Fri, 18 Nov 2011, 13:30 PM Now That was Special

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2011 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Hector Arana Jr. won Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future award.

The 2011 season is now history, the champions have been crowned and all of the awards have been given out, but none of that would have been possible if it weren't for one great day at the races. I've been doing this a long time but I have never seen one day that had as much excitement as Sunday at Pomona. There was a lot of drama going into the day and the racers and the teams delivered with stunning performances, exciting runs, side-by-side racing and one of the most thrilling single days in drag racing history. At least that's my opinion and I think it's the opinion of everyone who was at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona on Sunday. Not only the Full Throttle classes but also the Lucas Oil classes, where four titles were decided, provided the fans with non-stop action. In the end we had eleven champions crowned and we had one great day of racing that was the end to a great year. You can debate the "Countdown" format all you want but you'll be hard pressed to find any fan who was at the track in Pomona who didn't think it worked out just fine. The only thing that spoiled the weekend was the weather on Saturday. It was cold and rainy most of the day, and in the end it caused qualifying to be cut short and that's a shame. Tony Pedregon had just moved into the field and bumped out Bob Bode who was next in line. Bob had actually started his car and then was told to shut it off because of the rain, and when the day ended Bob never got a chance to make his run and he missed the field. Hey, those things happen and it's all part of racing, it's just a shame it had to happen to Bob, one of the truly nice guys in our sport.

At the awards ceremony on Monday night there weren't a lot of surprises but there was a lot of fun. Hector Arana Jr. won the coveted Rookie of the Year award, or as it's known and loved, the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future award. I'm not sure what the final tally was but I have to think it was close between Jr. and Vincent Nobile, but in the end Mr. Arana prevailed, and had it gone

Del Worsham

to Vincent I don't think anyone would have questioned that result, either. They both had great years and it's a shame that they both couldn't win the award...Ford won the Manufacturers Cup and that's the first time since 1982 that the "Blue Oval" folks claimed the title. Did you know they also won it in 1964 and 1965?...And the Full Throttle Hard Working Crew awards went to Chris Karamesines in Top Fuel, Robert Hight in Funny Car, Erica Enders in Pro Stock and Eddie Krawiec in Pro Stock Motorcycle.....As NHRA marked its 60^th anniversary there were several legends in attendance on Monday night. Among them were Tommy Ivo, Don Prudhomme, Don Garlits, Terry Vance and Don Schumacher.

Del Worsham is the Top Fuel World Champion and I think everyone at the awards ceremony on Monday night was happy for Del. Well, everyone except Spencer Massey possibly. That's because Spencer was the guy who finished number two in the points and he was also the one who was in the other lane when Del clinched the title. Their run, which was

Worsham vs. Spencer Massey

one of the best runs ever in the class, saw Del run 3.800 to Spencer's 3.808. Coupled with a very slight advantage for Spencer off the line ( his ..046 to Del's ..050), made the margin of victory .0044, or less than two feet at the finish line. It was a run that was a fitting way to end the title chase, a great run between two of the best teams ever, but in the end only one team could win and that was the Al-Anabi team. Led by Alan Johnson, who has now won ten Top Fuel championships, the big maroon car won a class-best eight races this year while Spencer and the FRAM team finished with four....One of the most amazing things of the season was the fact that the two drivers, Del and Spencer, met an amazing twelve times during the year with Del winning eight of those encounters. Did you know that four of those races were in the final round and the two drivers each won twice in the finals? They also met four

Gary Ormsby vs. Joe Amato at the 1990 finals.

times in the playoffs with each driver winning twice. For two drivers who had never met before they sure produced one of the great season rivalries in history. Maybe it wasn't the final round, like Joe Amato and Gary Ormsby in 1990, but it was just as dramatic and more exciting, and both teams deserve a lot of credit for what they did in 2011....Del won the race in convincing fashion, starting from the number one spot, running low elapsed time and then beating Tony Schumacher in a great final round. Note: I know I'm using the word "great" a lot in this story, but that's what the weekend was...great! Now where was I? Did you know that Del's win, coupled with the wins for the other number one qualifiers, Matt Hagan and Andrew Hines, made this just the second time since 2003 that we have had three top qualifiers win at back-to-back races? Del, Ron Capps and Mike Edwards did it in Las Vegas and now these three in Pomona. It's amazing that that doesn't happen more often, isn't it? And here's an amazing little tidbit. When Del won the race from the top spot it marked the third consecutive race where the number one Top Fuel driver went on to win the event and that's very rare. Did you know that is only the third time that has happened in the last 627 races?...I'll have more on Del and the Top Fuel championship in next week's column.

Matt Hagan

Matt Hagan, crushed last year when he lost in round one at Pomona and then sat around and watched John Force take the championship from him and his team, rebounded in fine fashion to win his first Full Throttle Funny Car Championship. Led by Tommy DeLago and a very talented team, Matt started the day from the top spot and never looked back. He did everything on Sunday except set top speed, and Robert Hight did that in the great (there's that word again) final round against Matt. But how else would you describe a run that produced times of 4.009 for Matt and 4.031 for Robert? Matt's time was the third quickest in Funny Car history and Robert's speed was the fourth fastest and that makes for a great run. Plus, anytime you get a Team Schumacher car against a Team Force car in a final round you know that it's going to be fun and it was. Surprisingly the win was just the second of the year for Matt while Robert and his teammate, Mike Neff, finished with five each and that was the best in the class....Did you know that two is the fewest number of wins for a Funny Car driver since Mark Oswald won the championship with two wins in 1984? I hope that Matt's follow-up season

Hagan vs. Cruz Pedregon

is better than Mark's was. Did you know that after winning the championship in 1984 Mark didn't win a race, make a final round or finish in the top ten in 1985? Amazing....Matt's number one spot was the tenth of his brief career and that puts him in a very select group. Did you know that in the entire history of the Funny Car class there have only been seventeen drivers to qualify number one ten or more times? Matt's win was also the fifth of his career and that ties him with one of the all-time great Funny Car drivers from the early years of the class, Don Schumacher. Now, as I always say, in the interest of fair reporting I should point out that Don won his races in just two dozen starts while Matt has been at seventy-three races. Yeah, Don was that good....More on the Funny Car champ in two weeks.

Jason Line won the Pro Stock championship but it was Greg Stanfield who won the race. Jason, with six wins on the season, the most in the class, picked up his second Full Throttle Championship at the previous event in Las Vegas. Still, like Del and Matt, he would have loved to finish off the season with a win but that was not to be. Greg Stanfield driving the Nitro Fish Pontiac won the race, his first of the year and his fifth Pro Stock win overall. Did you know that of those five wins for Greg in the Pro Stock class two of them came in the old Pro Stock Truck class? Meanwhile his three Pro Stock Car wins have come in eighteen final rounds against only seven different drivers. As he did for most of the year Greg won a couple of rounds

Jason Line

on the starting line, two to be exact. Did you know that he had eight holeshot wins in 2011 and that was the most in the Pro Stock class? He also left first on every driver he faced on Sunday including Kurt Johnson who had a great .016 reaction time in the final round. Did you know that for his career Greg has "left first" an amazing 67% of the time, and that he was even better than that in 2011? This year he was first off the line a remarkable 75% of the time and that's one of the reasons why he continues to finish in the top ten. Greg's win was his second at the Auto Club Finals and the fifth time he went to the final round at the event. That includes a couple of trips to the money round in Comp Eliminator and Pro Stock Truck. When you throw in his runner-up finish at the Winternationals this year it's easy to see

Greg Stanfield

that Greg loves Pomona....Even though he didn't win Kurt Johnson had another good showing at the end of the year. If you're keeping score that makes three final rounds in the last six races of the year for Kurt. But, just like Johnny Gray in the Funny Car class, since Kurt wasn't in the "Countdown" his finals and round wins didn't help him make the top ten. Still, it's not a bad way to end the season for a guy who had been mired in a terrible slump for so long. Did you know that his four rounds on Sunday gave KJ a total of 899 for his career and there are only four drivers in the history of the sport with more total rounds than that? It was also his eighth final round at the "Finals" and that's a lot for any racer at any single event. The runner-up spot was the 38^th of his career and that's the second most for any Pro Stock driver. Did you know that Kurt moved past Bob Glidden in the runner-up category and the only driver who has lost more finals rounds than Kurt is his father, Warren Johnson, who has fifty-four of them?

Eddie Krawiec

After not having two Harley-Davidsons in the finals for over two years Andrew Hines and Eddie Krawiec have now done it at back-to-back races. This time it was Andrew who took the win when Eddie was a little too quick on the line and fouled out in the final round. Did you know that it was at Denver and Sonoma in 2009 when we last saw two Harleys in the final round at consecutive races? And did you know that Eddie has now been to the final round at the "Finals" in each of the last four years? Looks like Kurt isn't the only one who likes racing at Pomona....With a commanding, if not insurmountable, sixty-nine point lead coming into the race Eddie had a hammer lock on the championship, and as he advanced through eliminations it became apparent that Hector Arana Jr. would run out of rounds and time to catch him. When he beat the current champ, LE Tonglet in the second round, it clinched the title for him....One of the many highlights of the weekend came in the semi-finals of the bike class when both Harley riders lined up against the two Arana family members. Hector Sr. and Andrew were up first and they had a great staging battle with each one taking turns hitting the throttle while the staging beams were on. I don't know exactly how long it was but it

Andrew Hines

seemed like a long time before Andrew finally moved in first. I don't know if he just tired of sitting there and realized that someone had to go in first, or it may have been the fact that the Harley's hold so little fuel that he thought he might actually run out of gas if he sat there too long. Whatever it was it made for a great race, a race that Andrew won 6.88 to a losing 6.89 and that set up the second match between Eddie and Jr.. Both riders went right in and after a slight advantage for Jr. off the line (.013 to a .021) Eddie ran him down to set up the all-Harley final round...Eddie won the championship with four wins and that matched Tonglet who also won four times in 2011....While he wasn't number one and he didn't set low elapsed time, Eddie did record top speed of the meet and that's the sixteenth time that he has done that. Did you know that ranks seventh best in the history of the bike class?

The Summit Racing Series also crowned four champions and we'll have a look at each of them in the coming weeks. Among the winners were Mark Horton in Super Pro, Brandon Schmall in Pro, Edmond Richardson in Sportsman and Tom Klemme in the bike class. Congrats to all of them.

Dan Lea

Dan Lea, the popular announcer at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, passed away earlier this week and the track will hold a "Celebration of Life" for him tonight (November 18) from 6 - 8 PM. The event will be held at the NASCAR infield media center at the Speedway. Chris Blair, VP at the Strip, has invited everyone in the community to join in the celebration. Dan was a very talented, caring and loving man and he will be missed by all us. Our thoughts and prayers go to his wife, Cheryl, and family. In lieu of flowers the family has asked that friends make contributions to the Las Vegas Chapter of the Speedway Children's Charities, an organization that was near and dear to Dan's heart.

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