Oh, we’ve got a million of ’em, those memorable quotes from the 2014 NHRA season.
But we’ll share just a few here as we close the book on the year and look forward to all the funny, angry, heart-warming, self-critical, NHRA-critical, and all-around-entertaining remarks that might top these in 2015.
Enjoy reliving the moments . . .
Oh, we’ve got a million of ’em, those memorable quotes from the 2014 NHRA season.
But we’ll share just a few here as we close the book on the year and look forward to all the funny, angry, heart-warming, self-critical, NHRA-critical, and all-around-entertaining remarks that might top these in 2015.
Enjoy reliving the moments . . .
STEVE JOHNSON“First of all, you have to imagine maybe the fastest roller coaster on the planet, then get rid of your seat belts and all safety equipment. Throw that away – that’s for the cars. Then it’s like hanging onto a bullet as it’s getting fired out of a gun. It’s 3Gs, so if you’re 150 pounds, it’s like 450 pounds slamming against you. And you’re going to leave the starting line at 10,000 rpm. The front wheel comes up into the air. You can’t steer with the handlebars, so you’re leaning back and forth on the motorcycle with your feet on the foot pegs. And hopefully the front wheel comes down. And as you go through the quarter-of-a-mile after pushing the shifter five times, hopefully your eyes are closed. Oh – and you have to be on the motorcycle when it crosses the finish line.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Steve Johnson, in an appearance on WPMT-TV (FOX43, serving York and South Central Pennsylvania), describing to the studio host what a quarter-mile ride at nearly 200 mph on a Pro Stock Motorcycle feels like
“BIG” JIM DUNN“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying I enjoy beating any of the big multi-car teams out here. I know what they run on, and I know what they can share in terms of stacks of data. And they know I’m by myself and they know what I run on. It’s got to get under their skin a little bit when our team takes ’em out. I love racing, and winning is really good, so I’m never ashamed to get fired up when I beat a team that dwarfs us. It’s a David versus Goliath thing, I guess.”
Tim Wilkerson, at Dallas, after beating Ron Capps and Matt Hagan before losing in the semifinals to Del Worsham
“Jim has let me out of the dog house. He just told me that if I go back in the Zoo and break the other foot that he’s not coming to get me.”
Jeff Arend, of team owner Jim Dunn’s reaction to Arend’s broken foot during the 2013 Brainerd event
TONY SCHUMACHER“I just blew up a lot of your stuff.”
“I know, but I’m still smiling about it.”
Morgan Lucas and dad Forrest Lucas, immediately after the son claimed his 10th overall Top Fuel victory and third at Minnesota’s Brainerd International Raceway in six years, despite an engine explosion at the finish line
“It couldn’t have come at a better time. I know we’ve got the car capable of doing it. We’ll be there to force the issue. We’re not going to wait and see what happens. We’re going to leave nothing on the table. If you want to win a championship anymore, as good as these cars are, you’d better leave nothing on the table, absolutely dominate.”
Tony Schumacher, of his Charlotte-at-Dallas victory that began his two-trophy weekend and his Countdown run that ended with his eighth series championship
“It’s good that Angelle is back. By her coming back, the class has gotten good exposure. She’s got a big fan base. She’s won 41 Wallys. She’s won three championships. What she has accomplished and the time she’s been in the sport is unmatched, really. It’s unmatchable. I’m not looking that far. You can’t even think of success like that. I guarantee you she didn’t think she was going to come in and race x-amount of years and win 41 Wallys and three championships. She might have hoped. We all hope. You hope for that kind of success, but it would never come out of your mouth, because that’s a pretty big goal. My goal, if you asked me: I want to win this race. If you asked me at the next race. I’d want to win that one. That’s my goal.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle racer John Hall, at Reading
TERRY AND JENNA HADDOCK“The field is so close together that it’s anyone’s race to win, even ours. We may not seem like likely candidates, but we could surprise everyone. I have the other guys right where I want them, not suspecting a thing.”
Pro Stock owner-driver Larry Morgan
“You only get one first impression. And she’s a very attractive young lady, and I don’t want her to have the black eyes I’ve got in the sport for trying so hard. When it’s funded correctly she will get to run.”
Funny Car/Top Fuel team owner Terry Haddock, regarding wife Jenna’s carefully timed debut in her dragster
“I told Courtney before we raced last week, ‘Don’t go after me, your daddy. It will make you all wrong. I don’t go after you. I go after that red car.’ I told her to go after the green car, because that’s what she has to do. Instead of me going after that black car with Freightliner, I saw big ol’ Hagan go by. I got all jacked up, and my program changed. I got into a personal war with him in my head. I was determined I was going to spank that boy, break his back. I don’t care how big he is. I thought that all worked. But it don’t work that way. I just went the wrong way, and things changed, because I like the kid and he’s a great driver.
JOHN FORCE – MATT HAGAN“This was driver error. My race car out ran him. It whipped him unless he [Hagan] lifted early, but they said he was right down there with me. I got jacked up. I heard them yelling ‘They’re running Pro Stock.’ I knew I was late. I changed my routine. I know better than to change my routine. I’m so furious at myself. You don’t change your routine, and yet I changed it and I screwed up all the work we did. We’re going to try to win this race, we’re going to try to win this championship, and you don’t do it by making those kinds of mistakes. I’m embarrassed.”
John Force, after his red-light foul in the final round of the Charlotte Funny Car eliminations (contested at Dallas)
“John is a great racer, and I’m glad we have a little rivalry. We need that out here in our sport. We can’t be all kissy-kissy. He’s the man to beat, and he’s proven it all year long. They’ve been very dominant, but with this Countdown it gives us another shot to come out here and take over.”
Matt Hagan
“My grandmom says Ron Capps is handsome, like Clark Gable.”
“I’m blushing.”
Tweets from Antron Brown and Ron Capps during the weekend at Maple Grove, which marked the NHRA’s 30th national event near Reading, Pa., and the 75th anniversary of the filming of “Gone With The Wind,” starring Gable
“If you’re going to win this race, you’re going to go through the family at some point.”
Del Worsham, the No. 1 Funny Car qualifier at Houston, on having to run the always-dangerous Courtney Force in the opening round of eliminations. (He added that just for good measure, “I drove it 11- or 1200 feet.” He won by .0101 of a second, or about four feet.)
“Where your normal floorboard is in your rental car out there, I’ve got firewalls, and when they light up orange it’s not a good thing in a Funny Car. I’m on the gas. I don’t see Tommy and I still see the finish line and I it’s got orange going, which I know is fire. That’s when you earn your money, man. It’s got to be one of the funnest things ever, to be going pedal down, over 300 miles an hour, on fire at the same time — and you’re allowed to go back to Don Schumacher and say, ‘Don, it’s Sunday – I had to stay on the gas!’ It was a lot of fun.”
Ron Capps, explaining the fireball in the NAPA Dodge Charger at Houston during his run against Tommy Johnson Jr.
JASON LINE“Mama said if you don’t have anything nice to say …”
Jason Line, after winning his first-round match-up in the second Charlotte race but trying to be diplomatic about the terrible track conditions that since have been addressed with an overhaul during the offseason
“The sympathy period has worn off. It’s back to normal. It’s business as usual. Everybody wants to whup my a– just as bad as I do to everybody else. I don’t have any excuses anymore. I can’t keep playing the sympathy card. . . . I’ve never missed a drag race since I’ve been drag racing, whether it was as a crew member, crew chief, or as a driver, so it was horrible. I guess I don’t make a very good spectator, because sitting on that couch, watching, well, it was miserable. You don’t want to be on the phone constantly, bugging the guys. They are trying to do their job. The bottom line is they did a great job in my absence. They might have not missed me at all, but I missed the hell out of not being there.”
Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson, after returning from open-heart surgery
“It’s part of drag racing – you take the good with the bad. Our Al-Anabi team is good. We don’t suck.”
Shawn Langdon, at Gainesville, toward the start of a frustrating year in which he could have said this a dozen times
“Of anybody I’ve ever patterned my career after, it would be the great Don Prudhomme. In the ’70s and ’80s, he was a tuner-driver, and not a lot of people liked him – just like me. I think a little bit had to do with his race. And I know I’m going to open up something there. But I’m going to say what I have to say. But I think it was his skin color. People didn’t like that. What I got to say to that is: You want some, come get some. I’m opening up all kinds of cans of worms here – and I love it. I love it!”
Cruz Pedregon, at Englishtown, after taking the No. 1 qualifying positon Friday that he would keep. (He also was giddy that night after recording the Funny Car class’ quickest elapsed time ever at 3.959 seconds. Citing the 1980 comedy film “Stir Crazy” that starred Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder as prison inmates, Pedregon said he got out of his car and mimicked the actors’ too-cool “That’s right. Uh-huh. We’re bad” lines at the top end of the track. “We’re talkin’ some smack, baby!” he said.)
JON OBERHOFER“It’s good at this hellhole of a racetrack.”
Crew chief Jon Oberhofer, regarding his driver Del Worsham’s 3.994-second blast Friday night at Englishtown that Cruz Pedregon erased minutes later. Oberhofer understandably hasn’t been fond of that facility, for it was where he lost his driver and friend, Scott Kalitta. However, the track owners certainly didn’t appreciate the insult, which reportedly earned Oberhofer a stern rebuke from Graham Light, NHRA’s director of racing operations
“The full-time life consumes you. This is obviously a lifestyle with your friends and family [on the tour]. When you’re driving out here all the time, you are always focused on driving and when your next autograph session is scheduled or making sure everything is right. For me now, I pay more attention to the financial side of it. I keep an eye on what is going on with the business end of it. I focus and get my head right for driving when I am creeping up on that time. [Being off the full-time tour] allows me to keep my head on straight in other parts of my life, whether it’s being a father or a student of learning Lucas Oil products. It’s been nice. There’s part of me that misses the full-time. Basically, it’s all I’ve known for the last 10 years. At the end of the day, I really don’t miss it. I’m getting to watch my kid grow up. I still get to come out and have fun, get to see my buddies from Brownsburg. I have the best of both worlds right now. I cannot say it’s something I miss on a regular basis.”
Morgan Lucas
CRUZ PEDREGON“Before the final, I just thought of Scott [Kalitta]. I thought, ‘Those guys are going to try and tear our heads off because they want to win it for themselves and Scott’s memory.’ I just felt compelled to hand Connie, the hero and the champion he is, the trophy. It was a big deal to me, because Connie means so much to everybody. To say he is a legend is not doing him any justice. Connie didn’t say much. He smiled. I didn’t do it for any reaction, but I felt it meant a lot to him. It was something I wanted to do, and I hugged him.”
Cruz Pedregon, after presenting his Funny Car trophy at Englishtown to Connie Kalitta. (He had just beaten Kalitta Motorsports driver Del Worsham in the final, earning his 35th victory to match legend Don Prudhomme. Scott Kalitta was killed during qualifying there at Raceway Park in 2008.)
“I could feel it smoking the tires. I try to get it to recover. I can’t hear her. I can’t see her. She hasn’t passed me. So the whole time I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got to get back on this thing and get it down through there.’ I tried to roll into it. It never would get hooked up, so the whole time I’m just banging the throttle: left, right, left, right, trying to keep it straight. Down there at the end, she still hasn’t come around me. And I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got to keep going!’ It tries to come around on me. And I said, ‘You know what? I probably need to abort now before I run into some cones or whatever.’ So I get it straight and I’m right at the 1,000-foot . . .and it’s wanting to go that way so bad [he said, gesturing to his right]. I held on. I didn’t want to whip it too hard and let the rear of the car swing around. So I just kind of stayed skinny on it, and we got the win light. Down at the end of the track, I get it pulled around the corner and I’m asking the guys, everybody down there, ‘ Did I hit the cone? Did I win? What happened?’ Nobody really had an answer for me. My guys came up and they’re like, ‘We’re good. We’re good.’ “
Steve Torrence, recounting his wild, tire-smoking quarterfinal run against Brittany Force, an explanation that literally was 18 times longer than the run itself
TERRY CHANDLER – TOMMY JOHNSON JR “I never dreamed that I would be blessed in a way that would allow me to help others. Helping people is one of the most important things in the world to me – my daddy, John R. Gray, was an extremely giving man, and I learned from him how important it was to bless the lives of others. That is why this means so much to me. I feel very fortunate to be in this position.”
Terry Chandler, financial backer of the Don Schumacher-owned “Make-A-Wish” Dodge Charger that Tommy Johnson Jr. drives
“Terry probably has a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s super passionate about drag racing, loves her team, and cares about everyone she’s around, especially Make-A-Wish kids. She gives back more than anyone I’ve ever known. I’m thrilled that not only have we had a great season so far with our Make-A-Wish Dodge but that we’ll have another opportunity next year to be even stronger and better. . . . It is nice to have a home. It’s nice to know what you are going to be doing the entire season, and not worry about carrying your helmet in a bag and trying to find a seat to get in and what country you are going to be racing in. It takes a lot of pressure off but at the same time adds pressure because now you have to perform. The spotlight is on you now. You got chosen to do this, to do it well, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. I appreciate it more now than I did before, just because I know the alternative, and I soak in every moment now.”
Tommy Johnson Jr.
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