Wed, 6 Oct 2004, 09:39 AM Doug, Del and Dave Are the Last Men Standing

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2004 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Herbert, Connolly, and Worsham

You really had to be there to be able to fully understand how special this past weekend was at the fast track in Joliet, Illinois. The running of the CARQUEST Auto Parts Nationals produced one of the biggest assaults on the record books that we’ve ever seen and, more importantly, it produced some spectacular racing. I remember thinking sometime during one of the Pro Stock sessions how lucky I was to be there and to be getting paid to watch one of the great races of all time. I love my job!! When it was all over Doug Herbert, Del Worsham and Dave Connolly were the victors beating the guys who have clinched or soon will clinch the 2004 POWERade championships. Going into the final round, Tony Schumacher, John Force and Greg Anderson appeared poised to share the winner’s circle just like they will share the podium at the end of the year as the 2004 champions. But a funny thing happened on the way to that celebration, they all lost!! Doug Herbert made the best run of his career to stop Tony in a great Top Fuel final, while Del ran his final round mark against John Force to 6–4 and Dave Connolly took advantage of Greg Anderson’s red light to win and move into second place in the points. And it’s a good thing that Greg fouled because Dave was broke and had no chance to win the race…or so it seemed…..Did you know that of his fourteen final round losses Greg Anderson has fouled out four times? And how about this? Did you know that of those four final round red lights three of them have come at Chicago? Greg has been to the final round at the last three races in Joliet and has fouled out each time. Go figure….There were thirty-four Pro Stock cars in Joliet and thirty of them recorded their personal best numbers, either elapsed time, speed or both. Among those who didn’t were Warren and Kurt Johnson who both missed the field. Did you know that this is the first time that both Johnson family members failed to make the same show? With his DNQ, Warren has slipped to tenth in the points and he is in danger of falling out of the top ten for the first time since 1981. Did you know that in that period of time the lowest that WJ has ever finished has been 5^th?

Doug Herbert

Doug Herbert’s win over Tony Schumacher may have been one of the biggest surprises of the weekend. Don’t get me wrong, Doug has a good car and the Snap-on Tools dragster is certainly capable of winning but Tony has had the best car in the TF field for some time and most of the “experts” thought that the Army car would win in front of his home town fans. Well, that didn’t happen and Doug picked up the eighth win of his career and the first since Sonoma in 2002. Doug saved the best for last when he made the quickest and fastest run that he has ever made, a stunning 4.516 at 329.75 mph. Still, with his final round appearance and with Doug Kalitta going out in round one, Tony is 273 points ahead of the MAC Tools team and he is 318 points ahead of Brandon Bernstein who is in third place. All he has to do is leave Maple Grove with a 277 point lead and he will be the 2004 Top Fuel champion….In addition to winning the championship, which appears inevitable, Tony has three races remaining and that means that he has three chances to win one more race and tie the single season TF mark for wins in a year, or win two and set the record outright. He has eight wins and the record, which is held by Larry Dixon and Gary Scelzi, is nine. Good luck….Speaking of Larry Dixon, he failed to make the show and that ended his consecutive race qualifying streak at 53. Did you know that the last time Larry failed to make the cut was in St. Louis in 2002? Doug Kalitta did qualify and that ran his streak to a class-leading 111 races in a row and if you want to know how good that is all you have to do is look at who is in second place on that list. Did you know that, among active drivers, Tony Schumacher now has the second longest qualifying streak in Top Fuel at 35 races? Scott Kalitta is third with 29 straight while Brandon Bernstein is fourth with 27 in a row.

John Force

John Force stunned the drag racing world again this weekend when he ripped off a 4.697 during qualifying and then backed that up with an out of this world pass of 4.665 at 333.58 mph. With those runs John set both ends of the national record and for only the second time in drag racing history the Funny Car speed record is faster than the Top Fuel mark, and it should come as no surprise that the other time that happened John was the guy who did it. Kenny Bernstein has a little piece of that speed record history, too, after all, we don’t call him the “King of Speed” for nothing. Did you know that when Kenny ran 256.41 at Indy in 1983 he set the national record in Funny Car and that tied the record in Top Fuel? But other than those few times, the dragsters have always been the kings of the sport. Did you ever wonder what kind of numbers John and Austin Coil could put up if they raced a dragster? By the way, that’s the same Austin Coil who said a few weeks ago that there wouldn’t be any records set this year on 85% nitro. I can forgive him, after all I’m the one who said it wouldn’t rain in Maple Grove….Del Worsham’s win was his fifth of the year and that’s the most by any driver, including John, in the FC class. His win came during his tenth final round meeting with John and Del has now won six of those meetings and that’s especially impressive

Del Worsham

when you realize that, overall, Del is 15–38 against the champ. Did you know that only four drivers who have faced John more than once in the final round, have a winning record against him? Kenny Bernstein leads the way with a lofty 6–1 mark, Jim White was 4–2 and Tim Wilkerson is 2–1, other than that John basically owns his final round opponents. Del’s win moved him into second place in the points and he is enjoying the best year of his career. Del already has more wins that he ever has had in a single season and he is one round win away from tying his personal best for a year. The folks at Checker, Schuck’s and Kragen should be very proud of what Del’s team has done this year, especially when you factor in the two wins by Del’s teammate, Phil Burkart. By the way, if you haven’t seen them yet, wait until you catch a glimpse of the television commercials that CSK is running featuring Del. They’re a blast and it’s just what we need to help raise the visibility of our drivers. Congrats to everyone involved with the CSK team this year.

Greg Anderson

Greg Anderson’s red light kept him from breaking the single-season record for wins in a professional class. Greg has 13 wins and that’s the mark that John Force recorded in his “Driver of the Year” campaign of 1996. Greg was one of those thirty drivers who recorded a personal best and he did it in true, championship fashion. The Summit Racing Pontiac now holds the record at an amazing 6.661 at 207.75 mph. By the way, did you know that every driver who qualified for the Pro Stock field in Joliet recorded their career best numbers? Having said that let me ask you a question. Who do you think has the best Pro Stock car in the class right now, Greg or Dave Connolly? Or let me put it another way. If the season were to begin right now who do you think would win the PS championship? Hey, I’m just asking a question but you have to admit that

David Connolly

the “Bullet” team really is running well right now. And with the cool weather that we expect in Pennsylvania this weekend who knows, maybe the records that we saw in Joliet won’t last seven days….As time starts to run out on Warren Johnson’s shot a extending his streak to 23 consecutive years with at least one win, another, more modest streak is also in jeopardy. Did you know that Jeg Coughlin has won at least one race every year since turning pro in 1997? Jeg is currently in 7^th place in the points but he has done that without the advantage of winning a race. Pro Stock is tough and it could be getting tougher with the new alignment of teams that seems to be forming for next year. Where will Jeggie land? Will he stay with the yellow and black or move on to another camp? Who will drive the Don Schumacher PS cars and how many of them will there be? What will the other Mopar drivers, Ken Koretsky, V. Gaines and Larry Morgan do? And will we ever see another competitive Ford Pro Stock team? A couple of those questions will be answered in the next few weeks.

Division 2 team.

The Jeg’s Allstar event was held this past week and the Division 2 stars came out on top for a record setting sixth time. During the race we saw some great runs, like Shelly Howard’s 277 mile per hour blast and Jackie Stidham’s stunning 5.555 in the final round. On Sunday it was more of the same, with Jay Payne going 5.519 and Mick Snyder winning his first race when he beat Paul Lee. Of course, we also saw Richard Bourke take Robert Book’s car to a stunning time of 6.41 while Vince Deceglie ripped off a couple of spectacular passes including one run over 212 mph. It really was special….Watch for more great times this weekend in both the pro and sportsman classes at Maple Grove. Also watch for the announcement of a new Top Fuel team that will be added to one of the premier teams in the sport (not Don Schumacher’s) as well as at least one other major new sponsor to join the NHRA tour in 2005. Those announcements could come as early as next week, but they will come.

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