FEATURE - Did You Know? by Bob Frey

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Wed, 4 Jun 2003, 09:41 AM

They Finally Found A Way To Stop Greg Anderson!!

By Bob Frey
Photo copyright 2003

After sweeping the last two events on the NHRA POWERade tour, Greg Anderson finally lost a race. Nobody beat him on the track, but he lost a race, and it happened when he wasn’t able to start prior to his semi-final match with Jeg Coughlin in Chicago this past weekend. A bad starter apparently was the culprit that sidelined Greg and it enabled Jeg to go to the finals for the first time since Gainesville seven races ago. In the final Jeg would meet Kurt Johnson who has the second best car in the class this year. Or, after a look at the standings, maybe Kurt has the best car in the class since he took over first place after beating Jeg in the money round. The win, his 4^th this year, moved KJ into the lead a mere two points in front of Greg. Warren Johnson, who failed to qualify

David Connolly

for the second time in the last nineteen races, is in third place but he is a distant 202 points behind Anderson and that’s a huge mountain to climb even for the “Professor” of Pro Stock. Barring a big collapse by Kurt or Greg (which isn’t going to happen) this thing may have turned into a two-car race in just one weekend. Kurt won the race after qualifying 15^th in the field, something that he had only done three times before in his 220 starts prior to this weekend. Ironically, one of those #15 spots came at this very track last year and one of the other times was at the very first race that he entered back in 1993. I guess it just goes to show that you can, indeed, win a Pro Stock race from any qualifying position, can’t you?...In another little bit of irony, did you know that only three guys have won in the Pro Stock class this year? Greg, Kurt and WJ are the only winners in the class so far, which is a far cry from what happened last year. Did you know that we had nine different winners in the class after nine races last year and that the first repeat winner didn’t come until the tenth race which just happened to be the Chicago event?...One of the big stories at Rt. 66, besides the really bizarre weather, was the performance of the 20-year old Pro Stock rookie David Connolly. Making his first start in the professional division, David qualified 5^th and he gave Jeggie a real run for his money in the opening round. Keep your eye on the Ohio native, he could win a race before too long. Really, he could!! Don’t forget that he has “Grumpy” power and that counts for a lot….Kurt’s win was the 27^th of his career and it moved him into 5^th place on the all-time list and he’s just one behind the 4^th place guy, Darrell Alderman.

Whit celebrates win.
Whit Bazemore is just 36 points behind Tony Pedregon following his win this weekend in the Funny Car class. While Tony has five wins to Whit’s two, the real difference is that Whit has only failed to get to the semi-finals once this year in his Matco Tools entry, while Tony has been beaten in the first two rounds at three races, including in Joliet and those rounds all add up. Did you know that this is the first time this year that Tony hasn’t made the front page of the NHRA race re-cap sheet? What’s that you say? Well, after each event the NHRA media department sends out a sheet that lists the winner, runner-up, #1 qualifier, low elapsed time and top speed drivers in each pro class, and this is the only time this year that Tony’s name hasn’t appeared somewhere on that list. Gee, sounds like a real slump to me. This was Whit’s third race in a row in which he made it to the final round and did you know that it’s only the second time in his career that he’s done that? Back in 1999 he went to three straight finals in Seattle, Sonoma and Brainerd….John Force’s woes continued as he dropped a round one match to Joliet’s own John Lawson. After qualifying #1 for the 114^th time in his career and after setting the national record at a blistering 4.721 it looked like John might break out of his slump in Chicago, instead, he lost in the first round for only the 7^th time when he qualified at the top of the field. Did you know that the last time that happened to John was back at Maple Grove in 2000, and that’s almost three years and eighteen #1 spots ago? John Lawson, who had won a grand total of four rounds in his fuel career prior to winning two at his home track this week, beat Force for the first time in five tries. Did you know that Lawson’s first race in the Funny Car class came at Joliet three years ago when he qualified 16^th

John Lawson
(just like this weekend) and he faced John Force (just like this weekend) in round one. The big difference between 2000 and this year, of course, is the outcome…John won. John Lawson, that is…..By the way, after qualifying well in his Dodge bodied Funny Car (that he got from the Skuza family), some of the other teams actually protested Lawson’s body (car body) and he and his team, headed by Mark Oswald, had to work late into the night on Friday to correct the situation. Nice job, guys!....Unnoticed by many this weekend was the fact that, even though he lost in round one, Mr. Force did move up one spot in the standings, thanks to the 20 points he got from setting the record. Johnny Gray slipped from 6^th to 8^th with his round one exit….The Dodge Stratus Funny Cars have now set top speed at three straight races while Gary Scelzi is the new speed record holder at a stunning 328.06 mph. Did you know that it’s the first time since Jim White held the mark in 1991 that a Dodge-bodied car has been the top speed record holder? Dodge now holds the distinction of being the first to go over 290 mph and 328 mph. Did you know that back in 1997 John Force set the national speed record at three consecutive events?...Congratulations to Keith Jackson who made the first 4-second run of his career at Rt. 66, and to Arnie Karp who ran good enough to make just about any Funny Car field, but not this one…Del Worsham also recorded his career best numbers. In fact, Del made two passes in the 4.70 range and they were only the third and fourth such passes of his career.

Tony Schumacher’s win in Top Fuel may have been the most emotional of them all in Chicago. Winning for the 8^th time in his career, and for the first time since Indy last year, the U. S. Army driver set career best numbers on two different runs, finally settling for a 4.507 best for the weekend. With Alan Johnson tuning this team has all the ingredients to make a serious run for the championship although it just may be a little too late this year. Even with the

Tony Schumacher
win the “Sarge” is still in eighth place a distant 452 points behind the leader. The driver who has to be kicking himself (still) is Doug Kalitta who fouled out in the first round for the second time this season, and in each case his opponent smoked the tires….badly. Clay Millican ran 13.56 in Bristol while “Turbo” Tim Cullinan logged an 11.90 against Doug in Joliet after the red light. His loss and Larry Dixon’s final round appearance means that the “MAC Tools” car now trails the “Miller Lite” team by a whopping 230 points….Doug Herbert failed to qualify and that ended his streak at 59 in a row. The last time that the “Snap-On Tools” car wasn’t around to race on Sunday was in Memphis three years ago….The Smith family had a pretty good weekend in Chicago, didn’t they? Rhonda ran quicker than she ever had before (4.562) and her husband, John, ran faster than he ever did before (325.77), while Mike was the tuner on the Cullinan car that ran a very respectable 4.773.

Angelle Savoie rebounded from her two first round losses to win the race and regain the point’s lead in the Pro Stock Bike class. It seems like it’s “all or nothing” for Angelle this year, doesn’t it? Did you know that in the five races so far she has three wins and two first round losses and nothing in between? To get the win, Angelle had to beat David Feazell on his S & S Harley Davidson (that ran a great 7.239 this week), her former team mate, Fred Collis, the former points leader, Geno Scali and her former owner, George Bryce, who was tuning for Reggie Showers. I ask you, does it get and bigger or better than that for Angelle? Well, the answer is yes, it does, and it will as soon as she announces her new sponsor and that should come any day now. If it does, it will be big, believe me and it will certainly get everyone’s attention…..Jeff Perrella won the first race of his career when he stopped Jerry Hemmingson in the Competition Eliminator final, while the other sportsman winners looked like a “Who’s Who” in the sportsman ranks. Dan Fletcher, Gary Stinnett and Jim Hughes all won and so did Jerry Bennett in his ’79 Dodge Aspen. Jerry beat Gene Mosbek who won this race a year ago, while Jerry’s last national event win came at Joliet two years ago. Congrats to all of the sportsman winners and good luck to everyone at this week’s divisional races.