Tue, 14 Oct 2008, 11:04 PM This Is A Great Sport

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2008 Auto Imagery, Inc.

The 3rd running of the Virginia Nationals was special for so many reasons. Obviously the racing itself was great and I'll get to that in just a bit, but from the first round of qualifying on Friday through the final rounds on Sunday it was a very entertaining, exciting race. But for me there were two other things that made the weekend at Virginia Motorsports Park special. Last year at the race, the management of the track announced that they were going to build a children's playground at the track in memory of Eric Medlen. Over the past year, with a lot of help and support from the community they did, indeed, build the playground and it was dedicated on Friday during a quiet moment in the racing. It's a little thing but it meant so much to the racing community, and especially to everyone on Team Force including John and Ashley Force who missed the race last year following John's accident in Dallas. Eric loved kids and to do something like this in his memory was really special and I want to thank everyone at VMP

Wallace and Frey

for their efforts....The other thing that made the weekend special for me was when I got to introduce Pee Wee Wallace as the Honorary Starter for the event. Pee Wee will always have a special place in my heart since he was one of the very first Funny Car drivers that I met and interviewed back at Atco in the late 1960's. He came to Atco for a match race with his famous "Virginian" 1965 altered-wheelbase Plymouth and I immediately fell in love with Funny Cars. He was so nice to a young kid who was just beginning his career and I never forgot him and his kindness. Pee Wee was at the race this weekend with his wife of fifty-five years, Dorothy, and it was great to see the track honor him by naming a special section of the grandstands for him. Thanks to everyone at Virginia Motorsports Park for remembering one of the pioneers of the sport and for everything they did to make this a very exciting and memorable weekend for everyone

Tony Schumacher

Another thing that the folks at VMP did, along with the NHRA Safety Safari, was prepare the track so that all the cars could take advantage of the great weather conditions. We saw very little tire smoke off the line and, when it was all over, most of the fuel teams recorded personal bests in both the elapsed time and speed departments. In the Top Fuel class, for example, all but two of the top ten quickest runs in the class came this weekend including Tony Schumacher's stunning 3.771 in qualifying, while four of the five fastest runs were also recorded in Virginia. The racing was great and the fans saw one of the best fuel shows ever, at any distance and at any track. Tony's 3.771 ended up as the low elapsed time of the event and it helped Tony break one more of Joe Amato's long standing records. Did you know that this was the 61^st time that Tony has set low elapsed time and that is the most in the history of the Top Fuel class? Tony still trails Joe in the number one qualifying and the top speed departments but he will get both of them before too long. The Army team also won the race and they will clinch their fifth

Schumacher vs. Will

consecutive and sixth overall championship in Las Vegas simply by qualifying for the show. Tony beat Hillary Will in the final round and that's the tenth straight time that he has beaten Hillary. Beating Tony is about the only thing that Hillary hasn't done this year and she is now in second place in the Top Fuel class. Carrying the colors of Palm Beach International Raceway on her car, Hillary qualified second and beat TJ Zizzo, David Grubnic and Doug Herbert before meeting Tony in the final round. It's been a pretty good year for Hillary and her Ken Black-owned team and I sure hope they get some help so they can continue to race in the 2009 season. I know that the economy is tough but companies will continue to advertise and promote their products next year, and if they want to do so in the auto racing arena Hillary and her team would be a perfect way to do it. Based on what they have done this year, especially over the past few races, it would be hard to argue with the fact that she is driving the second best car in the class right now. Did you know that she has qualified in the top four spots at the past five races and she has been in the top half of the field at sixteen races this year?...For his part Tony ran the table in Virginia, qualifying at the top, setting low elapsed time and top speed and that was just like another day at the office for the "Sarge." Tony has now won six times from the top spot this year and twenty times in his career. Did you know that in the fifty-six times that Joe Amato qualified number one he won a total of ten races? Being number one is good but only if you can close the deal. Did you know that since 1970, a span of 616 races, the number one qualifier has made it to the finals at 222

Tim and Kim Richards

races in the dragster class, and over that same time span the number two qualifier, like Hillary this week, has made it to 198 final rounds?...Since I mentioned the top runs that were recorded in Richmond I should also add that twelve of the sixteen qualifiers in the class all set at least one personal best number, either elapsed time or top speed and nine of them set both ends of their personal bests at 1,000 feet this past weekend.One of the biggest bits of news from Virginia was the word that Tim and Kim Richards will retire at the end of the year. The two have been part of the sport for a long while and have achieved levels of success that others can only dream about. I know that when Tim began working for Kenny Bernstein he told me that, "this is the best job I've had and Kenny is a great person and I couldn't ask for more than what he has given me." And then he added, "I'll tell you this, this will be the last job that I have in this sport." And it will be. A great career will come to an end in two more races.

Pedregon vs. Beckman

The battle for the Funny Car championship is now wide open. With his win, Cruz Pedregon moved into third place and he is only sixty-nine points behind the leader, Tim Wilkerson. Jack Beckman, who Cruz beat in the final round, is in second place and he is fifty-one points behind Tim. A little further back are Tony Pedregon (91) and Robert Hight (92) who are also still very much alive in the battle for the championship. Cruz, who qualified number one with a 4.041, won from the top spot for just the sixth time in his career. Did you know that Cruz has been the number one qualifier at thirty-six races and that's fourth best in the Funny Car class? His win was very impressive and included a stunning 4.026 in round one. Only Robert Hight, who went 4.005 in that round, had a better elapsed time in the FC class. Fifteen of the drivers in Funny Car recorded personal best numbers this weekend and that includes eight who set best numbers in both time and speed..One of the real shockers came during qualifying when three drivers, Cruz, Tony and Mike Neff all went 4.041 which tied them for first place in the qualified field. Cruz got the number one position based on speed and that's the third time in his career that he won the top spot because he had the faster car. He did it in Chicago in 2005 to take the top spot from his brother, Tony, and in Seattle in 1995 when he edged out John Force for the number one spot. There have been several times when two cars ran the identical elapsed time and the top

Pedregon and Tobler

qualifier had to be determined by speed, but did you know that in the entire history of the sport, in all pro classes, this is the first time that three drivers at the top of the qualifying sheet ran the exact same elapsed time? As rare as it is for two drivers to tie in the elapsed time department, did you know that it happened at Virginia last year? And not only did it happen in Funny Car, like this year, but it also happened in Pro Stock at Virginia last year, just like it did this year. As I often say, what are the odds?...Cruz and his crew chief, Rahn Tobler, and the rest of the Advance Auto Parts team have established themselves as one of the teams to beat this year, and I think, a lot of it has to do with chemistry. Cruz admitted during the post-race press conference that he has been through several crew chiefs over the years and that may be because, "Some people think I'm not the easiest guy to work for." He added that even though Rahn didn't have any experience working on Funny Cars, "I told him that it's still the same engine that's in a dragster and that I think we can work well together." And they have. Rahn told me that he respects Cruz and that Cruz has earned that respect based on what he has done over the years as a driver, a champion and now a car owner. It's that kind of chemistry that wins championships. I'm not saying that Cruz will win it this year, but he has put together a solid team that doesn't seem to make many mistakes on race day, and in Virginia, they didn't make any. Did you know that Cruz was first off the line in every round on Sunday and he has been first off the line 74% of the time this year? Talk about the stuff that champions are made of. The win for Cruz was his first in his last eight final round appearances and it was his second in the "Countdown" and

Pedregon vs. Wilkerson

that's why he is in third place in the standings.Tim Wilkerson had another fine outing, but for one of the few times this year his Levi, Ray and Shoup Chevrolet made a bad run and that came in the semi-finals against Cruz. Tim slowed to a 4.43 and that cost him a shot at the final round. He had earlier beaten Ashley Force and Melanie Troxel, with his win over Ashley coming on a holeshot. Tim, who is universally well liked, said after the race that, "We'll just take our junk to Las Vegas and see what happens there." Some junk, huh? He's in first place in the points and is the guy that nobody wants to run early in eliminations, although the way the points are now, maybe that will change in Vegas..Gary Densham's DNQ was a real surprise in Richmond. With help from Lucas Oil, Gary had been running well and looked like a solid candidate for a top five spot. As it is he will still finish in the top ten and that's a real testament to him, Greg Amaral and the entire team.And what's Del Worsham have to do to get a win? He runs 4.050 in round one and all he gets for his efforts is a losing time ticket. Unbelievable....The qualifying in the Funny Car class was great and the fans in Virginia saw a tremendous race on Sunday. I continue to say that, as much as I am a purist and love the classic quarter-mile racing, the action in the fuel classes has been much closer and more exciting at the 1,000 foot distance and that's not even an arguable point at this time.

Connolly vs. Coughlin

Maybe one of the biggest surprises of the weekend came in the final round of Pro Stock. With two cars out of Victor Cagnazzi's shop, and with Jeg Coughlin starting to pull away from the field in the points, a lot of people thought that Dave Connolly wouldn't mount much of a challenge to Jeg in the final round. Well, a lot of people were wrong. Dave left first (slightly) and held on to take the win in his new Lucas Oil colors. The points now find Jeg in the lead by seventy-four points over Kurt Johnson while Dave jumped up to third place just three points behind Kurt. Greg Anderson is another five points behind Dave and Jason Line is in fifth place, ninety-nine points off the pace. That will make the first round very interesting in Las Vegas with the rest of the Pro Stock field hoping that Jeg stumbles there. Stay tuned..Like the Funny Car class the top spot in Pro Stock was determined on speed and it really scrambled those first round

Greg Anderson

pairings, placing Greg and his Summit Racing teammate, Jason Line, on the same side of the ladder and putting Jeg and Dave on opposite sides. The fact that Greg made his best run in the last qualifying session was amazing and it certainly did change the dynamics on race day. The race was the second time in his career that Greg grabbed the top spot based on speed while it was the first time that Jeg had been relegated to the second spot because he had the slower car. Ironically, last year, in Virginia, Jeg was number one because he ran faster than Dave Connolly after they both recorded times of 6.645, numbers that wouldn't even have qualified them this year..This was the quickest field in Pro Stock history with a bump spot of 6.590. Poor Rickie Jones, he ran 6.591 and didn't even make the field. Did you know that eighteen of the

Rickie Jones

twenty-three drivers in the class recorded career best numbers at this race?... Last week I boldly stated in my column that Ron Krisher would run well, which he did (even though he lost in round one), and that Warren Johnson would win the race, which he didn't. So much for my predictions. Warren was one of the guys who set a career best when he went 210.37 miles per hour in a non-qualifying effort. That speed held up as top speed of the meet in the class which puts Warren in a very rare category, drivers who set top speed and did not qualify. Did you know that in his entire career this is the first time that WJ has done that? And just when you thought you had seen it all. If Steve Spiess keeps running like he is, and keeps qualifying for races, how long will it be before we see more engines from Bob Book in Pro Stock?

Tisha Wilson, Adam Davis, Arnie Martel and Dan Fletcher

Speaking of Bob Book, he made what may be the run of the year when he went 6.315 in qualifying in Competition Eliminator. Bob has always made great power and it is always a treat to watch his car run..Arnie Martel went back-to-back with Competition Eliminator titles when he beat Allen Stanfield in the final round. Arnie, who also won in Memphis, won his first national event at Richmond in 1998. His final round opponent this week was Allen Stanfield who won his first national event at Richmond in 1999. Arnie has been hot over the past few races but he is all out of races to claim so he won't be adding to his points total, just his bank account with the win in Virginia... Along that same line, my summary last week of the Comp Eliminator contenders mentioned that Craig Bourgeois had three points races to claim when, in fact, it was only two. I want to thank the dozens of folks who pointed that out to me..Dan Fletcher won for the 54^th time in his career and for the fourth time this year (three in Super Stock) when he beat Joe Franco in the finals..Adam Davis added a Virginia win to his Memphis victory when he beat Anthony Fetch in the Stock Eliminator final round while Tisha Wilson won her first race by beating Jason Kenny for Super Comp honors.

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