and eliminations, Edwards returned to his pit area as the quickest 500-inch Pro Stocker on the property.
“This is a major win,” said Edwards, who last won the NHRA Winternationals title in 1981 as a sportsman racer. “What a way to start the season. My team is like Interstate Batteries slogan, Outrageously Dependable. That is what my team is, they are outrageously dependable. They make this car go up and down the track. It's a pleasure to be a part of this team, these guys are so good. We're just real fortunate to have what we have and I just want to give God all the glory and praise because without him this team is nothing.”
Today the competition needed a measure of divine intervention as Edwards flat dominated every time he covered the quarter-mile. And in the final, when Greg Anderson strapped a .03 light on him out of the gate, Edwards speed by just in time to score his 21st career victory.
“I need every bit of that last round,” admitted Edwards. “Greg, he walloped me there on the starting line. “I was hoping that track was a little bit longer. I saw a lot of Summit for a long ways, but it's was a great time to make a great run.”
Many believed the competition would bridge the monstrous gap Edwards held much of last year, but the increased competition only made Edwards dig deeper.
“You have to be ready every time you pull up there,” he said. “There's a big bulls-eye now and I'm not use to that. I got a little use to that last year when I got beat on several hole shots. Hopefully I can turn that around this year and get some of those back.”
At the end of the day, although he scored the victory, Edwards reflected on the tough off-season his final round opponent has experienced including a house fire and medical issues with team owner Ken Black.
My hats off to Greg and Jason and all those guys, the tough winter they've had,” Edwards said. “Ken, hope he gets well soon. We miss him. We love the challenge they give us.”
BEATING THE ODDS - The fact that he reached the finals said a lot about Ron Capps’ resolve.
The veteran driver of the NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger didn’t let a broken finger or a broken race car deter him in the least.
In December, Capps broke a finger and did tendon damage on his left index finger. He drove all weekend with a splint on his finger. Then in the second round, Capps was stranded on the top end as his Funny Car broke a rearend, and had to be transported back to the pits on a wrecker. A 35-minute thrash ensued and not only did Capps make the semi-final call but also beat Bob Tasca III.
"A lot of teams probably wouldn't have made it back up for the next round and our guys changed everything on the car, including the rear end, and had it back up there before anybody else in the staging lanes,” Capps said. “That's NAPA know-how. You're going to hear a lot of that this year. We are so proud of those NAPA guys who did that all.
"It's tough to swallow a loss like that," he continued, "but I did my best and Ace really stepped up. Considering where we qualified, I'm sure some teams may have thought we were off this weekend, but he showed up this morning ready to race in the heat and when it cooled off he put a 4.12 up on the board (in the final).”
In the end, Capps lost on a holeshot to the 14-time champion.
"There's a reason Force has all those championship trophies. He knows how to get up to race. We've had some great battles in the past and I thought this was going to be another one and I was going to be holding the trophy.
"Great race for the fans, but I guess the bright side for us is we're going to Phoenix second in the points. I'm so proud of the NAPA guys right now, it's incredible."
As John Force and Ashley-Force Hood rolled through the water box to do their burnouts, the second-generation drag racer’s parachute deployed before she nailed the throttle. Meanwhile, Force did his usual long burnout.
Instead of throwing in the towel, Force-Hood’s crew thrashed frantically to repack the parachute. Force backed up slowly from his burnout.
But unbeknownst to either driver, Ron Capps’ NAPA Funny Car was stranded on the top-end with a broken rear-end and unable to move.
As NHRA starter Rick Stewart started to motion for father and daughter to shut-off, Force-Hood’s crew successfully repacked the parachute and the top end crews cleared the shutdown area of the broken Funny Car.
Both cars took the green-light, and Force won with low elapsed time of the round, a 4.120 at 305.49. Force-Hood, sans burnout, still ran a 4.187, which was the fifth quickest pass of the round and would have only missed lane choice for the next round by .004.
“I’m still trying to figure out what exactly happened,” said Force, interviewed at the top end after the incident. “At first when I did my burnout, I didn’t see her. She didn’t do her burnout. Then [NHRA starter, Rick] Stewart told me to shut off. I wondered if she had broken, so I put the car in reverse. Then I thought the NHRA must have had a light problem. The next thing I knew, I was on a single and went to stage, then boom, boom, she staged.”
Immediately Force tried to clear the air that he wasn’t trying to mess with his daughter on the starting line. She beat him more times than not last season.
“I wouldn’t mess with her … especially not on Valentine’s Day, her mother would kick my …,” Force continued. “We got down to the finish line and she told me she thought someone had gotten run over or there was oil under the tires. They didn’t have any radio communication over there. It was chaos out there. But, hey, if this is the only way the old man can beat her, I’ll take it.”
GOLDEN VOICE, GOLDEN COMMENTARY – Dave McClelland, legendary drag announcer, continues to prove announcing a drag racing event can be a talent equal with riding a bike. At least for the NHRA’s legendary voice it is.
McClelland joined NHRA announcer Bob Frey on the announcer’s deck multiple times over the course of the NHRA 50th anniversary Winternationals to call the action, and to bring a nostalgic flavor to the weekend’s racing
“The author Thomas Wolfe once said you can never go home again and I found that to be wrong,” said McClelland, who retired from full-time announcing in 2004. “It was like old times here in Pomona.”
Sentimentality aside, McClelland respectfully conveys to his fans who long for his return that he’s perfectly happy remaining in “hibernation”.
“Don’t think I’m gonna make a habit of it,” he added. “I basically retired from full-time announcing to get off of the road. The only way you can pursue that career is to travel all the time. I’m very happy that they lured me out of hibernation.”
This weekend’s event marks the 47th consecutive NHRA Winternationals event attended by McClelland.
McClelland admitted his first Winternationals experience, as an announcer, didn’t feature much of a public address system.
“We barely had one,” he explained. “You talked a lot and wasn’t really sure anyone heard you.”
McClenathan missed the first NHRA Winternationals, but announced the 25th and now the 50th. Will the 75th be on his radar?
“I’m planning on being at the 100th,” exclaimed McClelland, as he smiled.
IT’S OUR YEAR – If 2009 was Top Fuel driver Morgan Lucas’ coming out season, what is this year?
“This is our trying to repeat last year tour,” answered Lucas, who qualified fifth at the NHRA Winternationals. “We’ve had so many bad years in drag racing that last year inspired us to be as good as we were. We want to win more races than three; we want to finish top three or top five. The bottom line is that beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a tough sport, and a tough class. All we want to do is keep making improvements, remain consistent and represent our sponsors as best we can.”
Showcasing first-year sponsor Geico, Lucas won three races in three finals, finishing seventh in the championship points battle last year.
“We learned a lot about last year,” explained Lucas. “Specifically, we learned how to win. This sport will force you to learn how to lose. I think knowing how to win and how to keep your cool, not forgetting what you are supposed to be doing, we’ve tried to just remain consistent and be the best we can be. We learned how not to settle for second best.”
One of the key components to Lucas’ 2010 confidence lies in the fact he is returning with familiar personnel. That’s enough inspiration to amp him up about his chances.
“Last year was great and we made a ton of improvements over the previous year,” Lucas said. “We were able to keep the same core team around, with little turnover, and that’s going to be a big part of what we accomplish this year. We’re really building a strong platform for a championship run to come in the next few years.”
Lucas was one of the many nitro teams that tested during the weeklong private session at Palm Beach Internationals Raceway in Jupiter, Fla. He wasn’t the quickest, nor was he the slowest of those testing – but what he did leave with, was knowledge.
“We went down with a list of r & d things we wanted to try,” Lucas explained. “Our blower program is something we’ve been working on. We went down there and didn’t try to run those 3.70's, we didn’t want to hurt anything and leave with one or two less motors. We saw a couple of other teams do that. We’re looking at ways we can get consistent, how to learn data and run three times a day. We wanted to learn what the car was telling us. I believe that test was the best one, I’ve ever had. We left with a lot more knowledge than we came in with.”
YOU CAN ALWAYS GO HOME – Lance Larsen is back home. The longtime nitro tuner, who is the crew chief for the Melanie Troxel-driven 
In-N-Out Burgers Dodge Charger, is back to tuning a Funny Car, a class he last worked in seven years ago with Dean Skuza.
“By far the most experience I’ve got is in tuning Funny Car,” said Larsen. “I was fortunate to join a team that had a lot of data to help the time that I’ve been away from it. Unfortunately, Brian Corradi, who is my best friend in the world [and a co-worker at Skuza Motorsports], works for a competing company so he can’t help me. But he left all the data and I just go through the book and make my best educated guess. It will be a while before I force my [tune-up] personality down its throat. All in all, it’s exciting and a new challenge.”
This marks Larsen’s second go-round working with Troxel. The two previously worked together on Evan Knoll’s Vietnam Veterans/POW-MIA dragster three years ago. This is his first experience working with team owner Roger Burgess and the combination of team owner and driver has Larsen counting his blessings.
“I definitely fell into a good one here,” Larsen added.
And for Larsen, he’s just as content tuning a flopper again, but wouldn’t minded if the team fielded a Top Fuel dragster either. He’s just happy to be playing the game again.
“I like them both, it has nitro in it – I’m blessed, this is my 45th year in the sport,” said Larson. “I’m not going to put my finger on which one is better. Each requires a different philosophy. I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by good people. This is awesome for a part-time opportunity.”
Larsen said he and the team worked solidly for three consecutive weeks, seven days a week just to be able to test last weekend in Las Vegas and compete in this weekend’s NHRA Winternationals.
The previous experience of working with Troxel provided Larsen with enough of a comfort zone to concentrate on his other roles as crew chief. But, if it had been another driver, Larsen says he might not have offered his two-cents worth anyway.
“I’ve worked with Melanie before, but she has to be the biggest student of what she does out there,” Larsen said. “She’s got her things that she looks at on the computer and studies. She practices with a practice tree and works on her skills. That’s refreshing to see. She’s open-minded. If I have a comment or suggestion, and I don’t comment about driving because I’m afraid of them telling me, ‘you try it.
BRAT GIVES WILKERSON A TIME-OUT -- Tim Wilkerson said his Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang acted "like a brat" this weekend as he struggled with mixed behavior from it during qualifying, then lost in the first round to Ashley Force Hood after losing traction.
He got in a full pass his first time down the track but posted a 4.182 while other teams were dipping into the low teens or 4.0s. The next day, he spun the tires, and did that again in Saturday's first chance to sit No. 10 with one more chance to improve. Under the lights and after some delays, he had slipped to 13th. He used a 4.167 elapsed time to reach the No. 11 position. Such inconsistency didn't give him much peace of mind heading into eliminations.
"Sometimes the car just does what you want it to do, no matter how little the tweaks are, and sometimes it just seems like it has a mind of its own," Wilkerson said. "We kept doing the seesaw thing in qualifying, either being too soft or too aggressive, up and down, back and forth. To tell you the truth, I'm glad we got it down there twice and got in the show, because we never did make a run we planned to make. The two full laps were slower than we wanted, and the other two qualifying laps were more aggressive than we thought they'd be. I love race cars. They're wonderful things."
He said he didn’t think lane choice meant a whole lot Sunday. "I think the lanes weren't an issue at all," Wilkerson said. "You could run good in either one, and you could obviously mess up in either one, too. We were just hoping we could put another full lap on the board and maybe we'd have a chance to get there first, especially if they had any problems over in the other lane. They'd just seen their team car (Robert Hight) lose a race by smoking the tires and crossing the center line, so I'm sure they factored that into any last-second changes they made."
Wilkerson started out well against Force Hood, with a .067 reaction time that definitely was more desirable than her .120. He was ahead at both the 60-foot and 330-foot timers. But then he lost traction and she sailed on to victory.
"Our car hardly ever does that, which is just one more thing to be puzzled about," he said. "We smoke the tires early just like everyone does, from time to time, but once we get to 330 we usually make it. Why it chose this time to blow them off out there is something we're going to have to figure out, and we have to figure it out before next weekend. We'll look for variables, or things that might be different from other runs, and try to narrow it down. I'm a lot happier when the car acts like it should, rather than when it acts like a brat. We'll be in Phoenix in a couple of days, and hopefully we'll have a better weekend."
QUICK EXIT -- In a match between the past two Funny Car champions, No. 1 qualifier Robert Hight was disqualified for crossing the center line in his Auto Club Ford Mustang, sending Pedregon into the quarterfinals. So the reigning champion, who was hoping to have a extra-strong performance after last year's admittedly terrible first half of the season, exited after just a few seconds on the track.
Hight said crew chief Jimmy Prock "is still baffled that we smoked the tires, even after looking at the data. The tires weren't hot. I had it perfectly lined up in the center of the groove. I knew I left on it. I saw the amber. It felt awesome. I pedaled it and got back on it, and it hooked. When it does that, usually it goes. I stayed in it, and all of a sudden it turned sideways so I lifted. When it does that, the tires really start spinning. They slow down and then they relly speed up and it shoots you. Unfortunately, it shot me across the center line, and I couldn't bring it back. It wasn't going to run 4.30 anyway after pedaling it out that far. We have to not smoke the tires. It looks funny, especially when Ashley goes out and runs 4.12 right behind us. It is just one of those deals, and we'll move on. We are still learning this clutch package. It is not like last year, when we were struggling to figure it out. We just have to fine-tune this Mustang to get it to react the way we need it to. We'll get it."
Traditionally, teams have a couple of weeks before they hit the track again, at Phoenix's Firebird International Raceway. However, this year's schedule has the Arizona Nationals starting this coming Friday. And Hight said that suits him just fine. He called that "huge," saying, "I don't have to think about this for a week. I can get right back to work. With thti race being the 50th Winternationals . . . It has been a crazy, crazy weekend. I'm back at my home track after winning the championship. I got my ring today and my champion's jacket. There were just lots of things going on. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I am not complaining. It will be nice to get a more normal race weekend. It is good to be back with the fans and all the sponsors. I have missed my team -- they are all in Indy."
Crazy, yes, but some of it is crazy-cool, Hight said. When fan call out to him these days, he said, "they don't call me Robert anymore -- they are saying, 'Hey, Champ!' and that is cool. I'm looking forward to hearing that at 22 more events this season."
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QUICK HITS - RACE DAY REPORTS IN RAPID FASHION
TOP FUEL
AMPLE AMMO -- The rear wing of the Bill Miller Engineering Dragster is the team owner's editorial page. And Miller's message at the start of this season is: You can never have enough horsepower or ammunition." He gave driver Troy Buff plenty of horsepower and ammunition for first-round opponent Morgan Lucas. Buff, the No. 12 qualifier, cut a .019 light that propelled him to an upset of No. 5 Morgan Lucas. Buff's winning 3.950-second pass at 295.85 mph, which topped Lucas' 4.108 / 263.92, marked the third straight first-round upset. It followed No. 10 Brandon Bernstein's victory over No. 7 Norwegian Thomas Nataas and No. 11 Antron Brown's elimination of Steve Torrence.
Lucas said his GEICO/Lucas Oil Dragster evidently had been troubled by technology all weekend: "Our data has been coming back, saying that the new automatic shutoff system has been turning the engine off before it's supposed to. It's slowed the engine and caused the burst panels to pop."
THROWS IT AWAY -- Eighty-one-year-old Chris Karamesines had the perfect chance to eliminate reigning and seven-time Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher in the first round, as Schumacher smoked the tires of his U.S. Army Dragster early. But Karamesines jumped the gun by a whopping .302 of a second, enabling Schumacher to record his 15th consecutive Round 1 victory since last June at Joliet, Ill. "Them young guys get a little eager," Schumacher quipped, quickly telling that the first drag-racing T-shirt he wore was emblazoned with "The Greek's" name.
DIXON CONSISTENTLY HOT -- Top qualifier Cory McClenathan defeated Steve Faria with a 3.843-second pass at 318.77 mph in the morning's fifth Top Fuel pairing. But immediately afterward, Larry Dixon claimed low elapsed time and top speed of the round -- and, as it turned out, of the first two rounds -- with a 3.799/ 318.99 to get past Steve Chrisman. He said he had "been waiting since the Monday after Pomona" -- meaning 91 days -- to embark on a fresh quest for his third championship. Or maybe meant nearly a year, to atone for his failure to qualify at the 2009 Winternationals in the Alan Johnson-owned Al-Anabi Racing Dragster's debut. Whichever he meant, Dixon had low E.T. and top speed (3.854/316.82) of the quarterfinals, too -- although his E.T. was only one-thousandth of a second quicker than McClenathan's that round against Shawn Langdon.
IT DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK -- In the Top Fuel quarterfinals, Doug Kalitta used a 3.92-second elapsed time to beat Troy Buff, and Tony Schumacher had a 3.92 as he advanced past Don Schumacher Racing teammate Antron Brown. Brandon Bernstein posted a 3.92 in the final match-up of the round, too, but he lost to Larry Dixon by .075 of a second.
A RARE TRUE-TO-FORM DAY -- Usually only in theory do the first four qualifiers end up being the semifinalists. That's what happened Sunday, as Cory McClenathan, Larry Dixon, Tony Schumacher, and Doug Kalitta made it to Round 3.
AN EVEN RARER SEMIFINAL RACE -- Larry Dixon and Tony Schumacher made some history, in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not sense, in their semifinal race. They posted identical elapsed times and speeds at 3.836 seconds and 317.05 mph. "That hasn't happened five times in the history of the sport," announcer Bob Frey said. Ironically, Schumacher has been a participant in two of those instances. Dixon won, thanks to his .068-of-a-second reaction time. Schumacher's was .085.
For Schumacher, it wasn't heartbreak. It was just an exciting day at the office. His philosophy is "Just have fun." He said, "At the end of the year it becomes more pressure, but I love what I do. I got up this morning and smiled (because) I get to drive a race car today. I didn't think, 'I've got to win.' I said, 'I get to drive a race car.' That's what keeps me going. When you start getting up and saying, 'Oh my God -- if I don’t win . . . Oh-oh-oh . . .' What's that all about? You've got to enjoy what you do, enjoy the moment. You hear people say, 'You show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.' If you can't lose with some dignity and grace, you can't win with dignity and grace."
ANOTHER CLASS ACT -- When Larry Dixon lined up against longtime Top Fuel rival Brandon Bernstein in the quarterfinals, he appeared to be taking a tiny bit longer than usual to stage. After he won to move into the semifinals, Dixon quickly climbed from his car and went over to speak with Bernstein, sharing the technical explanation for why he did so. "I took too long and I apologized to Brandon for that," Dixon said. "If I win, I want to win on my merits, not because I jerked somebody around."
CHAPTER ONE - Terry McMillen and his Amalie Oil Top Fuel dragster took two giant steps forward at the 50th running of the NHRA Winternationals this weekend.
"We didn't get a chance to test over the winter," McMillen explained. "So, just getting our car in the show was a big first step." McMillen qualified his ride in the 13th spot, keeping his perfect qualifying record as team owner/driver intact.
The Indiana based team made many changes in the off season, including the addition of new crew chief, Richard Hartman. "Richard did a great job," McMillan said. "He basically came in here with a new car and a new team and after two passes had us running career best 60ft times and in the 3.90s. Once we get a couple of more laps under our belts, we'll have a car that can run with anyone on Sunday."
McMillen's first round of the season ended in a loss to Doug Kalitta when he smoked the tires just a few feet from the starting line. "We obviously got a little too aggressive for what the track wanted," McMillen said. "I think we had a set up that would have worked a little earlier in the session."
FUNNY CAR
LIKE A ROOKIE?? -- After veteran Del Worsham's photo-finish victory over Jeff Arend in the opening round, the Al-Anabi Funny Car driver said, uncharacteristically, that he "was awful nervous -- I felt like a rookie." He didn't drive like one, holding off hard-charging Arend by about 14 inches, or .0026 seconds. Arend, a seasoned driver, too, was going Sunday for his third career victory and first since Memphis last season. Worsham lost to Jack Beckman in the next round.
PRO STOCK
DRIVE ONE, AND HE DID - Ford suggests their potential customers “drive one”.
Larry Morgan did just that; pushing his new 2010 Mustang Pro Stocker all the way to the semi-finals. Morgan defeated Jeg Coughlin Jr., and Ronnie Humphrey before losing to Greg Anderson.
“You don’t know how good this feels,” said Larry Morgan, in his first career Pro Stock race with Ford. “This is for the Ford Mustang group, Lucas Oil, Rick Jones for the car and all of the guys who worked hard back in our shop to get it finished. This is a good car we have here, we just need to crawl before we can walk … and we’re doing that. I’m just happy to be here right now.”
Morgan leaves Pomona as the highest ranked Ford Pro Stocker since Bob Glidden finished tenth in 1996.
SUNNY DAY FOR GRAY -- Shane Gray said he never wanted to drive anything but a Pro Stock car, unlike his father / teammate / boss, Johnny Gray, who has driven nitro Funny Cars, Top Alcohol Funny Cars, Top Alcohol Dragsters, and now Pro Stock cars. And the 38-year-old former Comp Eliminator racer began his dream in style this weekend, qualifying 14th -- just two spots behind his more experienced father -- and advancing to the quarterfinals -- one round more than Dad -- in his Pontiac GXP with the family's newly developed engines.
He beat Ron Krisher, one of the cagiest Pro Stock racers in an already brutally competitive class, to advance to a meeting with Greg Anderson. Although he lost to Anderson in Round 2, Shane Gray considered himself successful. After all, he earned his Pro Stock license just a week ago Saturday. And Shane Gray, one of the older Rookie of the Year candidates, joined his dad in building the new program during the winter and both cars qualified.
"I think it's pretty amazing, all that we've accomplished over the off-season and are here qualified for the Winternationals," the younger Gray said. "The first of October we had an empty shop building, cars were just being built, there were no machines in our shop, no blocks, no heads, no nothing and here we are and we've got both cars qualified. So I think it's an amazing feat."
He had said Saturday night that "mentally I'm ready to have a good time (Sunday), but experience wise, not yet. But in the near future I will be. Every time I get to get in the car and strap up and make a run, it's just better for me. The car is a lot better than I am at this point. But hopefully, I'll be good enough to go a round or two."
HANG ON SLOOPY - Jeg Coughlin's Chevrolet Cobalt went sideways right off the launch pad of Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, resulting in an unexpected first-round loss to fellow Ohioan Larry Morgan.
"That's about the last thing in the world I expected to have happen to us," Coughlin said. "We had a top 3, 4 car all weekend, we came into race day as the No. 2 qualifier, and we saw a bunch of our competitors perform really well in front of us. We were definitely on a high. But drag racing can do this to you.
"We just missed the tune-up. The car made a wild move down low and there was just no catching Larry after that. We've got no one to blame but ourselves today so we'll pick up the pieces and head to Phoenix next weekend and get this thing straightened out."
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - THE LEADERS SHAKE OUT AFTER SEASON'S FIRST QUALIFYING EFFORT
ORANGE YOU GLAD, YOU'RE THE QUICKEST? – It’s called a slingshot and Top Fuel racer Cory McClenathan plans to perfect it this season.
Trailing behind Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon, two drivers apparently running at peak power, McClenathan pulled out of line to slingshot past them for the 34th No. 1 qualifying effort of his career.
“We saw the air getting better and better as time went on, and then we just figured, ‘what did we have to lose?'” McClenathan admitted. “We knew Tony would run good, just a tick above us, and we knew that Larry would too.”
The confidence to lay out an all-or-nothing, came in the tuning mentality of McClenathan’s tuners Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler, two former Funny Car tuners not shy about their aggressive approach.
“They told me it was going to be all or nothing,” McClenathan recalled. “They said it was going to either go all the way or not make it past 60-feet. They told me to get ready. By half-track, I knew it was going to be a good run.”
McClenathan was just .016 seconds off the national record with a 3.787 elapsed time at 320.05 miles per hour.
“This is gratifying and I owe it to Todd and Phil,” McClenathan said. “They’ve done an awesome job preparing.
“Todd is very methodical in his approach and Phil is not afraid to throw the kitchen sink at it. Somewhere in the middle we have a good package there. They complement one another, and in today’s nitro world, you need a pair of good tuners.”
HEY THAT’S ME – Robert Hight, 2009 NHRA Funny Car world champion, understands that being the champion has its privileges. Case in point, when you’re sitting in your Funny Car, you can look up and see an airplane towing a banner of your likeness across the Southern California sky.
“John jumped in his car, drove down the street, to see if he was on the other side of the banner,” Hight said, smiling.
The banner brings more pride than pressure for Hight.
“It was neat to see that up there, they are as excited about this championship as we are,” Hight said. “That’s what’s neat about the whole deal … they don’t put pressure on us to win. They just tell us to go out there and do what we do. The banner caught me off guard. I’m glad they didn’t want to tow me around, I’m afraid of heights.”
For his No. 1 qualifying efforts, Hight matches up against the 2008 champion Cruz Pedregon in the first round. Pedregon didn’t have a banner flying in the sky on Saturday.
STACKING UP - Mike Edwards believes one of the great things about the NHRA Winternationals is its ability for teams to see where they stack up after 
an off-season chock full of relentless work. The defending NHRA Pro Stock champion could only smile to see that not much has changed since the last time he raced in Pomona.
He’s still an arm and a leg ahead of the competition.
“Ran a really good run the first run today,” said Edwards, who was .013 seconds ahead of second-ranked Jeg Coughlin. “We kinda tried some things tonight but didn't feel like we got what we needed. I am just really, extremely really proud of guys and the effort they put in. It feels real good to come out here and run good starting out the year.”
Edwards is thriving already in a time when some speculated the GM teams would fall off with the manufacturer’s pullout from the class in late 2008 and limited factory parts supplies.
“I think the package Pontiac left with us is very, very good,” said an optimistic Edwards. “It's an awesome car – the GXP. It's very good in the wind. I don't know what the game plan is in a couple years for us but right now I am very pleased with our Pontiac.”
Engine blocks and cylinder heads have been the toughest items for Edwards and his fellow GM racers.
“Engine parts, there are some pieces that we're struggling to get,” he explained. “I'm thankful we're in pretty good shape. We didn't see it coming but we had enough parts to keep us going for a while. We'll just continue on with what we got and down the road if we have to do something different, we will.”
CAPPS’ INJURY – No Ron Capps is not giving those to the right of him the one-finger salute while he drives his 8,000-horsepower Funny Car down the track. That’s
Capps, once a professional racquet ball player who competed in many tournaments, still hits the court every once in a while. That fire to play burned him last December, when Capps, chasing a ball crashed into the wall and jammed a finger.
If only the injury was that minor.
The jammed finger turned out to be a broken bone in the fingertip and a ripped tendon.
“It’s not too bad,” said Capps, who expects to get the splint off before next weekend’s event in Phoenix. “Impact made us a special glove to go over the splint. So, it’s not as bad as it might seem. I can hold the brake, grab the wheel and hit the parachutes.”
He’s caught a little grief over the course of testing in West Palm Beach, Fla., and this weekend in Pomona.
“When I was warming up the car, my team thought I was giving an obscene gesture,” said Capps, with a laugh. “It’s gotten to be quite the joke.”
4-WIDE SAFETY CONCERNS – Ron Capps, recently appointed to the Professional Racers Organization board, adding to his existing role as a 
member of the driver’s safety committee, has been inspired to look closer at the safety concerns surrounding one of drag racing’s most talked-about upcoming events – four wide racing.
“We’re all concerned, and excited about it – we came to the conclusion that it’s all for a good cause,” Capps said, of the safety aspects related to the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in March. “It’s good publicity and good for a man who has built many of the tracks we race on – Bruton Smith. We just wanted to make sure some things from a driver’s standpoint, were looked at.”
Some of those issues include better visibility of the Christmas tree, and the potential that debris from a crash similar to the one that took out Kenny Bernstein alongside of John Force during the 2007 NHRA Fallnationals in Dallas.
According to Capps, a wall has been placed in the middle separating the two tracks.
These advances, made in the name of safety, Capps believes, is largely due in part to the willingness of the NHRA’s Graham Light and Dan Olsen to work with the teams for the safest possible situation.
“The open communication with Graham Light and Dan Olson has been good,” Capps said. “The drivers are all for it, the only issues we had were that of safety. Those issues are being taken care of. We have to back NHRA on something like this. You have to get behind a guy like Bruton Smith who has done so much for our sport. You have to give him something back. We have to make sure we cover all of the bases on safety from our end.”
The NHRA’s new automatic safety shut-off switch will be in place for drag racing’s first official NHRA four-abreast national event. There is some tweaking still to be done to the system based on the performance at the first event of the season.
One of those ideas was to make it manually operated, a system Capps believes is not likely to work because of the margin of error. Another is a driver-operated override to prevent a situation similar to Thursday’s qualifying, where a car broke a reverser, coasted through the lights and automatically deployed the parachutes, leaving the powerless car stranded on the track while the other was under fire on the starting line.
While the NHRA was largely criticized for not consulting PRO before announcing the 4-Wide Nationals, Capps said he understands the reason the event was kept under wraps for the most part.
“Looking at it as a devil’s advocate this was too large of an announcement for many people to be consulted beforehand,” Capps admitted. “With today’s Internet age, that would have ended up on CompetitionPlus.com or a message board. It wouldn’t have been a big announcement then.”
Capps is reserving judgment until after the event, and that is when the NHRA will analyze the event for the future.
“If it works, it works. Just like Tom Compton said, we just need to give it a try,” Capps said. “If it doesn’t work, we just won’t do it again. If the fans don’t like it, we won’t do it again. Let’s look at it, look at the attendance and television of other forms of motorsports and drag racing hung pretty tight. I think things like this are going to keep it going.”
At the end of the day, Capps says it is up to the NHRA to make the tough and unpopular decisions. But it is up to both the drivers and the sanctioning body to keep the dialogue going.
“It goes back to communication,” Capps said of NHRA VP of Operations Graham Light. “It’s like Mike Helton over in NASCAR, you can’t be everyone’s buddy and be the one setting your foot down with the rules. He can’t be the best friend; he’s got to be that kind of person. I don’t envy his position but it’s been great to sit down with him and have open communication. Many times in the past we may have called Graham names and may have gotten mad about something, there just wasn’t communication. Now things are going well. We all need to work together to help our sport.”
TASTY RESULTS -- Funny Car team owner Roger Burgess put in his order for the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger, and Melanie Troxel delivered.
“We came out, made it to the finish line three out of four runs, we were never shut off for oil leaks or anything crazy, and we qualified for the field,” she said of her first stint with the burger-chain sponsorship since the 1990s. “That was absolutely our objective, and in that sense we've already put on a good show for In-N-Out Burger.”
Evidently the excitement has spread from the racetrack to the drive-through. Legendary public-address announcer Dave McClelland, who said the NHRA “talked me into coming out of hibernation," said he visited an In-N-Out Burger restaurant this weekend, proudly wearing his vintage NHRA jacket.
The young man at the counter saw the NHRA logo on McClelland's jacket and asked, “How's our race car doing this weekend?”
Just the same, Troxel indicated she wants to super-size her accomplishments, which included taking 13th place in the lineup for Sunday's eliminations.
“When we put this together and we knew it was only going to be 30 days to make this thing happen before this race, we had very high hopes,” Troxel said. “Roger wrote a letter he put out to the team that talked about our objectives and our goals. Our objectives are the realistic things you want to do, and then our goals are set a little bit higher. They are things that you would like to do. And we absolutely reached all of our objectives here so far this weekend.”
Troxel qualified with a 4.184-second pass at 304.67 mph and said Saturday evening, “Tomorrow, we work on the goals part. That's to go out and improve on our ET. a little bit and go some rounds. We're excited. Every run I get more and more comfortable in the car, and the guys have absolutely given me a great car to drive. This is the car I drove in 2008, and it has never been easier to drive than it is right now.
“That gives me great confidence going into race day,” Troxel said. “This is incredible chemistry here with this team, and that goes from the guys working on the car, the crew chiefs, to the sponsor.”
It's something she certainly can relish.
TOUGH WAY TO START – Paul Lee was as eager as a Funny Car driver could be to start the newest chapter of his driving career on Thursday, 
before the first of four qualifying sessions at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca.
Even though he entered the third session on the outside of the field, Lee was still excited.
“Beautiful California weather, racing at the 50th anniversary Winternationals, and driving for Jim Dunn, it can’t get any better than that,” said Lee, moments before heading out for his third qualifying attempt on Saturday at the NHRA Winternationals.
The thoughts of Thursday’s debacle were clearly behind him. Though he’s a rookie on the NHRA series, he’s no rookie when it comes to nitro racing. That’s why when first session opponent Jeff Diehl broke a reverser and coasted through the lights, Lee sat there patiently. When Diehl became stranded just past the finish line thanks to the automatic shut-off device, he sat there on the starting line, car under fire, as the safety safari towed the broken race car off of the top end.
By the time Lee finally ran, his heated up clutch yielded a 4.73 ET and a fuel tank with only one gallon of nitro in it. Typically, a nitro car has in excess of three gallons following a run, the equivalent of 30 pounds. Because his car was lower on fuel than planned, the run was thrown out because he was light at the scales.
Lee learned a valuable lesson about the auto shut-off device on the first run, but also experienced his first 1,000 foot run.
“This is the first time for me,” Lee said of the 1,000-foot experience. “I know why they do the 1,000 feet but the quarter-mile is fun. At least we’re drag racing.”
Lee knows Pomona, although he failed to make the field, was a learning experience.
“I’ll make mistakes, and he’ll [Jim Dunn] will let me know, that’s part of the learning process. I will make some mistakes. He’s been doing this for 60 years, how can you not listen to what he says.”
BOB BODE: A DECADE IN DRAG RACING -- Bob Bode showed up at Tucson, without a Funny Car license but with eyes as big as clutch plates 
and a heart full of excitement. He had been a boat racer but quickly converted to drag-racing fan -- with no real knowledge of the floppers he fell in love with from the grandstands.
That was 10 years ago, and he had a car that Glen Mikres had built in California. But Bode had never sat in it. Bode remembered his first piece of advice from Mikres, who was still driving at the time but was helping him get started.
“He goes, 'You know, Bob, you should probably sit in there when we tow it up to the starting line, so you can be comfortable.' That's the first time I sat in the car (when it was moving),” Bode said. “We took it to the starting line, and he said, 'OK -- we'll start it and . . . Hit the gas.'”
Bode said he thought, “That's my lesson?” It was all the formal “training” he received.
“I don't know that they ever expected me to drive the car,” Bode said. “If it was me, in the back of my mind I'd be thinking, 'I hope this turkey can't figure it out and I get to drive this guy's race car.' As it would be, I figured it out, and 10 years later we're still here.
“It's an interesting story, especially for a guy who started at 50 and at this age still doing it and loving every minute of it,” he said. “I'm afraid I'm going to get too old and I'll have to stop.”
Bode isn't too old. And this weekend he hasn't been too slow, either. He qualified 14th and will face John Force in Sunday's opening round.
“We're plugging along. We brought back the car that we had here in November, which for us was a really good car,” said the Chicago-area bag-factory owner who finished 17th last year, despite running in just 12 races. “We think we're going to improve on that.”
He made the field, ahead of Jeff Arend and Cruz Pedregon, without any testing in preparation for the season.
“We've done nothing,” he said. “Any extra money I have, I'm going racing. I'm not wasting it on testing. We'll do all the races before we'd do testing.
“We're planning on at least half the races, (depending on) the better we do and the more money we get. We're hoping we have a good race car, and it's going to dictate what we do. Last year we did the first five (events), which was a probably a mistake. Then when I had a good car, about June, I didn't have any money left,” Bode said. “For two out of the last nine years, we've wound up leaving Pomona in the top 10 -- and we'd go to Phoenix and screw up and not get anywhere.”
He said this year he has selected 10 races to attend but said, “For every race we qualify, we'll stick another one in.”
“For me, qualifying is winning,” he said. If we go rounds, those are just bonus days. “We're realists. We're going to give it the best shot we have, and some days our best shot is good. Other days it's not.”
Bode said he's definitely planning to be at Las Vegas -- “and probably Charlotte. When I saw the four-car-wide (format), I said, 'I want to do that!' “ That's what he said when he witnessed his first NHRA drag race.
“It's all fun, being out here,” Bode said. “The car is nothing but a pain in the butt. It's what everything here twirls around. It's all the people who circle around the car is why we all come out. We come out for the kind-of fantasy world, being in a race-car mode and being out and around lots and lots and lots and lots of fun people. That's the draw.”
JUNIOR-SIZED FUN -- Call it kid-friendly, nitro-driver-approved. Funny Car driver Bob Bode and Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher are planning their own team, of sorts.
Bode's son Bobby, 8, just became the proud owner of a new Junior Dragster. Right now it has an honored spot in the garage at the family's Barrington, Ill., home. Bobby practices every day -- getting in and out of the car. “They're difficult for a little guy with short legs to get out of,” Dad said. “So I taught him how to get on top of the roll cage and jump out.”
Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher lives nearby and recently bought his eldest son, eight-year-old Anthony, a Junior Dragster. (“He has a baseball bat, too, and he skates,” part-time house-league hockey player Schumacher cautioned.)
And both he and Bode talked about getting their sons together to share the introductory drag-racing experience.
“We're going to team up, work together,” Schumacher said. “We'll start getting the kids together so they have someone to hang out with. It'll be the right way to do it.”
Said Bode, “If you have somebody to go do all this stuff with, it's so much more fun. The more the merrier.
“And if you can get the kids having fun with it. . . “ Bode said. “They truly are the future of the sport.”
SNAKE MISSED -- According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. It certainly isn't the Year of The Snake, with team owner Don “The Snake” Prudence's retirement from the sport.
Kenny Bernstein said Prudhomme's absence is “a great loss to the NHRA community and the sport in general. He's a legend in this sport, a name in this sport that's synonymous with this sport just like Garlits. The bottom line is we don't want to lose any of those guys as long as he wants to do it, and I know that he enjoys doing it.
“The facts are the facts, though,” Bernstein said. “This thing is very expensive out here. Has been for years. And consequently, Don and myself, and John Force, and a few people, this is how we make a living. So without sponsorships, we can't do it. You're not going to spend your own money.
“I couldn't afford to do it, and I know Don doesn't want to do that, either. If we had businesses to fall back on, if we were fortunate enough to have large companies to fall back on that we could utilize for advertising, that would be a different story. But the three of us don't,” he said. “In our case, if CoPart hadn't come aboard, if we hadn't gotten CoPart, we wouldn't be here, either.”
John Force, mostly clowning around, said Saturday morning, “Don Prudhomme's coming back! He's just playing hard-to-get!”
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - ANOTHER FORCE OVERLOAD AND DIXON RECALLS WINTERS MEMORIES
A DAY OF FORCE OVERLOAD – In one day John Force crashed a pit bike, nearly got beat up by a fan, shuttled his daughter via scooter through
traffic leading into the track in time for her to get low elapsed time and managed enough gumption to run the quickest Funny Car time in Friday’s qualifications. It’s a good thing that downsizing his team to three cars has allowed him to slow down some.Force’s 4.066 elapsed time on Friday at the NHRA Winternationals was enough to place him third in the field, and well ahead of where he was 24 hours earlier. His Thursday qualifying attempt was disallowed when it was discovered his Castrol Ford had experienced a rear-wheel start.
“Brittany got her teaching certificate, but she loves to race … she didn’t make it into the field yesterday and called me in a panic saying she was stuck in traffic, so I had to run and get her … got her just in time to make the run,” Force recalled. “I ran into the pits today and hit a plastic thing and it threw me. I always wanted to jump up like [Raymond] Beadle and throw my hands up. I did and my wife just looked at me. The last time I crashed, I couldn’t get up.
“Then I saw a friend, or who I thought was a friend, on a golf cart with his kids and I went over there to say hello and ran into his golf cart, and he looked at me and said, ‘Have you got a problem? I almost got popped over that. If I had been Ashley or Robert, I could have gotten away with it.”
Part of Force’s inspiration to keep his energy level at a premium was fueled by a local newspaper questioning whether he still had gas in the tank.
“I laid all night in bed looking at that article,” he said. “They threw me under the bus, but that pumps me up. At least they know they have one person reading their paper.”
Two days into the new season it hasn’t taken the 14-time champion long to figure out he’s got a stronger team by running only three cars.
“I never realized how overloaded I was with four cars,” Force admitted. “Running between cars … trying to keep people happy … running over to my girl’s cars … when you take out a car … it just takes a big hunk of the load off of you. It’s amazing that I can just focus on my own stuff.”
No matter how frayed that focus might be.
TESTING AT THE BEACH – Larry Dixon took nine-time champion tuner Alan Johnson’s words to heart.
“Before the weekend, Alan told us, at every race, we just need to do a little better than we did last year,” Dixon said, as he addressed the media following Friday’s qualifying at the NHRA Winternationals.
Dixon did exactly as he was told, and for his part it didn’t require a whole lot of effort.
Last year he failed to make the cut and on the second day of this year’s four day event he drove the Al-Anabi Racing dragster to the provisional No. 1 spot with a 3.795 elapsed time at 317.79 miles per hour.
“We’re going to race this year, and it was a nice clean run, nothing much to talk about,” Dixon said.
Thursday’s conditions produced a cooler track temperature since the session was largely run after sundown. Friday was run in warmer conditions.
“Friday was closer to what we will see all weekend,” Dixon added.
Dixon, along with a score of other nitro racers, tested in late January at Palm Beach International Raceway in Jupiter, Fla. Twice his team surpassed the current 3.771 world record.
“West Palm … we really, really had some good air conditions,” Dixon said. “It was below sea level there and here we are above. We ran today in real world conditions, and what we will see. The track down there was tight but today was what we see most of the time. Testing down in West Palm helped us, just making runs and testing clutch combinations. Having great conditions and being able to take advantage of it helped us out. Time will tell how much it helped us when you have to race people week in and week out.”
BORN TO RUN THE WINTERS – Larry Dixon qualified No. 1, at least provisionally at the 50th anniversary of the NHRA Winternationals, and this was a special moment for him.
Dixon, a second-generation Top Fuel driver, who along with his father Larry Sr., has won this event. As long as he’s been alive, he’s been at the Pomona season-opener in one capacity or another.
“I’m 43, and I can honestly say that every year of my life … I’ve been at the Winternationals,” Dixon revealed. “That’s cool. There’s years that I haven’t been home to the Valley, but every year I’ve been to the Winternationals in some capacity, sitting in the stands, helping my dad or working for Larry Minor. I was here and it was a part of my life. To compete at the 50th and know I have a chance to win, is an honor.”
Dixon knows we live in the age of immediate information, but there’s a part of him that longs for the days when the event provided quite a few new revelations.
“I miss those days of showing up at the event, and finding out ‘wow, this guy’s got this sponsor’ or Bernstein, when he brought out that Buick [Reatta, Funny Car in 1988] … and saying, what the heck is that? How did he even pass tech? Garlits with his rear-engine car. It’s things like that you didn’t know about until you got to this race. You’d see all the wild paint schemes and have to see it for yourself. It wasn’t on the Internet as soon as it came out. I’m nostalgic for that stuff. The races that have been on the tour for 50 years mean a lot to me.”
Dixon is a three-time Winternationals finalist with two victories to his credit. He leads the field after two sessions of qualifying with a 3.795 elapsed time at 317.79 miles per hour.
“As a kid growing up, my dad won this race [1970], and everybody who was somebody came to compete,” Dixon concluded.
EDWARDS STILL ON TOP – The weather conditions might have changed from Thursday to Friday, but defending Pro Stock champion Mike
Edwards remained on top.He ran a 6.599, the quickest run of the second session, and remained atop the 12-car provisional field. His 6.580 elapsed time leads qualifying headed into Saturday’s two sessions.
“These cars are naturally aspirated, so if the temperature goes up – these cars are going to slow down just a tick,” Edwards said. “The hotter it gets, it affects these engines. That’s why you just have to make the adjustments.”
Edwards has picked up six bonus points for making the quickest qualifying runs in the first two sessions.
THE TEAM CONCEPT - Friday’s Pro Stock qualifying at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca, wasn’t as much a showcase of the driver’s talents as it was for the engine builders. Following Thursday’s qualifying, engine builders Mike Edwards, Victor Cagnazzi and Roy Johnson each had two cars apiece in the top six.
“I think the more information you can get out of a two-car team is very helpful,” said Edwards, who along with engine lease customer Ron Krisher represent the first and third spots, after Friday’s qualifying.
“I think you’re going to see the team cars closer together because we’ve all made thousands of runs in all kinds of conditions.”
Cagnazzi engine-equipped cars driven by Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Rodger Brogdon were second and fourth.
Roy Johnson, who builds engines for his son Allen Johnson and Vinny Deceglie, put their Mopars into the fifth and sixth spots respectively.
THE SUPER FAN – Tony Ruscetta worked for thirty long years in the retail industry and when he decided it was time to retire, he didn’t have to look
too hard for something to pass the time. Ruscetta, of Cranston, RI, chose being a drag racing super fan as the time filler.
For the last three seasons, Ruscetta has crisscrossed the United States, traveling to every NHRA Full Throttle event. He doesn’t get in on a free pass and doesn’t work for a team. Ruscetta pays his way into each and every event, like a true fan.
“That was my goal for when I retired – I wanted to follow the NHRA around,” said Ruscetta. “I just enjoy traveling the country and watching NHRA Drag Racing.”
He still works part-time as a merchandiser, but Ruscetta points out when Friday rolls around from February until November each season, his schedule changes.
“The weekends are my NHRA time,” added Ruscetta.
Ruscetta first started attending the drags in 1992, and his first-ever drag race was the NHRA national event in Englishtown, NJ. He had traveled to the NASCAR events close to home but after his first trip to the drags, he was hooked and couldn’t get enough.
“I used that vacation time and my personal events to attend ten to twelve races,” Ruscetta said.
He made it a point to always add one new venue to his schedule of select events. In that time, he’s seen a lot of changes to the sport he’s come to love.
When the nitro cars began running to 1,000 feet in 2008, Ruscetta adapted to the change, convinced drag racing is still drag racing.
“I’m okay with 1,000 foot, to me it’s still two cars lined up, racing side-by-side and the first one to the finish line is the winner,” Ruscetta explained. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s 800 or 1,000 feet, it’s all the same. It’s all the same to me.”
The Countdown was accepted in the same fashion.
“I really like the Countdown because it gives everyone a chance,” Ruscetta said. “It gives the little guys a chance to upset the big guys, and I appreciate that. I’m glad to see it.”
At the end of the day, Ruscetta believes his money is wisely spent following the NHRA drags.
“I’ll keep following the tour until either my money or health gives out,” Ruscetta said. “Drag racing gives me the best bang for my buck. Where else can you get three days of racing, from early in the morning until sometimes late at night, at one event.”
CREASY, WYATT TO MATCH RACE -- Popular veteran racer Dale Creasy, the two-time IHRA Nitro Funny Car champion, was walking through the pits, reconnecting with such buddies as former IHRA competitor Matt Hagan. Frankly, Creasy was happy to be walking at all and doing it without a walker, cane or crutch anymore. He still is bothered by injuries to his left leg and foot from a July 2008 car malfunction at Edmonton and expects to feel the effects forever. But he said he declared, “No more surgery,” despite his doctors' offer to remove the more than 20 screws still implanted from his knee to his ankle.
One thing no one can remove from Creasy is his love for drag racing. He plans to be back behind the wheel of his Beaver Shredding / Tek Pak Chevy Impala, starting April 30 at Shreveport, La., in the season-opener of the newly re-established American Hot Rod Association.
He said he'll be racing his on-track IHRA nemesis Jack Wyatt in six to eight match races this year. “I've got to go where the money's at,” Creasy said, sharing that he and Wyatt will make appearances at San Antonio Raceway; Quaker City Raceway at Salem, Ohio; Mid-Ohio at Lexington, Ohio; Cayuga, Ontario; and Tulsa. The Oklahoma date will be part of the NHRA divisional event. Creasy nosed out Wyatt by a mere five points in 2006 and the next year kept Wyatt No. 2 in the final standings.
PRETTY BUFF -- Troy Buff's official opening Top Fuel pass of the season Thursday certainly looked outstanding on paper. It put him and the Bill Miller Engineering/Okuma Dragster fourth in the provisional order at 3.950 seconds and 286.01 mph. He clicked off the engine early, though, saying Friday, “I knew something was wrong. It showed it has power. But things just break.” By the time he pulled up to the starting line Friday afternoon, Buff was 12th. He stayed there after turning in a 4.108-second run at 223.73 mph.
For the unassuming Texan from the Houston-area city of Spring, driving Miller's Don Long-built rail is a bit non-traditional. He said Miller told him in the beginning of their three-year agreement, “This is a test vehicle. We test my rods and pistons. We're never going to win a championship.”
However, Buff said, “Bill does want to win. Deep down, he wants to win.” Proof, he said, was the team's semifinal appearance at Seattle's Pacific Raceways. The fuel line broke, allowing Tony Schumacher to hobble around him in the wounded U.S. Army Dragster and advance to the final round.
Buff takes it all in stride, saying, “I'm so grateful to be here, running 13 races.”
He also rolls with the punches, even when a tiny grade-school girl delivers them.
At one race, Buff said, he was accommodating a line of fans who were waiting to get his autograph. The small girl let him take his hero card to sign, and as he was doing so, she burst into tears. Buff, startled, tried to figure out what he did to make her cry. Finally she blurted out, pointing at him, “He took my picture!”
Kneeling to speak with her, Buff promised he was planning to give it back after he autographed it. She told him, “I don't want your autograph! I want the driver's autograph!” He tried to assure her that he indeed was the driver, but she was having none of it. She looked at the picture, then at him, and did that a few times before she convinced herself that Buff really was the driver. She wiped away her tears and smiled happily -- leaving Buff the one who felt a bit bad, especially with his crew members taunting him for making a little girl cry.
MUSICAL POSITIONS -- Cory McClenathan said Thursday after leading the Top Fuel field in the first qualifying session, “I can guarantee you one thing: it won't stick.” He was correct, as Larry Dixon passed him with a 3.795-second run at 317.79 mph (although McClenathan still owns the top speed of the week at 320.05). Behind them, though, the field was jumbled. Morgan Lucas jumped from 13th to third Friday with a 3.823-second pass at a career-best 316.90 mph, and Tony Schumacher improved from seventh to fourth. Antron Brown vaulted from 12th to seventh, and Brandon Bernstein moved up five spots, from 15th to 10th.
“I can't tell you how good it feels to start the season with a car running as strong as this one,” said Lucas of his GEICO Powersports/Lucas Oil Dragster. “We didn't have a car like this until several races into the schedule last year. This is where we want to be, running up front with the top teams every weekend.”
'JUST SOME LUCKY KID' -- Top Fuel sophomore Shawn Langdon dropped from second to fifth Friday in the Lucas Oil/Dixie Choppers Dragster. But the Mira Loma native doesn't mind at all.
“I'm just some lucky kid who got the opportunity of a lifetime,” Langdon said. After all, he remembers “Pomona” as the magic word when he was growing up. He started racing at age 12, but when he was in the early years of school, his racer dad Chad rewarded him for outstanding grades by allowing him to attend races at the fabled Southern California track. He hasn't forgotten those days. It motivates him, he said, to take care of the fans.
“I think you should treat others the way you want to be treated. It's something I've always tried to live by,” Langdon said. “I've been on the other side of the ropes, and I try to be the way I wanted those drivers to be to me.
“I got all these autographs, and when I went home at night after the race, I'd pin 'em up on my wall. I had a 'favorites' section. I always liked John Force, Bob Glidden, Larry Morgan, Kenny Bernstein, Don Prudhomme,” he said. “Now that I'm on the other side of the ropes, I want little kids to put me in that section. I try to be that guy who signs all their autographs and makes their weekends enjoyable.”
He has no shortage of fans to try to satisfy this weekend -- “enough to keep me busy all day,” he said.
This whole emergence as a rising star, though, he said, “is something that to me is just weird.”
DANICA + JEG -- Pro Stock team owner Victor Cagnazzi, who lives in and headquarters his JEGS.com-sponsored team in NASCAR-crazy Charlotte, N.C., said he gives a thumbs-up to IndyCar regular Danica Patrick for dabbling in stock-car competition. In Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway, her JR Motorsports-owned No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevy will carry the yellow and black JEGS logo that's so familiar to drag-racing fans. It's part of the as part of JEGS contingency sponsorship program.
“I'm glad she's over there,” Cagnazzi said. “I'd like to see her do well. She's well-liked by the fan base.”
That, he said, helps all of the motorsports industry. He predicted that Patrick will encounter her share of problems like all racers but expressed faith in her ability to handle them. JEGS spokesman Scott Woodruff explained the decision to capitalize on the newest wave of Danicamania with the two favorite words of all successful promoters: “Why not?!”
CANCER-FREE -- The NHRA drag racing community rallied around Cagnazzi Racing fabrication manager Todd Bevis last year with prayers, encouragement and fund raisers as he underwent treatment for head and neck cancer. Cagnazzi was proud Friday to report that doctors have given Bevis a cancer-free diagnosis. “What a blessing!” Cagnazzi said. Bevis, he said, has started working again. “He came back slowly, starting at the end of September. By the end of October, he was storming.”
TEACHER GOES TO HEAD OF CLASS -- Qualifying No. 1 always is memorable, but Brittany Force had several reasons Friday her feat in the
Top Alcohol Dragster class will stand out. The December graduate from Cal State Fullerton, armed with a Bachelors degree in English, started her day at Valadez Middle School in nearby Placentia, where she is about to embark on her student teaching assignment.She became stuck in traffic as she headed out to Auto Club Raceway for her afternoon run and phoned her family. Dad John Force promised to come and rescue her on his scooter. Younger sister Courtney laid out her firesuit and gear so she could jump into it once she arrived at the track.
Brittany Force said her sister might regret helping her, for she scrambled into her car and went out and posted an elapsed time that knocked Courtney from the top qualifying position. (Dad also blasted to a 4.066-second pass at 310.41 mph Friday to bump their older sister Ashley Force Hood from third to fourth place with two Saturday qualifying passes remaining.)
Maybe the Brittany-Courtney see-saw is back in balance. This marked the second time Brittany supplanted Courtney -- she did it first last June at Englishtown, N.J. But both times Courtney has reached the final round, including her victory last July at Seattle, she has beaten Brittany along the way.
However, this time, the only chance they would have to meet is in the final round.
“Really?” asked Brittany. “Is that how it works?"
With her proud father watching on, Brittany Force said her goal this year is to win at last one race in her Brand Source A-Fuel Dragster.
“That's my goal -- to win at least one race this year, too!” her dad interjected from the back of the room.”
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THURSDAY NOTEBOOK - THE SEASON IS OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY
NO MORE LURKING - This season Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan intends to be as loud in the championship battle as his bright orange firesuit is
to the eye. Last year, McClenathan was the odd-man out in a three way battle with teammate Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon. In the final race of the 2009 season, new teammate Antron Brown’s Pomona victory pushed him down to fourth in points.
This year Cory Mac has opened the 2010 season on top, the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca. He is the provisional low qualifier with a 3.809 elapsed time at 320.05 miles per hour and the owner of three qualifying points.
McClenathan is ready to put his actions where his mouth is, and the first point of order waslosing 15 pounds from his person and another 15 from his new-look Fram Top Fuel dragster.
“We plan on making some noise early,” said McClenathan when asked if he planned to lurk in the shadows this season. “We are going to make our presence known. I’ve always liked to listen to the hype for others heading into the new season. I’m tired of lurking. There is no big cat getting ready to pounce. We are going to come out and go toe-to-toe with these guys.”
McClenathan, said his tuners, Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler, in their second year removed from Funny Car tuning, are thinking the same thing.
“The car is prepared right and everything looks fantastic,” McClenathan said.
Beyond that, the most important attribute McClenathan brings into the new season is continuity.
“For the past three seasons, I’ve rolled into the water box with new faces,” McClenathan said. “This year it’s great to roll in and pick up where we left off at. We just had a few small changes with the team. Todd and Phil proved themselves last year and it looks like they are doing it again.”
And that’s why McClenathan doesn’t mind serving notice that he’s about to get loud.
If his run holds, it will mark his 34th career No. 1 qualifier.
SAME OLD, SAME OLD? - Robert Hight has become accustomed to opening the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca, with a strong performance. What happens after that can turn into a crapshoot.
The defending champion opened the 2010 season in the same fashion as the last two by driving to the provisional No. 1 spot, qualifying with a 4.059 elapsed time at 312.86 miles per hour.
“My No. 1 qualifier here last season was my highlight up to Indy,” Hight said. “We were terrible. We started out good. It’s nice to get off on the right foot.”
In 2008, after winning the first race, he won three of six events en route to a fourth place championship finish.
This time Hight edged out Del Worsham, who is celebrating his 40th birthday this weekend.
“It won’t stick, there will be better runs,” Hight said. “It gives us a start where we can get after it and possibly go for the record.”
Courtesy of the NHRA’s qualifying bonus points, Hight ends the first day of the new season in the same fashion he closed last – as point leader. His Thursday No. 1 run netted his team three points.
“I feel like I already have a bullseye on my back,” Hight said. “When you put that number one on the side of your car, it’s like putting up a target. I know when I didn’t have the No. 1 and the other guys did, that’s what I was always gunning for. You know they’re gunning for you.”
And for Hight, he’s hoping his 2010 regular season yields better results than last.
“Hopefully we have a better season than last year in the first part,” Hight said.
The difference for Hight could be in crew chief Jimmy Prock’s swagger.
“Since Indy last year, he’s [Prock] got a confidence, you can see it in him,” Hight explained. “He’s not second guessing himself and not going back and forth to the box making changes. He leaves the pit area with confidence.”
The confidence gives Hight the inspiration to know this is going to be a different kind of season.
OUTRAGEOUSLY DEPENDABLE – Defending Pro Stock champion Mike Edwards admits he and his team have a new slogal. They have embraced the slogan of his newest sponsor, Interstate Batteries, – outrageously dependable.Edwards ran a 6.580 elapsed time at 210.47 to claim the provisional No. 1 qualifying position in first day qualifying at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca. If his opening shot holds, it will mark the 23rd of his career and tenth straight dating back to last season.
That’s a pretty impressive performance for a driver who left Pomona believing that he’d be a spectator for this year’s event.
Edwards and wife Lisa spent as much time chasing down sponsorship as they did wringing horsepower out of their 500-inch Pro Stock engines.
“It looks like if you win a championship, you pick up a sponsor or two,” said Edwards, who ended the season unsure of his plans for 2010 at the end of last season. “Lisa works hard on the sponsorship deal and a few of them actually called us last year. The old saying suggests you gotta have money to make money. I guess you have to win a championship to get a sponsor.
“When we left last year, we wanted to come back. We had all the parts and pieces to come back. Financing one of these programs is tough.”
Edwards has announced in the last week, a sponsorship package with the Penhall Corporation, Interstate Batteries, K&N Filters and ART, a returning sponsor from last year. Contemporary Corvette will also return.”
Edwards admitted his Thursday afternoon pass was an “okay” pass on a track that wasn’t completely up to peak condition from the off-season.
“It’s pretty tricky out there, but the 6.58 is pretty much where we expected to be,” Edwards said. “I’m not sure where it would have ended up if the two Summit cars had made it down. It’s a good start.”
SCHUMACHER'S FUTURE - They might not admit it, but every Top Fuel driver wishes he didn't have to contend with Tony Schumacher.
In a couple of years or so, they'll have their wish.
"We're all going to quit one of these days," Schumacher said. But he raised eyebrows earlier this week when he hinted at a teleconference that he is getting to the point where he could walk away with seven NHRA Top Fuel championships and be content, eager to try new projects.
And Thursday afternoon at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, before posting a provisional No. 7 qualfying spot in the first day of the season-opening Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals, he restated his position.
"I'm 40, won seven championships, have other things I need to accomplish in life," Schumacher said. "We have an amazing company back in Chicago. Don't know that I don't want to go do some TV stuff. I like public speaking. I get to do it here, but at some point I want to watch my kids grow up. It'll be a couple of years, but at some point you've got to start looking at it. I've bought it up for the last four years."
According to Schumacher, the TV folks -- ESPN's in particular -- have no clue about this new frontier for him. "Haven't brought it to their attention," he said, "but it's an idea -- a good idea."
He said he isn't interested in a reality series. He has turned down offers for that already. "Not a reality series -- maybe a talk show," Schumacher said. "Working on it this weekend, actually. Been working with some people. It'd be fun. I have the sarcasm -- I've just got to watch what I say. It'd have to be cable."
Anyone who has seen Schumacher in action knows his gift of gab is one of his outstanding and most endearing assets.
"I've been through so many situations it's hard to find a situation I can't talk about," he said. "I like doing speeches. I've been through a lot of situations. I have a positive attitude. So that's probably the direction I need to focus on."
Proof of that came at Fort Hood recently, when Schumacher and his team, along with NHRA President Tom Compton, presented his 2009 Top Fuel championship trophy to the soldiers and families and the entire community at the base and in the city of Killeen, Texas. The crowd applauded politely when NASA astronauts preceded Schumacher with their presentation of U.S. flag that was displayed at the International Space Station. When Schumacher opened his mouth, they started cheering and whooping.
Reminded of his rousing reception that cold Texas day, Schumacher grinned. "It's fun to be able to outdo an astronaut every now and then," he said, sipping soup and eating a bowlful of blueberries for lunch.
Writing a book -- or writing anything -- is not on his mind.
"I'm pretty good at writing -- terrible at spelling," he said. "I tell a pretty good story, but it's never been in the forefront for me. I like to speak."
He said his experience in drag racing "is something I'll be able to talk about forever," but he said he's looking beyond the sport.
"Oh yeah," Schumacher said. "Schumacher Electric is its own company. It's a family business. Somebody has to be there every day. My dad is fishing a lot and enjoying himself. We have great people running it, but I need to decide if that's something I'm thinking about doing. I've been there, looking at a lot of new things -- looking at the electric cars, looking at the Army side of battery chargers. Don't really know. Just going in to find out. It's a tough call."
He said he has been studying electric cars a bit but not to expect him to invest much time promoting them.
"I don't think it's going to go anywhere. I don't think that will be the wave of the future. I don't think you can go far enough with them. That's my opinion," he said. "People are blinded: 'Oh, it's electric! We don't need gas.' We still use gas to make electricity. At some point you finally just decide to make a motor that gets 50 miles to the gallon and you solve a lot of problems." He said the future will involve water technology, which, he predicted, might be more expensive initially but cost-effective later.
Schumacher said brainstorming about new materials for nitro-burning race cars -- a topic his father entertained, especially following Darrell Russell's fatal 2004 accident -- is "not my goal for the future. I have no interest in that. I'm not an engineer. It's not my thing."
Just the same, he said, "That's the best part about being with the Army: we got guys out there who know how to make a Blackhawk helicopter and an Apache helicopter land in unperfect conditions. So we have a lot of technology we're trying out."
He said public speaking was not his forte, "not at the beginning." However, he said, "I've lived some great moments. It's fun to share them. I've been part of some big moments and great teams. It's hard not to have something to say."
GOOD TO BE SEEN -- Top Fuel driver Spencer Massey, the 2009 rookie of the year who has no NHRA ride this season, was one-up on his
employed colleagues as he visited them in the Pomona pits Thursday. He already had one complete event under his belt -- the International Hot Rod Association's Nitro Jam series opener at Florida's Palm Beach International Raceway. Massey returned to the IHRA to compete in fellow Texan Mitch King's dragster -- the one in which he began driving in the nitro ranks in 2008 and took to the championship that year.However, with his former NHRA boss Don Prudhomme's retirement, Massey admittedly there is "not really anything at the moment" in the works on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series side. He said he came to Pomona because "it's good to keep my face out here" and because "I'm always a drag-racing fan -- I can't miss a drag race."
Sporting his classy-looking IHRA championship ring on his right hand, Massey said he wanted "to come hang out and see what happens. You never know what might show up. 'Out of sight - out of mind' isn't good. I'm obviously looking for something to happen. But as of right now, I'm not really doing anything."
He is relocating from Brownsburg, Ind., where Prudhomme's shop was based, home to Fort Worth, Texas. "I can work on alcohol cars and do some stuff in Division 4. That's where I've grown up -- goin' back to my roots, right?" King is headquartered in Galveston, where last weekend he celebrated the start of Mardi Gras on the city's historic "Strand" at King's old-fashioned ice cream parlor.
He said, "Mitch King's a very good friend of mine, and the IHRA -- it's awesome over there. They have a new format over there, so it's a little different. It's like a Chicago-style match race. We still get to go have fun and get to listen to Top Fuel cars hit the loud pedal. That's what we're all about. It's still fun no matter what. We love to drag race. We love to run our race cars. No matter if it's NHRA or IHRA or what it is, I'm always having fun doing it."
Said Massey, "I'm obviously looking to have a fulltime gig on the NHRA side. Hopefully I'll be back soon. And if I can't, I'll continue to work on Mitch King's car and have fun doing that."
He hasn't abandoned his sportsman roots but said he doesn't want to throw his energy into a Lucas Oil Series program and either ditch his Top Fuel quest or try to pursue both at once.
"I'll go back to drive a Super Comp dragster. But I don't want to get involved into a points battle while I'm still trying to look for a deal on the Top Fuel side of things," Massey said. "So right now I'm just trying to focus my goal on trying to find a professional Top Fuel ride in NHRA. If someone wants me to go run a race or two in (an) alcohol (class), I'm more than happy. I'll jump in a race car and have fun. But I don't want to obligate myself to a full season for points and everything.
"I miss it. I don't think of it as going backwards," he said. "I'm a true racer. I love racing -- it doesn't matter if I'm racing my pick-up or no-electronics or Top Fuel. It doesn't matter to me at all. If I can go back and run alcohol, knowing I can drive in Top Fuel next year, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
Although his contract with Prudhomme officially has ended, Massey said if Prudhomme should find a financial reason to return to the sport, he be "more than happy to drive for him -- and I would think he's more than happy to have me drive for him. We're trying to come up with something, but it's not looking too hot right now."
Also attending the Winternationals as a spectator is Top Fueler Del Cox, the young man from Downey, Calif., who replaced Massey in the seat of King's dragster and followed Massey as IHRA Top Fuel champion last season.
THAT LITTLE S*** – Bob Glidden admitted that he was enjoying a perfectly boring life of retirement. The ten-time NHRA Pro Stock champion had
been cleared by his doctor to play golf following a rather routine heart procedure, and he was headed to Florida to play a couple of rounds.Then the phone rang, and on the other line, Glidden said, “It was that little s***.”
That little s***, as Glidden so affectionately nicknames him, is Justin Humphreys, a low-budgeted Pro Stock driver who Glidden believes is a younger version of himself.
“We worked here until 7:30 last night on our junk getting ready to race,” Glidden said Thursday afternoon, prior to the first round of NHRA Winternationals Pro Stock qualifying. “I think I’m retarded more than I’m retired.”
Glidden said he couldn’t just leave the kid out on his own to enter a new season. His previous crew chief Frank Gugliotta left the team to concentrate on his business. That’s when Humphreys called Glidden.
“I told him, yeah, what the heck … we’ll do something,” Glidden said.
Then retirement was over for Glidden.
Glidden believes he’s as intense today as was back in the day when he captured four championships in the Seventies and six in the Eighties. In the 1980s, he won five titles in a row.
“I don’t know how you could do this any other way than be intense and determined,” said Glidden, who earned the nickname Mad Dog for his relentless work ethic. “You learn to control what you have control over. I learned to accept that what we’ve got is what we’ve got.”
This weekend, Humphreys is racing with an engine that he competed with last year.
“Bob Book did a real good job of coming out of the woodwork with this engine,” said Glidden. “If we can just get the car down the track, I think we will do well.”
Glidden sees a lot of himself in the youthful Humphreys, who became a Pro Stock driver after racing in Sport Compact competition. The champion brags that Humphreys gained his favor because he listens, comprehends and reacts accordingly.
“The big difference between my team back then and this one is that they have to depend on someone else for the vital part of the team,” Glidden said. “We did everything back in the day.”
The cagey Glidden sees brighter days on the horizon for Humphreys once he takes delivery of his new Ford program later this season. Humphreys will have the first Pro Stock engine program coming from NASCAR icons Roush-Yates Racing Engines.
“They won’t have a problem with the transition whatsoever,” Glidden predicted. “It might take Roush-Yates just a little time to get a grip on what we do. When they do … they have all the resources to make this program very good.”
Glidden smiles, looking forward to that day, and at the irony it took the little s*** to make happen what Ford fans have been clamoring for. He’ll be there to help Humphreys make the switch.
“I would not do this for anyone else, period,” Glidden said. “I love him, love the kids on the team and love his family. I love being around them all. He listens to me. He’s a hard-headed s***, but he does well. He’s about as hard-headed as my first son.”
Then Glidden smiled, excused himself, and went back to work, laboring away for “that little s***.”
IT’S ALL GOOD – Rickie Jones, driver of the Elite Performance Pontiac GXP, sees only positives when assessing the 2010 season.
“The sun is shining, so we are already ahead of where we were last season,” said Rickie Jones, who finished in the top ten of NHRA Pro Stock point earners last year.
“We went to Vegas and did some testing,” said Jones. “It was cold and rainy so, it was kind of hard to tell where we were at. We still have a lot of learning to do for this season.”
Jones has switched engine builders and auto manufacturers, going from Morgan to Elite Performance, and Mopar to GM.
“We have turned out a lot of cars this season and ours was actually the last one we finished before this race,” Jones explained. “There’s a lot of excitement in kicking off our new engine program with Elite Performance and Jimmy Oliver.”
Jones admitted that he had clearly defined goals last season and reaching the Countdown to 1, exceeded his personal list of objectives.
“Our primary goal was just to qualify at every event, and anything after that was just a bonus,” said Jones, beaming a smile.
Jones earned his way into the top ten after the third race of the season and never relinquished his place amongst the ten championship contenders.
“That was huge for us and it was all about consistency,” said Jones. “We wanted to try and win some rounds and that put us under a lot of pressure. We were just a small team just trying to make it out there.”
The small team status caught up with the Joneses after the NHRA Carolinas Nationals in Concord, NC, the first race of the Countdown to 1. They were forced to withdraw from the tour with a trailer full of wounded engines and no time to repair them in the midst of four consecutive championship-determining events.
“There was just no way that we could have rebounded from that to come back out and race,” Jones said. “It was tough sitting on the sidelines and watching everyone out there race.”
Jones was able to race the final two events of 2009 thanks to sponsorship assistance from Elite Performance. In his first race back since the Carolinas Nationals, Jones drove his way to a runner-up finish.
“It was good to finish the season on a strong note, and when you look at it, maybe the time off did us some good,” Jones said. “We’ve been real busy this off-season. I wish we could have tested more this offseason. The bottom line is I believe we’ll do well with what has been dealt to us.”
MAN ON TWO MISSIONS -- The Pro Stock Motorcycle class won't debut until the third race of the season, at Gainesville, Fla. But bike veteran owner-rider Steve Johnson showed up here -- on a couple of missions. Along with fellow racers Tony Schumacher, Antron Brown, and Jack Beckman, as well as Don Schumacher Racing Vice-President Mike Lewis, Johnson spoke Thursday morning with 3,000 local students as part of the traditional pre-race Youth and Education Services (YES) Program. Johnson's WyoTech sponsorship is gone for the 2010 season, although he still wears the red Snap-on colors. To supplement that sponsorship, he said, he is at Pomona to "turn over rocks and see if there's anything underneath them." Said Johnson, "So many people think that this is take-take-take. You ask an advisor -- they always say, 'Invest.' You've got to invest in your career. I think being out here is an investment."
ARMY - RACE FOR STRENGTH -- The task: to get NASCAR Sprint Cup star Ryan Newman's No. 39 U.S. Army Chevy Impala car to the front of a military convoy as it weaves through a convoy of speeding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and Stryker AV vehicles. The method: Army - Race for Strength, the new interactive, "augmented-reality" game that launched Thursday at Auto Club Raceway with the Strength in Action Zone (SIAZ) exhibit.
The Winternationals was one of only four simultaneous debut sites across the country. The game also opened during Speed Weeks activities at Daytona International Speedway, at McCormick Place at the Chicago International Automobile Show, and online via a downloadable version (http://www.goarmy.com/raceforstrength).
"This new computer technology will allow today's youth to experience the diverse elements of the Army and demonstrate the elite technology and training used to develop our Army Strong Soldiers," said Col. Derik W. Crotts, Director of Strategic Marketing and Outreach for the U.S. Army Accessions Command.
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