Wed, 24 Oct 2001, 02:43 AM
Happy Birthday, Larry!!
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By Bob Frey
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OK, so the O’Reilly Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec wasn’t the
record-fest that I thought it would be, but it was still a very exciting race. As
soon as I (and anyone else who knew anything about drag racing), saw that the
weather was going to be in the 80-degree range and sunny, we knew that the record
performances of the past two races wouldn’t be repeated. Still, it was a
tremendously exciting event, with great finals and more than a few surprises.
Larry Dixon
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The Top Fuel battle is now as close as it has been in a number of weeks.
Larry
Dixon’s win over
Doug Kalitta, coupled with Larry’s semi-final victory
over
Kenny Bernstein, means that Kenny will go into Las Vegas with a slim,
15-point lead. Since that is less than one round of racing, it appears that the
battle for the 2001 Winston Championship will, indeed, go right down to the wire.
Although,
did you know that Kenny could, mathematically, clinch the
title in Vegas? With a possible 138 points up for grabs, if Kenny were to be the top
qualifier, win the race and set the national record, he would clinch the
championship if Larry failed to qualify. How many of you think that will happen,
raise your hand. Just what I thought, but I did want to point out that that slim
possibility does exist…By winning four and two rounds, respectively, in Texas, Larry
and Kenny tied the NHRA mark for the most round wins in a season by a Top Fuel car.
Did you know that
Gary Scelzi held the record at 54 round wins?
The reigning champ did that last year en route to his third title, and now, both
Dixon and Bernstein share a piece of that historical mark. Obviously, the record
will be beaten this year, and, if it’s not, I’ll buy you all a steak dinner. When
Larry met Kenny in the third round in Texas,
did you
know that it was the 5
th race in a row in which the two had
faced each other? And, in case you’re scoring at home, Kenny leads that mini-series,
3-2. Hey, that’s one extra round win for Kenny, and isn’t that
Darrell Russell
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about the margin of difference right now? Go figure… By the way, today (Tuesday,
October 23) is Larry Dixon’s
birthday. I wonder if he celebrated by winning
Dallas early, or if he’d like to celebrate by winning Las Vegas late?…With his final
round appearance, Doug Kalitta jumped up into third place in the standings. Doug now
leads Scelzi by seven points in the battle for that third spot. If Gary can manage
to make it to third place this year, he would become only the third driver in Top
Fuel history to finish in the top three in points for five, consecutive years.
Did you know that only
Joe Amato and
Cory
McClenathan have accomplished that feat to date? ….
Darrell Russell, who
drives for Joe and who lost in the opening round, was named as one of the four
finalists for the AAA Club "Road to the Future" award. The other three
nominees are
Bruce Sarver, Brad Jeter and
G.T. Tonglet. Look for
Russell and Tonglet to share the "Future" award and the NHRA "Rookie
of the Year" award, although I’m not sure who will win what.
Dick LaHaie
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In Dallas, Dixon qualified number one for the third time this season, and for only
the 11
th time in his career.
Did you know that until this
season, Larry had won just one race when he was the top qualifier? In his rookie
season, 1995, Larry dominated the Englishtown race and he won from the top spot.
Since then, he has had seven tries to win from the number one position, and he has
missed each time, in fact, he never even got to the final round at any of those
races. In 2001, he has gone to the finals each time that he has been number one…The
one, remarkable performance standard in Dallas was Dixon’s 4.508 in qualifying, a
time that had him five-hundredths in front of the second guy,
Mike Dunn. In
top fuel, that’s a bunch. And, when he ran even better, a 4.500 in eliminations, it
was obvious that Dixon,
Dick LaHaie, Don Prudhomme and the rest of the Miller
Lite team had the best car in Texas this weekend.
Did you know that
4.500 was Larry’s best run of the year, and that he had the low elapsed time for
six, consecutive runs (2 in qualifying and 4 in eliminations) in Dallas? Aside from
elapsed time,
did you know that Mike Dunn set top speed, again, in
Dallas? Mike’s pass of 330.76 in the first round was, by far, the best of the event.
Did you know that this is the 10
th time this year that the
Gwynn / Steinbrenner car has been the fastest one on the property? And,
did
you know that Mike has only been able to win at two of the tracks when he
set that top speed?
Warren Johnson
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Pro Stock Car and Pro Stock Motorcycle titles could both be clinched in Las Vegas
this weekend.
Warren Johnson comes into the race leading
Jim Yates by
150 points, so he only needs to match Yates’ performance this weekend in order to
secure his 6
th, Winston title. Although it hasn’t been the dominating,
W.J. season that we’ve come to know and expect, I’ll bet you the
"Professor" will tell you that it’s played out exactly the way he wanted
it to. After all, I’m sure he’d say, isn’t the goal to win the
championship?…
V. Gaines’ win in Dallas, his second on tour and his
second at the Motorplex, ran the number of different winners this season to an
amazing 14 in the class. We were assured of another, new winner when
Tom
Hammonds also advanced to the final round. Tom, who has made amazing progress
since announcing his retirement from the NBA, beat
Mark Osborne in the
opening round and, believe it or not, it was the third time that Tom beat Mark in as
many starts.
Did you know that Hammonds stopped Osborne twice back in
1998? Amazing, isn’t it? Tom, unfortunately for him, made his worst run of the
weekend in the finals, a 6.961, and that cost him the race….
Hurley Blakeney
qualified for the field with his Ford, which is not really that surprising if you
look at the last two races.
Bob Panella
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Did you know that Hurley was the first alternate at both Maple Grove
and Chicago, with runs of 6.84 & 6.85? Also,
did you know that
Hurley was the last guy to win a round at an NHRA national event in a Ford Pro Stock
car? He did that at Englishtown last year, beating
Mark Pawuk. Prior to that,
the last Ford round win came at Columbus in ’99 and was recorded by
Robert
Patrick. And, still for the Ford faithful, the last time one of the blue-oval
clan went as far as the semi-finals was in Dallas in 1998, and the guy was, again,
Robert Patrick. By the way just to show you how much the weather was a real factor
in Texas,
did you know that the low qualifier,
Mike Edwards,
wouldn’t have made the field at either of the last two races with his 6.872
qualifying time?….
Angelle Savoie can wrap up her second Winston Championship
if she can go three rounds further than
Antron Brown this weekend. And, while
that is possible, it may not be probable since Antron runs really well. It should
come down to which driver can handle the pressure better….
Bob Panella, who
won the truck class in Dallas, simply has to show up in Pomona to claim his crown.
Bob deserves a lot of credit for winning this past weekend, since he had to beat his
closest challengers,
Randy Daniels and
Greg Stanfield in the first two
rounds. Plus, he had to beat the top qualifier,
John Lingenfelter in the
semi-finals, and the hottest guy in the class,
Mike Coughlin in the final
round. Nice job, Bob.
Rick Santos
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The sportsman classes were great, too, in Texas.
Did you know that the
bump spot in the Federal Mogul Dragster class, a 5.542, equaled the best, ever in
that class? Only this year’s Winternationals had a filed that was that quick. Yet,
with all of the firepower in the class, after one round, five of last year’s top ten
drivers were on the sidelines, including
Billy Bybee, Troy Buff, Jay Meyer, Bruce
Bowler and
David Wells. Throw in upset losses by
Keith Stark and
David Baca and you had one of the weirdest rounds of all time in the class.
Oh, did I mention that
Brandon Bernstein didn’t even qualify? In the end,
Rick Santos, who left Maple Grove extremely upset with himself (he lost in
the finals there on a holeshot), won it all and wrapped up his fifth, Federal Mogul
World Championship. To make it even sweeter for Rick, he beat
Mark Hentges,
who beat him in that Maple Grove final, and
Brian Hough, who beat him on a
holeshot at Pomona in July, in the last two rounds….
Pat Austin made it win
number 74 when he stopped
Jay Payne in the Funny Car finale, while
David
Rampy and
Jeff Taylor also made it to the winner’s circle. Talk about an
all-star cast!
Finally, our thoughts and prayers are with John Force and his brothers and
sister this week, as they mourn the passing of their mom, Betty. John, who learned
of his mother’s passing while in Texas, stayed to race because "that’s what she
would have wanted me to do." John clinched his 11th title when he
won and Whit Bazemore lost in the second round. John then lost to Gary
Densham in a great final. Isn’t it strange that Gary would go 243 races without
a win and then would beat John Force twice in a month to win two events? And, I
guess it’s only fair to report that Gary also celebrated his 55th
birthday in Dallas… By the way, I understand that all of the members of the Matco
Tools Funny Car teamed have been signed to contracts for next year, keeping in place
the one team that looks like it could challenge John as he goes for number 12 in
2002. And, Cruz Pedregon, the only guy other than John to win the Funny Car
championship since 1990, will return to action next year and that should be good for
the class and all of us who enjoy it.
NHRA: 10 Most Recent Entries [ top ]
Oct 19- DALLAS - Sunday Video
Oct 18- DALLAS - Sunday Wrap Up
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Super Stock
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Competition Eliminator
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Top Fuel
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Super Gas
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Super Street
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Funny Car
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Top Alcohol Dragster
Oct 18- DALLAS - Summary of Eliminations in Top Alcohol Funny Car
