HOT ROD FULLER - BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

"Hot" Rod Fuller is well aware what happens in sports to competitors who come up short in their quest for a championship.

The Las Vegas resident, who finished a disappointing second in the chase for the NHRA POWERade Series Top Fuel title in 2007, doesn't plan to join a list that in recent years includes the 2001 New York Giants, the
2006 Detroit Tigers, the 2006 Chicago Bears and NHRA competitor Doug Kalitta. The Giants, Tigers and Bears, one year after making their sport's respective championship games, failed to qualify for the playoffs the following season. Kalitta, who after finishing just 14 points short of winning the Top Fuel championship in 2006, struggled through a disappointing and frustrating season in 2007 in which he finished 10th in points and didn't qualify for NHRA's Countdown to the Championship.

Fuller is determined to avoid being another member of that statistic.

KNEE REHABBED, NEW SPONSOR AND READY TO ROCK IN 2008 ...

tf finalDSA_2048.JPG

I get pretty excited when I win, so I'm going to have to watch myself that I don't do all that stuff that I like to do. I guess I'm really not going to know until I push the throttle in, but I'm very confident that it's going to be fine. - Hot Rod Fuller

"There's a sense I can have a let down this year," said Fuller, who despite a frustrating finish in 2007 still enjoyed a career year, winning three times and scoring his best points finish in his short Top Fuel career. "You see it all the time in all kinds of sports, and you see it in drag racing, where the No. 2 finisher seems to struggle the next year. You see the team that loses in the Super Bowl have a hard time the next year or not even make the playoffs. Then last year (in NHRA) you saw it with Doug Kalitta.

"That's something we have to be extremely conscious of. We can't afford to struggle this year. It's our first with Caterpillar as our primary sponsor. We have a lot of good things going for us, so we have to continue to be aggressive and keep that hunger up."

Very few competitors come into the season with more taste to compete than Fuller, who has had a very busy off season rehabilitating from major knee surgery in which his left knee was scoped to repair damage to his anterior cruciate ligament.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

The general recovery time from his surgery is three to four months, but because of the limited off season, Fuller, who received help from University of Nevada Las Vegas athletics team trainer Dave Tomchek, has had to cram his rehabilitation into nearly half that time.

"My trainer was little nervous about me being ready for the season," Fuller said. "I'm not a kid any more. But I'm lucky coming into it that I started training before the surgery, so two days after the surgery, I already had started physical therapy.

"We've been going seven days a week, basically three-to-four hours a day. That's all I've been devoting my time to this off season - physical therapy. It's been full time.

"I've been real fortunate. I had a great doctor in Dr. Vern Prochaska and my trainer Dave Tomchek, who is the lead trainer at UNLV. I can't say enough about them. They let me use their facilities and basically I was being trained like a full-fledged athlete who was getting ready for the season."

Fuller, who first injured his knee in February before re-injuring it during the middle of last season, has experienced a variety of training methods from range of motion to flexibility and strength drills. His rehabilitation has included a lot of different techniques, including one where he had to tread water in a 10-foot deep pool while trying to catch a tossed ball. All techniques, which were supervised by Tomchek, were designed to strengthen his repaired knee.

"It sounds pretty easy," he said. "But trying to catch (a ball) while keeping yourself afloat can be pretty taxing.

"I also had to do a lot of stability work. I'm used to doing a lot of weightlifting, but they had me doing a lot agility stuff. Everything seems like it's ready to go, agility-wise. I can bend it and do everything I need to do. The last thing I need to do is to work on my fast twitch portion of the muscle. It's still like it's lazy. But I'm ready to go.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

"But for a couple of weeks there, I was getting real nervous because it was bothering me. Then it turned around and it wasn't even hurting anymore."

However, Fuller, who has practiced seating in the car, knows the real test will come in the coming weeks, first when he makes some test runs in his Caterpillar dragster and when the season kicks off with the 48th CARQUEST Winternationals at Pomona, Calif. in early February.

"We're pulling five-to-six (G-Forces) during a typical run now," Fuller said. "I also put my leg on a bar to keep my body stable during a run. That portion of it is a lot of wear and tear, and working the clutch before the run, those are hard to push in. Then there's all the craziness of driving the car.

"I get pretty excited when I win, so I'm going to have to watch myself that I don't do all that stuff that I like to do.

"I guess I'm really not going to know until I push the throttle in, but I'm very confident that it's going to be fine."

Fuller approaches the 2008 campaign with great vigor after enjoying a career year last season. He won three national events in six final rounds, scored four No. 1 qualifier awards and was a solid factor in the title hunt with a 40-20 record during eliminations, while also leading the points after 14 of the first 17 races of the NHRA's regular season.

He put himself in position to score the Top Fuel title when he won the ACDelco Nationals in Las Vegas in late October. But his dream season turned to perhaps the most-frustrating campaign of his young career when he smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle and lost in the first round at the season-closing Auto Club Finals in Pomona. That opened the door for three-time defending champion Tony Schumacher, who scored his fourth consecutive title when he beat Bob Vandergriff Jr. in the final.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

cars out there.
"It was like the best and worst season," said Fuller, who would easily have won the title under the old points format. "It was a great season for me, but a lot of things weren't great.

"I feel deep in my heart that I did win that world championship - the way it was the last 53 years. I feel I'm a world-championship caliber driver now. And that also makes me feel like I have a lot of unfinished business that I need to get done. I want to win that championship. It's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I don't, because I got so close (in 2007). "

And Fuller believes the difference will more than likely come early rather than later. He is definitely pointing for a hole-shot start when the 2008 season kicks off in early February for the 48th CARQUEST Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

"It's critical to get off to a good start," said Fuller, who advanced to at least the semifinals six times with one win in two final rounds during the first nine races last season. "I was talking to (crew chief Rob Flynn) about that the other day. That (start) we got last year is what propelled us through the entire year.

"We did well (at the Winternationals), won Phoenix. That was the key to our season. And it carried through out the year."

And there's no doubt the formula can work again in 2008.

{loadposition feedback}

Categories:

:::::: Feature Stories ::::::

Search form

HOT ROD FULLER - BACK WITH A VENGEANCE