Wed, 5 Nov 2008, 03:50 PM This Is Really Exciting

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2008 Auto Imagery, Inc. & David Allio,LVMS

Jeg Coughlin

Unlike the election that took place yesterday, there is a lot of suspense in the battle for the NHRA POWERade championships. Well, at least in two classes there is a battle. Right now, with about ninety percent of the precincts reporting, the Funny Car and Pro Stock Motorcycle championships are still too close to call while the Top Fuel title is already locked and the Pro Stock championship isn't going anywhere. In fact, the Pro Stock title will stay right where it was at the beginning of the year, with the Jeg's team of Victor Cagnazzi. Still, now that the country has decided who the next president will be, we can all turn our attention to Pomona and the final two national championships in the professional classes, after all, that is what's important right now, isn't it?

Pit Boss and Schumacher

>From where I sit, Tony Schumacher appears unbeatable right now. Even with the championship neatly secured, the "Sarge" ran the table again this past weekend as he won for a staggering fifteenth time this year. He also added four more rounds to his total and he is now close to every major record in the sport. He is currently tied with Greg Anderson (2004) for the most number of wins in a year with those fifteen and he is one round behind Greg in the chase for the most round wins in a year. Greg won 76 rounds in 2004 and Tony has 75 right now. Tony also said that, "nobody has gone 320 miles per hour at 1,000 feet so we have something still to accomplish." That just goes to show you what a year it has been, when the only thing that remains for you to accomplish before the end of the season is a meaningless speed mark. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this Army team is simply unbelievable. Even when they had a little glitch, like destroying a motor in one round on Sunday, they still win. In addition to the win Tony ran low elapsed time and top speed as he swept another event this year. Did you know that Tony now has swept an amazing twelve races in his career and half of them have come this year? And at Bristol he won the race, was number one and set low elapsed time, which means that he missed sweeping that race only because J.R. Todd went 330.80 miles per hour to grab top speed. And, ironically, JR made that run with Tony in the other lane. Like I said, there isn't much left for

Schumacher vs. Fuller

Tony to do this year except pick out the color of his tux. With a good race in Pomona he could finish the season with virtually every single season record as well as every Top Fuel record. Right now, the only two dragster marks that he doesn't hold are the ones for number one qualifying spots and top speeds. And did you know that he trails Joe Amato in each of those departments by just one? Awesome is the only word that comes to mind....Rod Fuller had a good weekend, a very good weekend, one that came up just one round short of perfect. "Hot Rod" made it to the final round while making some of the fastest runs in Top Fuel history. The Caterpillar car ran 317 and 318 miles per hour on his way to the final round. Earlier in the day Rod said that he wanted to race Tony "on my home turf." Well, he got his wish and almost made it pay off. But, as we've seen so many times before this year, Tony had the better car and won the race. The runner-up finish moved Rod into sixth place in the points and, even though he won't finish as well as he did last year, Rod did show that he and his team are not about to shy away from anyone. With Rob Flynn and several of the crew members on Rod's team moving on next year, they showed a lot by giving the Army team all they could handle in the final round. Nice job...Tony's win was the 56^th of his career, while Dan Fletcher won his 55^th and Jeg Coughlin won the 54^th race of his career in Las Vegas. That's a lot of wins by three of the top drivers in the sport. Although they have all taken a different route to the "50 Win Club," they all deserve a lot of credit for what they have accomplished.

Pit Boss and Pedregon

Cruz Pedregon's win combined with the round one losses by Tim Wilkerson and Jack Beckman, combined to throw the Funny Car class into a wild, five car affair going into Pomona. Cruz has taken over the lead while Tim is now twelve points back in second place, Robert Hight is third thirty-nine points back, while Tony Pedregon is fourth and Jack Beckman is now fifth. Tony trails his brother by sixty-two points and Jack is two more points behind Tony. That means that every run will be big next week including qualifying rounds. Tony and Jack will need to qualify well in order to get their deficit below three rounds. Of course they will also have to hope that the top three guys don't do well in qualifying. Good luck with that!!... I don't know what was more surprising in round one, Tim smoking the tires or Jack fouling out? This was the third foul in Jack's career and the second this year, with the other one coming in the final round at Brainerd. Tim's tire-smoking run obviously caught everyone by surprise, especially him. You could tell by his interview and the expression on his face that he was stunned by the results of that opening round match with Mike Neff. Did you know that prior to that run Tim had never lost to Mike? They had met five times before and Tim had won all of them. Now the guy who led the points for most of the season will have to come from behind if he wants to win the POWERade championship. By

Wilkerson and Tasca

the way, did you notice that once he lost Tim was on the starting line for the next three rounds, and every car that he stood behind lost? Just thought I'd point that out. Tim also made news off the track with the announcement that he will team up with Bob Tasca next year and race a Ford. But right now all Tim wants to do is beat the Fords, and if past history is any indication, that won't be easy in Pomona. Did you know someone from Team Force has won the "Finals" in five of the past eight years? Of course John Force did it three of those times but it just goes to show how good those Fords are at the last race of the season.....Cruz Pedregon's win was special for him for a variety of reasons. Obviously, the win itself was big, or as Cruz put it after the race, "It was the biggest win of my career." It was 25^th win for Cruz and that moves him past Ron Capps and into fifth place on the all-time Funny Car win list. Did you know that only John Force,

Pedregon vs. Hight

Tony Pedregon, Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein have won more races in a Funny Car than Cruz has? The win was also the second consecutive one for Cruz and that's the first time that he has done that since he won back-to-back races in Topeka and Dallas in 1994. And did you know that at both of those races in '94 Cruz beat John Force and he beat John in the semi-finals this weekend. Anytime you can win a race it's a good thing, and anytime you can do that and beat John Force it becomes even more special. Cruz got a huge boost when both Jack Beckman and Gary Densham fouled out against him, but at this time of the year you won't hear Cruz making any apologies for those two round wins, and I don't blame him. Did you know that this was only Gary's thirteenth foul start and that comes in 545 rounds of racing? Now that's really good, it's just a shame for Gary that it came at a time when he was trying to catch Mike Neff in the battle for ninth place....I'll have more on the exciting battle for the Funny Car championship in next week's column.

Coughlin and Pit Boss

Jeg Coughlin all but wrapped up his second consecutive and fourth overall Pro Stock championship with his win in Las Vegas. Jeg is now 123 points up on Greg Anderson who moved into second place. That means that it would take a miracle for Greg to win, and that would include a DNQ by Jeg and a record setting performance by Greg. Jeg has already missed the field once this year but the way that he is running right now you certainly don't expect to see that happen again. But even if he did fail to qualify, Greg would have to set the record and that just doesn't happen very often at the last race of the year. In fact, did you know that the only time the Pro Stock record has been set at the final race of the year was in 1984 when Bob Glidden did it?...Kurt Johnson slipped to third place with his second round loss to Greg Stanfield. The red light was Kurt's second of the year and the twenty-second of his career and it really couldn't have come at a worse time. Of course that came after his dad, Warren, lost to Dave Connolly in the first round. That run surprised me, not so much because Dave won, but because Warren was first off the line and still lost. As we all know, the big problem for Warren this year has been getting his car off the starting line ahead of the other guy, so when he left

Coughlin vs. Stanfield

on Dave I certainly thought that he had the round won. Well, shows what I know. Dave then lost to Jeg in round two in a run that was a real tribute to the Victor Cagnazzi team. Jeg really needed to win the round to pull away in the run for the championship and there had to be more than one person who thought that Dave might "take one for the team" in that round. But, as we've seen before, when Victor's drivers face each other they always go all out. Congratulations to the team for that approach to racing....Greg Stanfield had a good shot at winning the race even though he qualified in the fourteenth place. Did you know that in the entire history of the Pro Stock class the fourteenth qualifier has won a grand total of six times?....Jeg won the race after qualifying first and that doesn't happen very often. In fact, in his career, Jeg has only qualified at the top of the pack fifteen times and he has only won four times from that lofty position. Of course, as competitive as the Pro Stock class is this year, did you know that the number one qualifier has only won four times? As small as that number is did you know that in both 2001 & 2002 the top qualifier in Pro Stock only won two times?...The big story in Pro Stock, however, won't be who the champion is, but it will center around all of the GM teams who look like they may be looking for help next year. And I'm not just talking about sponsorship help, I'm talking about help with parts, engines, bodies, testing, technology and things like that. From what I hear, all of the support that they are getting now will not be available to them next year. At least, that's what I hear. Stay tuned.

Rivas vs. Krawiec

The Pro Stock Motorcycle class is now a three team affair, with Matt Smith clinging to a nineteen point lead over Eddie Krawiec and Chris Rivas another twenty points behind Eddie. That's less than two rounds between the three and we've seen how that has played out before. Remember last year? That's when Andrew Hines came into the last race of the year with a thirty-nine point lead over Chip Ellis and a fifty-one point edge over Matt Smith. And we also remember how that ended, don't we? Andrew went out in the second round while Matt and Chip squared off in the final round. With three guys still alive I wouldn't be surprised if it comes down to the last round at Pomona again this year....If you've been paying attention to this column for a while you know what I always say about the motorcycle class, and that is, get a green light and give yourself a chance to win. Five riders fouled out in Vegas and, among them, was Andrew Hines who went out in the semi-finals in his race with Chris Rivas. Chris had a wacky day on the starting line, including Michael Phillips getting a perfect reaction time against him in

Angelle Sampey

round one, Andrew's foul in the semi-finals and Eddie Krawiec recording a .181 reaction time in the final. Hey, I guess if I read my own stuff, at least Eddie was green, right!! It's going to be very exciting next week in Pomona....I want to give the entire Pro Stock Motorcycle class a lot of credit for a couple of things. First, they really got in the spirit of Halloween when almost all of them dressed up in costumes and came to the staging lanes and went in front of the grandstands to salute the fans. Angelle Sampey dressed up as a cheerleader and she was, as you would imagine, a big hit. Jackie Bryce dressed up as Sarah Palin, or maybe she was supposed to be Tina Fey. Whatever, she looked great. And Ken Johnson, who lost his leg in an accident a few years ago, was a pirate for Halloween, complete with wooden peg leg. Talk about a guy who has a great outlook on life. And then the class gets credit for giving the fans an opportunity to meet and greet the riders. After qualifying on Saturday most of the teams had the bikes out and the riders available for autographs and pictures. They have done this at several races this year and it always goes over very well with the fans. More classes should think about doing it.

Bertozzi vs. Fletcher

I already mentioned Dan Fletcher winning and he had a chance to do more than that. He had a chance to win in two classes when he made it to the final round in both Comp and Super Stock. Dan lost a close race to Antony Bertozzi in Super Stock and that eliminated his chances to "double-up." Did you know that Dan has been in two final rounds at six different national events and still hasn't been able to double-up? He has had three chances to do it this year alone and hasn't been able to close the deal. In the interest of fair reporting I should also mention that Dan has never lost both final rounds when he had a chance to double. Dan is very good driver and he'll get that double-up soon...Tommy Phillips and Brad Pierce were the other sportsman winners, taking the Super Comp and Super Gas crowns respectively.....There is one divisional race still to go and that will be at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week and one national event to go at Pomona in two weeks and there are still a couple of sportsman championships up for grabs. They may be determined this weekend in Las Vegas and, if you want to keep up with the round-by-round results don't forget you can get them right here at DragRaceCentral.com.

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