Thu, 12 Feb 2009, 02:34 PM What A Way To Start

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2009 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Ron Capps

This certainly wasn't the way anyone wanted to start the 2009 season or the Full Throttle drag racing era. The bad weather that hit Pomona made for a miserable weekend for everyone, racers and fans alike, but, as the old expression goes, the show must go on and it did, even if it was a day late. OK, three days late. In the end Doug Kalitta, Ron Capps and Jason Line were the big winners in the professional classes and now everyone can dry out and get ready for Phoenix next week.

Doug Kalitta photo by James Drew

Doug Kalitta began eliminations with a bang and finished three days later with the win. Doug's fiery win in the opening round over Urs Erbacher certainly didn't give any indication of what was to come. Honoring Connie Kalitta's 50^th anniversary in the sport, "Big Yellow" (it doesn't have the same ring to it as "Big Red" does it?), rebounded after the rain to beat Cory McClenathan, Morgan Lucas and Antron Brown and pick up his first win since Richmond in 2007. It was also the first win for Team Kalitta since the death of Scott at Englishtown last year and that had to make the celebration a very emotional one for Doug, Connie and the entire team. Doug's win was the 31^st of his career and that moves him into the top ten on the all-time list of winners in the fuel classes...Antron Brown gave Doug a good run in the final round but came up a few feet short. "AB" qualified number one and ran well in the final but the Matco Tools car just didn't have enough to beat Doug. And I guess we'll never know how the

Kalitta vs. Brown

eliminations may have gone if Mike Strasburg had returned for the show. I say that because, in his solo run in round two when Mike was a "no-show," Antron only managed a 15.892 time after smoking the tires, having engine troubles and having the chute come out early. Other than that it wasn't a bad run. Hey, it was a winning run and that's all that mattered. The deck may have been stacked against Antron after he grabbed the top spot, the second consecutive year that he was number one at the Winternationals. Did you know that the last time the top qualifier won at the Winternationals in Top Fuel was in 1997 when Gary Scelzi did it? And did you know that the number one qualifier has won a grand total of six times in the history of Top Fuel at the season-opening race and three of them came in the first four years of the event? You would think that being number one would translate into a win more often than that, but apparently not....Steve Chrisman won his opening round and, in the process, became the first member

Steve Chrisman

of the Chrisman family to win a round at Pomona since 1961, the year that Jack Chrisman, Steve's dad, won the Winternationals over Tom McEwen. In 1962 Jack would come back to defend his title but would lose to that same Tom McEwen in round one. By the way, one of the other competitors in that 1962 race was described as "one of the best from the east" and that was Connie Kalitta. As I always say, there is a lot of history surrounding the Winternationals and Connie....On the other side of that "tradition" coin is the fact that there were four drivers in the Top Fuel field who were making their first pro start at an NHRA race. European champion Andy Carter, former Jr. Dragster champ Del Cox, Super Comp world champ Shawn Langdon and Steve Faria all qualified for the show. The question now is, how may of them will show up in Phoenix or beyond?

Capps vs Head

Ron Capps, not mentioned by a lot of people as a title contender (although he should be), won the Funny Car class and he did it from the lucky number thirteen spot. Did you know that this is only the third time in the history of the FC class that a driver won the race after qualifying 13^th? And, as hard as it may be to believe, it happened exactly once from 1970 until 2008 and it has now happened twice in the last five races. Like I often say, what are the odds? In addition to the win Ron beat a pair of the Team Force cars, John Force in round one and Robert Hight in the semi-finals before beating Jim Head in the money run. Ron's win was very impressive since he had the low elapsed time in three of the four rounds and he was first off the line in every round. Ron is one of the best drivers in the class and, along with his crew chief, Ed McCulloch, may be the best driver to never win the national championship, Ron hardly ever beats himself and he always keeps the team in the chase and that's the stuff that champions are made of. Did you know that, for his entire career, Ron has been first off the line almost sixty percent of the time and that's really good in the Funny Car class? Throw in the fact that he has fouled out just one time in almost six hundred rounds and I think it's plain to see that Ron is a very good driver. Congratulations to Ron, Ed and the entire Napa team....Robert Hight qualified number one but, as he knows, winning from the top spot is not easy. It's not easy for him and it's not easy at the Winternationals. This was the 29^th time that Robert has been the

Robert Hight

leader after qualifying and he has won just three times from that top spot. Did you know that the number one FC qualifier has won just twice in the last twenty-one years at the Winternationals? And in the forty years of running the class at this race the top qualifier has only won five times, so the odds certainly weren't in Robert's favor...The one-shot qualifying didn't help Tim Wilkerson who missed the field. While Tim will be the first one to tell you that everyone had the same chance to make the field, it won't ease the pain of not making the cut. Of all the tracks on the tour Pomona can't be one of Tim's favorites. Did you know that in his last eleven trips to southern California Tim has won a grand total of three rounds? I'll bet Tim can't wait to get to Phoenix.

Greg Anderson

Greg Anderson and Jason Line looked like the class of the Pro Stock field this week. Greg qualified number one and then set the national record at 6.528 while Jason set top speed at 211.63 and, more importantly, won the race. For Jason, it was his 16^th win and his first since Seattle last year and the first time he has been in the points lead since after the St. Louis race last year. In addition to having a really good car Jason also drove well beating all four of his opponents off the line. That's a good start for the Summit Racing team driver who won for the first time in Pomona. When Greg set the record it continued a streak that goes back to 2003. Did you know that the last time someone other than Greg or Jason held the Pro Stock record was when Warren Johnson had the mark at 6.720 in 2003? Greg's two round wins give him 400 for his career....There were other good performances in Pro Stock, among them Allen Johnson's 6.549 in his round two

Line vs. Edwards

win over Jeg Coughlin. There aren't many guys who can say that they ran 6.549 and didn't get lane choice but that's what happened to AJ. Jason Line also ran 6.549 in round two and he went 210.90 mph to Allen's 209.92 and that gave lane choice to Jason in their semi-final match. All in all, though, it was a very good showing for the Dodge, and Allen will be a factor all year long and at every race....Mike Edwards just continues his steady and impressive performance. Mike, who made the commitment to have his own engine program last year, was solid in every round, upset Greg with a holeshot and made three runs in the 6.5 range during eliminations, and it's that kind of consistency and power that will make him a title contender in 2009. Mike, who tied for the class lead in holeshot wins last year, picked up right where he left off and he has established himself as one of the best on the line in the Pro Stock class. I said it before the season began and I'll say it again, the Pro Stock class is loaded this year and I don't expect anyone to run away with the championship this year, and I mean in the first part of the year and in the "Countdown."

John Calvert

There were a lot of interesting things in the sportsman classes, as always, but one that received a lot of attention was the appearance of the new Ford Mustangs. There were four of them and they ran in four different classes. John Calvert was the #2 qualifier with a solid 10.08 in his A/S car while Gary Stinnett was tenth at 10.18 in his car which competed in A/SA. The other two cars were entered by Jim Waldo in AA/S and Jimmy RonZello in AA/SA. John had the best weekend of the group winning the race, the fourth national event win of his career and the third time he has won at the Winternationals.As quick and fast as those cars were I wonder how they would stack up against the Shelby Ford Mustang that they introduced at the NHRA museum on Thursday night? The car, which honored Don Prudhomme, was the hit of the weekend in the museum and it looks like it's going about 150 miles per hour even when it's standing still. It sat side-by-side with the legendary Super Snake dragster that Don ran with Lou Baney back in the 1960's. All in all I guess you could say that it was a big weekend for the Fords in Pomona...Tony Bartone's return to the alky ranks

Bartone vs. Gordon

was a triumphant one. Driving for Rick Jackson, Tony won the race, established career best numbers and beat Frank Manzo along the way. Frank told me at the Division 1 banquet that he was looking forward to Tony's return because he will bring a new intensity to the class. He did just that and his second round win over Frank had to be one of the biggest of his career. Did you know that the last time those two met was in the final round at Maple Grove in 2000? That's when Frank beat Tony on a holeshot while Tony was setting the national record. It was an amazing race and we look forward to seeing more matches in this great rivalry. Did you know that Frank and Tony have now met eighteen times and they have both won nine of those races? Frank doesn't foul out very often, in fact, in almost 600 rounds of racing this was only his fifth red-light start, and ironically the last three have all come at the Winternationals....Ken Webster made his first start in national event competition in an alcohol funny car and it was an impressive one. He made three runs of 5.63 and lasted until the semi-finals....Doug Gordon also had a great race, making the final round and running a best of 5.500 in the process.

Whiteley vs. Demke

There aren't a lot of alky funny car guys who have made runs quicker than that and it was nice to see Doug and his dad do so well....Jim Whiteley won the alky dragster class when he beat Chris Demke in the finals. With Shawn Cowie taking the number one spot it's the first time in a long while that the blown cars have qualified first, won the race and set low elapsed time (Demke) and top speed (Ed Schmeeckle). Ed got everyone's attention with is 5.278 in round two, the same run on which he turned top speed at over 270 miles per hour. Ed's personal best was just one of many career best numbers turned in by the drivers in the alky classes at the event....Dan Fletcher was the only 2008 series champion who opened this year with a win, beating Doug Lambeck in the finals. Dan said in an interview last week that he probably wouldn't run for the championship this year, but a win this early in the year can make you think twice about that. For Doug it was the 13^th final round of his career and that's very

Fletcher vs. Lambeck

impressive....Shane Studley grabbed the Super Stock honors and that's the first national event win for Shane, while Justin Lamb beat Thomas Bayer for the Super Gas crown. The numbers in their final round were amazing, a 9.907 for Justin (and a .013 reaction time) to Bayer's 9.906 (and .015 r/t).

With everything that went on during the opening weekend of the season, one thing that was missed by many was the announcement of the honorees for this year's California Hot Rod Reunion. There are five legends of the sport who will be honored along with one Grand Marshall. Among the five is Danny Broussard, the first person to

Steve Reyes

ever have the words "Keith Black Racing Engines" lettered on his car. Danny was involved with some of the great teams in the early days of the sport including the Broussard, Purcell and Davis car that was driven by Tom McEwen. After a stint with a few more teams Danny joined Roland Leong on the "Hawaiian" team including the one that was driven by Mike Sorokin....Don Moody, one of the truly great drivers of his time will also be honored. Anyone who can win Top Eliminator at Lions Drags Strip eight weeks in a row deserves a lot of recognition. Don also was the first driver to make a seven-second run at Pomona when he did it in 1962, and his 5.91 elapsed time was enough to win the Supernationals in 1972. '72 was a great year for Don because it was the year that he won the "National Challenge" race in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a race that I was pleased to announce...A longtime friend of mine, Steve Reyes, will be honored. Maybe the only photographer in the world with photos in the Drag Racing Hall of Fame and the National Hockey League Hall of Fame, Steve is, arguably (or not), the most well known photographer in our sport's history and he has taken some of the truly iconic photos of all time. If you're not familiar with his work you can see some of it in his latest book Quarter-Mile Chaos...."Jet Car" Bob Smith is fourth honoree and, as his name implies, he made his mark n the sport by

Jess Tyree

driving jets cars. He also had a series of accidents in the cars but he always came back to race again. His famous line after returning from one particularly bad accident was that, "I came back so I can make money to pay the hospital bills from the last accident."....And Walt Stevens, who won the Winternationals in Top Gas in 1971, the last year that that class was contested at Pomona, will also be an honoree. Walt drove the famous "Odd Couple" car at that race, a twin-engine dragster that featured one Chevrolet engine and one Chrysler. That had to be a joy to tune, didn't it?....Jess Tyree, a man who has raced Pontiacs for the better part of fifty years will be the Grand Marshall. Jess, who started drag racing with a 1938 Chevrolet and who later ran a '57 Plymouth Fury, switched to Pontiacs in 1957 and never looked back. After a very successful career behind the wheel of stock-bodied cars, Jess switched to Funny Cars and he spent a few years with the Coca-Cola Cavalcade of Stars. Congratulations to all the honorees and, especially, to the Grand Marshall, Jess Tyree.....While at the museum I picked up the third and final installment of Don Gillespie's documentary about Lions Drag Strip. Like the first two it is full of great photos, action shots, historical moments and interviews that make this three-volume set a "must-have" for any drag racing fan. This one, in particular, is worth having just for the footage of Don Garlits' explosion, the one that led to the creation of the rear-engine dragster. The video of the actual explosion is something that I'm sure a lot of folks haven't seen before, and to hear Don talk about the creation of the new car is very interesting. But I have to say that one of the highlights of the entire presentation comes when Don talks about how well his new car ran at Lions just prior to bringing it to Pomona for the Winternationals. He talks about the car, how he knew it would do well, and then he utters three words that foretold the future, or lack of it for the conventional front-engine dragsters. "It was over," is all he said, and indeed it was. Don Gillespie did a great job in assembling all the footage in these three videos and the end result is a real and fitting tribute to Lions Drag Strip. Plus, getting to hear Hall of Fame member Jon Lundberg talk about the track and its history is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Congratulations to Don Gillespie for a job, a labor of love that is very well done.