Tue, 29 Mar 2005, 10:45 PM Just One More Week Until The Real Season Begins

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2005 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Doug Gordon at Tucson.

Easter weekend is the one weekend of the year when there really isn't any racing going on anywhere on the national scene. Sure the folks in Florida tried to get that D-2 Lucas Oil race in but the weatherman wasn't cooperating and now that event has been postponed for a second time. And a lot of the local tracks ran races over the weekend but, for the most part, it was a quiet couple of days on the quarter miles across the land. This coming weekend will see a little more activity with two Lucas Oil events, the D-2 race at Montgomery Motorsports Park and the Division 7 affair in Tucson, and then after that the real season begins with back to back weekends of POWERade drag racing. April 8th thru the 10th is the first event and that's in Houston where we will have the 18^th annual O'Reilly Spring Nationals and that will be followed immediately by the 6^th running of the SummitRacing.com Nationals in Las Vegas. There's something about those back-to-back races that really gets you into the real spirit of the season. The Houston race is shaping up as a huge showdown in the Stock Eliminator classes and we'll touch on that in the days ahead.

Jack Beckman

There was some activity during the off weekend and a lot of it surrounded the former Lucas Oil Super Comp World Champion, Jack Beckman. From what I hear Jack was in Las Vegas behind the wheel of Dexter Tuttle's Menard's Top Fuel car in an effort to upgrade his license. The team apparently made a couple of runs but lost a blower belt on the final one and came up just a bit short in the mile per hour department. I have to admit that I don't know why there has been such a turnover in that particular team, from Gary Ormsby Jr. to Rit Pustari to the next guy, but I think that anytime you can put Jack Beckman in your car you've made a nice move. Jack is a wonderful guy, he's bright, well spoken and obviously a good driver. Plus his story is a very compelling one especially with all of the health problems that he has had to overcome. I'm not saying that this team will contend for the championship or even a national event win (although they certainly could do that) but I will say that I like the idea of putting "Fast" Jack in a car, especially if I'm looking at getting some media exposure for myself, my team and my sponsors. Take nothing away from Rit who did a good job in the car, or Gary for that matter, but I wish Jack and Dexter all the best and I hope this team comes together in time for that Vegas event..

Rod Fuller

One of the other sportsman drivers who has made a nice showing this year is Rod Fuller. Rod and his David Powers / Valvoline team have qualified for both of the races that they have attended and they don't show any signs of slowing down. For the record, and just in case you haven't noticed, Rod has been first off the line in the two rounds that he has competed in this year and that's about all you can ask for from a driver. The team will now go to Houston where it should be a very emotional weekend for them in Darrell Russell's home town.The same can be said for the Morgan Lucas / Joe Amato team and we'll have more on that next week..Scott Weis continues to add sponsors to his team as he looks for a second consecutive POWERade top ten finish. Let's see, Scott already has Barrett Enterprises and the Chicago Union Carpenters and now he has added Olhausen Billiards to his team. The way I see it, carpenters build houses and what goes better with a new home than a really cool billiards table? Now if only the Olhausen folks could get Jennifer Barretta to come to the races. Now that would greatly increase sales of their table, believe me.

Whit Bazemore

As usual when I make a mistake everyone is quick to point it out. Last week I said that Warren Johnson lost to Jason Line in the semi-finals in Florida but, as we all know, he actually was beaten by David Connolly. Thanks to the brazillion folks who e-mailed me last week and pointed out that little error. Now if I could just get someone to e-mail me when I get something right, like picking Whit Bazemore to win in Florida..Speaking of Whit, did you notice that in addition to Whit wining in Florida, the other winners also picked up their first win of the season? We have now had three races and we have not had a single repeat winner. Did you know that it's been fifteen years since that happened at the start of the season? You have to go all the way back to the start of the 1990 season to find the last time we went three races without a repeat professional winner to open the campaign. And, as amazing as it may seem, in the past thirty years it's only happened three times that there were no repeat winners in the first three races. So I guess we are really in for an interesting year and it will be fun to watch the next race to see if we can go four for four.

Johnson vs Treble

The Pro Stock Motorcycles have only had one race but it saw two finalists who probably weren't predicted by anyone to get that far. Steve Johnson and Craig Treble both ran well all weekend long but going into the race most folks thought that it would be a Harley-Davidson or a Buell driver who was standing on the winner's podium at the end of the race. I, of course, went with Angelle and she had a good chance except for that darn red light in the second round against Jason Line, I mean Antron Brown..If you want to catch the motorcycles in action this week you may want to stop by Atlanta Dragway for the Prostar race. From what I understand you just may be able to get a glimpse of a couple of the NHRA POWERade stars in action including Chip Ellis on the G-Squared, S & S Buell. Of course he won't be able to race in Pro Stock since the Prostar rules are a little different than the NHRA rules but they should be able to get some serious test runs in weather permitting. Looking ahead, I will be stunned if the Vance & Hines bikes or one of the Buells don't win in Houston, but don't tell that to Steve Johnson. And look for at least one more bike to join the Mickey Thompson 6-Second club in Houston.

There have been a couple of rumors going around about some of the television shows and I'd like to set at least one of them straight. First of all, despite what you may have heard or read elsewhere, Bill Stephens is not coming back to the ESPN television shows. After I got about fourteen calls and e-mails asking me about it I called and spoke with Bill and he is perfectly happy with his current position which is writing magazine articles, contributing to ESPN.com, writing books and doing shows for Ted Jones and his Masters Entertainment group. In addition to the book on "Big Daddy" Don Garlits that Bill did last year, his new book on Shirley Muldowney is now out and it's getting rave reviews. Plus he thoroughly enjoys having the extra time at home with his family. Bill did a great job during his stint on the shows but he has moved on. The current cast and crew on the TV shows is also doing a wonderful job and Bill's doing his usual fine work for Mr. Jones and everyone is happy...Another thing, contrary to internet reports, there is no master plan to eliminate the sportsman finals from the TV shows, quite the contrary. It's just a fact of life and business that when the race schedules are altered by rain, as they were in both Pomona and Gainesville, and when the sportsman finals are run after the professional finals, they won't make the show. The folks at NHRA and ESPN are committed to doing their best for the sportsman racers.

Bob Newberry

The ESPN sportsman shows have done a great job promoting the alcohol classes and those teams seem very happy with their exposure. If you don't believe me, ask Aaron Olivarez or Bob Newberry who won the Gatornationals. Finally, no matter what you do, you'll never please everyone with the TV package so you simply have to do the best job that you can and that's exactly what NHRA and ESPN are doing. Ratings are up for the first two national events and a lot of the credit for that goes to the folks in front of and behind the cameras. Television is tough and I'm sure if you ask the Villanova fans what they thought of the television coverage of their NCAA basketball game this past week they'll tell you it was terrible, especially when the announcers agreed that the traveling call that cost them the game was correct (which it wasn't), but you can't please everyone. So much of what goes on on television is subjective, but the general opinion from the folks that I talk to, both racers and fans, is that the ESPN shows get better with every race. In a perfect world you'd show every pair of cars that run down the track but then someone would hop on an internet site somewhere and complain that the shows are too long. Believe me, they would..By the way, if all goes as planned there will be a nice segment on this week's NHRA 2day show about Dennis Taylor and his business and his race team and that's a nice step for sportsman teams everywhere. And I'll let you in on a little secret, you may see even more of Dennis in the future, but I can say no more!! Just sit back, watch and enjoy.

NHRA: 10 Most Recent Entries [ top ]

Apr 08- Hood Scoops Set to Return to NHRA Pro Stock Category in 2027
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Apr 07- GESi Pro Stock No. 1 Qualifier Award Returns for 2026 Season
Apr 06- POMONA 1 - Funny Car Preview
Apr 02- Revchem Composites Plays Critical Role in Ron Capps Motorsports' Continued Success
Apr 01- Second Wave of NHRA 75th Anniversary Commemorative Tickets Include Wealth of Legends
Mar 30- CHARLOTTE - Event Preview
Mar 30- BELLE ROSE - Super Gas Round 5 Eliminations
Mar 30- BELLE ROSE - HEMI Chootout Round 3 Eliminations
Mar 30- BELLE ROSE - Competition Eliminator Final, Round 5 Eliminations