Wed, 13 Oct 2004, 09:37 AM It Just Keeps On Getting Better

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2004 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Team Schumacher celebrate championship.

No sooner had I settled back and digested all that happened in Chicago a week ago when I realized that it was time to head for Maple Grove. I knew that the Reading track was always fast and I knew that the fans would return, they always do, and I knew it would be a good weekend, but nothing prepared me for what actually took place. The 20^th running of the Lucas Oil Nationals just confirmed what I always knew, there’s something special about Maple Grove. Always has been and always will be. And if we could ever get that race in on the original weekend we would break all records and that includes records for performance, records for attendance and records for, well, just about everything that you keep records on. When it was all over, a capacity crowd had witnessed one of the great races of all time, and, while I know I shouldn’t say this, it will be a long while before we top this one. Of course I said that after the Chicago race, too. Now, where to start…

Tony Schumacher clinching his second Top Fuel title would be a good place to begin. From the very start of qualifying it looked like it was going to be a battle between the “Team Kalitta” cars and Tony, After all, Doug Kalitta, David Grubnic and Scott Kalitta qualified in the top three spots and that’s quite an accomplishment in itself. Tony checked in at the 4^th spot, not exactly shying away from Connie’s guys. And when eliminations began and Rhonda Hartman-Smith upset Larry Dixon you knew it was going to be a wild day….and it was. But all along you knew that

Schumacher vs Vandergriff.

Tony would have to face one or maybe both of his closest competitors if he wanted to lock up the title which seemed inevitable. He did beat Brandon Bernstein, who was third in the points, but he never did have to race Doug since Rhonda beat him, too, in the second round. Still, when Tony stopped Brandon and mathematically eliminated everyone else from title contention you could hear the sigh of relief from the “Team Army” camp. Then, to punctuate his championship, Tony won the race and tied the single season record for wins by a Top Fuel driver at nine. Did you know that both Larry Dixon and Gary Scelzi won 9 races in a single year? Larry also holds the record for the most final rounds with 14 and Kenny Bernstein holds the mark for the most round wins in a year by a dragster driver with 61. By comparison, Tony now has twelve final rounds and 55 round wins so he could tie one record and break another depending on how he does at the last two races. Whatever he does it has been a great year for the Army Top Fuel team and they deserve all the respect in the world for what they have accomplished. By the way, it was a nice gesture to take a few moments at Maple Grove and acknowledge the entire crew from Alan Johnson on down after they had clinched the title. A tip of the cap, too, for Rhonda and her team for waiting patiently while the honors were bestowed on the team that Don Schumacher put together….Bob Vandergriff has to get some credit, too. Driving the 50^th anniversary Hedman Hedders car, Bob made it to the final round before falling to Tony. Along the way he beat Cory McClenathan, David Grubnic and Scott Kalitta before meeting up with Tony. Bob has a lot to bring to the sport and if all the rumors are true he could be announcing a major deal any day now. Let’s hope so, the former Rookie of the Year would be another great addition to the tour, especially if he does it on a full time basis.

Scelzi vs Force.

As exciting as the TF racing was, there was still some unfinished business in the Funny Car class. John Force, with a win at the Grove, could lock up his 13^th POWERade championship and he gave it his best shot. With a 4.728 in the first round John served notice that he was the guy to beat on Sunday and he followed that with a 4.762 win over Tim Wilkerson and another 4.76 to stop his main rival this year, Del Worsham. Now all he needed to do was beat Gary Scelzi in the final round and we’d have another champion to crown in the winner’s circle. But Gary, one of the hottest drivers in the class lately, had other ideas and his 4.853 was more than good enough to beat John’s tire smoking run and enough to put the celebration on hold until Las Vegas. The way I do the math all John has to do is qualify for the Las Vegas race and he’ll be the champ for the 13^th time. And if you wonder when the last time was that he didn’t qualify for a field, try the last race of 1987, a full 344 races ago. He wasn’t alone at that race, though, since the list of DNQ’s included Gary Densham, Ed Mohr, Bryan Raines and Rodney Flournoy among others…. Other than John, did you know that Gary Scelzi has won more rounds than any other driver in the class since the Topeka race? John has won an amazing thirty rounds since the Topeka event while Gary is not far behind with twenty four round wins. Plus Gary has beaten John in two final rounds since then so he has had a pretty good season, wouldn’t you say? With his win Gary has moved the Oakley Dodge to within two rounds of second place in the points. And if you say what’s the difference between second and third place, well how about $50,000, and that’s not chump change no matter what league you’re in…Eric Medlen qualified number one for the second time this year but it hasn’t been a very good year for the number one qualifier in the Funny Car class. Did you know that only twice this year has the top qualifier gone on to win the race in the FC class? Gary Scelzi did it in St. Louis and John did it in Seattle and other than that the quickest guy going into Sunday has not been able to close the deal.

Line vs Anderson.

With all of the excitement going on in the fuel classes you might think that the Pro Stock teams took a back seat at Maple Grove. Not so!! >From the first qualifying session which ended with Ken Koretsky at the top of the list, to the final race between Jason Line and Greg Anderson this was one of the best Pro Stock shows in years. For a while it looked like the home town hero, Mr. Koretsky, was going to go all the way, but he was stopped on a holeshot in the semi-finals by Jason Line who had been driving well all day long. In the final round, Jason’s teammate and partner, Greg Anderson, had a chance to set a single season mark with fourteen wins and that’s something that no other professional driver has ever done in any class. Most of the folks that I spoke to thought that it was a given that Greg would win, but Jason, Greg and their car owner Ken Black have always said that they will race heads-up every time they face each other and this final round was one for the ages. With another great start (.029 reaction time) and with his quickest run ever, Jason ended Greg’s bid for history and in the process he also passed Dave Connolly and moved back into second place in the points. Believe it or not I actually heard some people say that Greg let Jason win so he could move into second. People are amazing, aren’t they? Let me say that I have been doing this for a long while and I thought the PS final was about as exciting as it could get and the entire Ken Black team is to be congratulated for giving the fans a stunning show. That is a championship team in every sense of the word and I’m sure the folks at Summit Racing couldn’t be happier with their sponsorship of the flagship car.….With his semi-final round appearance Ken Koretsky did move into ninth place in the points, Rickie Smith is tenth and Warren Johnson is now out of the top ten. Amazing, isn’t it? Warren has now had almost as many DNQ’s this year as he had in the previous three decades of racing.

Savoie vs Brown.

The “Team Schumacher” gang really strutted their stuff in the Pro Stock Bike class as Angelle Savoie and Antron Brown met in the final round, with Angelle winning and making one of the best runs in the history of the class, a 7.018 in the final round. If anyone could have taken one for the team, it might have been Angelle, since Antron is only about six rounds out of first place right now. A win over Angelle and he would have been in real striking distance of the leader, Andrew Hines going into Las Vegas. As it is, things could get real exciting in Vegas if Andrew stumbles in the early rounds. Of course that hasn’t happened for a while, in fact, not at all this year. Did you know that the last time Andrew lost in the first round was back at Brainerd in 2003? That’s a streak of eighteen races and that’s pretty good in anybody’s book…..There was no six second run in the bike class in Maple Grove and that means that the folks at Mickey Thompson can tuck that ten grand away for a while. I don’t think we’ll see a record breaking run in Vegas but I wouldn’t rule it out at the final race in Pomona….Angelle’s win was her fifth at Maple Grove, the site of her first win back in 1996, and to say that she was happy afterwards would be an understatement. Angelle and Antron really are good friends on and off the track and I guess they made some wacky bet and now Antron has to wear one of Angelle’s shirts for the entire weekend in Las Vegas. The good thing about that, Antron, is that it’s Vegas and nobody will even notice!

Lucas vs Force.

Morgan Lucas and Ashley Force gave us another great run in the final of the Top Alcohol Dragster class while Frank Manzo and Bob Newberry did likewise in the alky Funny Car class. Did you know that this was Frank Manzo’s first win since this event a year ago? Now that’s amazing. Frank won it in fine fashion, too, with a stunning 5.529 en route to the win and a holeshot win in the final round….Bob Phillips, who has raced at Maple Grove for about twenty years finally won a national event there when he won Super Gas over George Stack, and Tex Miller, the former World Champion, won for the first time in a dozen years when he took Stock Eliminator honors. All in all it was a great race and I hope everyone who was there appreciated what they were seeing. If you missed it you will be able to catch it on ESPN next week, the sportsman show will air on Saturday, October 17^th beginning at 12:30 P.M., while the pro show runs that Saturday night at 7 P.M…..And don’t forget the Dutch Classic this week at Maple Grove and the Lucas Oil Division race at No Problem Raceway in Louisiana. By the way, Robert Book’s car, the one that I wrote about this week, will be at the Grove and that alone should be worth the price of admission. Of course if you bring your ticket from this past weekend you’ll get in free to the Dutch Classic. Go and enjoy….