Wed, 25 Jun 2003, 12:19 AM This Race Will Make It An Even Dozen!!

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2003 Auto Imagery, Inc.

2000 Pro Winners

By my calculations we have finished eleven races, St. Louis will be number twelve and then we’ll have eleven more to go. So, I guess that makes this the half-way point in the year, if there is such a thing in a 23 race season. So let’s congratulate the point’s leaders right now, Larry Dixon, Tony Pedregon, Greg Anderson and Angelle Savoie. With all four professional classes in action under the lights this weekend it will be interesting to see how the leaders respond to the night time format. NHRA did this a couple of years ago at the Madison track with Gary Scelzi, Jerry Toliver, Ron Krisher and Matt Hines getting the wins. And then there was the Pomona experiment in 2001 when Doug Herbert, John Force, Jeg Coughlin and Angelle Savoie emerged the victors in the night time. Now they all get to do it again under the lights and under the arch in St. Louis.

Larry Dixon will return to the site of his lowest moment in 2002 while Kenny Bernstein returns to the site of one of his bright spots from ‘02. Last year Larry failed to qualify for the show while Kenny took the “Budweiser King” to the Top Fuel title and, in essence, made sure that the dragster battle would go right down to the last race of the season. Now I’m not sure if anything or anyone can do that this year, but I will tell you that Larry certainly has struggled at this event in the past six years. Did you know that, since the inaugural race in St. Louis in 1997, Larry has only gotten past the second round once and has only qualified in the top half of the field twice. At the other events he qualified 15^th, 14^th and 10^th to go along with that very rare DNQ. Last year he even finished 19^th, behind both Scott Palmer and Scott Weis and that, combined with Kenny’s win, breathed new life into the Top Fuel race….By the way, among the other surprises at last year’s event were the top qualifying spot by Andrew Cowin, the #5 spot by Paul Romine and the 6^th spot

Paul Romine

by Clay Millican. Speaking of Paul Romine, I know that I mentioned last week that he finally got that elusive 4.5 run that he had been looking for (a career best 4.580 in round one), but did you know that both Paul and Bruce Litton turned in career best efforts and they both did it in a losing races? Paul lost to Tony Schumacher while Bruce gave the aforementioned Larry Dixon a scare in round one while making his best run ever, s strong 4.650….Doug Herbert will unveil his “it’s all about die casts” “Hulk” themed car this weekend. I guess it’s kind of like “DougZilla meets the Hulk,” or something like that. I will tell you this, Doug, or “Zilla” or the “Hulk” all enjoy racing at night. I mentioned the NHRA 50^th anniversary race which was held at night in Pomona, well Doug Hebert won that, and the last time they ran at St. Louis under the lights, Doug had his best St. Louis showing with a semi-final round appearance, so maybe a night time show is just what he needs to get back in the swing of things. I’ll tell you this, with a lot of the independent TF racers showing up, like Luigi Novelli, Don Reed, Scott Palmer and more, the tour regulars better not miss a beat or they’ll have plenty of time to catch the “Hulk” or Nemo or whoever they want to see at the movies on Sunday. If you don’t believe me, just ask Larry Dixon what he did last year on Sunday in St. Louis. And you can almost count on one of the regulars missing the show, the big questions is….which one?

“Team Force,” which has been known to sell a few dies cast, has won the St. Louis race three of the past four years with John Force winning last year and in 1999. John’s interview with Bill Stephens (actually it was Tony Pedregon’s interview, but John cut in) was really funny after the finals in Columbus. You had to listen closely but John smiled and said…”I almost tipped over.” Indeed he did, and that cost him a shot at winning his first race of the year and as good as he did in Columbus, he still lost ground to Tony, but then so did everyone else. You know, as good as Tony, Larry and Greg Anderson have been running this year, 2003 would have been the perfect season to initiate the new “Bob Frey” World Championship points system. That’s the one where all of the professional classes are grouped together and we crown one overall POWERade Champion and he gets one million dollars (the amount in the total champion’s purse for the top three pro classes now). Think about it, Larry would be in the lead but he would only be one round up on Tony while Greg would be in third place less than three rounds back. What do you think? The pro driver who wins the most rounds would be the one and only champion for the year. Hey, just a thought.

Dale Creasy Jr.

There will be some interesting things in the Funny Car class in St. Louis, with Dale Creasy Sr. teaming up with Cory Lee and leaving Dale Jr. and Jimbo Emalovitch  carrying the banner of the flagship “Craftsman” Funny Car into battle. Dale Sr. said that he wanted to slow down while still staying involved in the sport. That will translate to a couple of national events and some match races in and around his home area, while Jr. will stay on tour. Now if they could only get Gary Bolger to un-retire. Maybe not, but we wish both of the Creasy’s well in the second half of the year….The Checker, Schuck’s and Kragen teams will come to St. Louis looking to get healthy. Del Worsham and Johnny Gray have, admittedly, fallen on hard times the last couple of races and both are in need of a race win. Other than his DNQ last week, Johnny can probably trace his decline to qualifying. Did you know that over the past five races Johnny’s best qualifying effort has been #9? And when you start on the bottom half of the field, you get the likes of Gary Scelzi (twice) Ron Capps and Tony Pedregon in the first round and that’s not a good way to move up the food chain….Scelzi, by the way, has a lofty record of 15-2 at the St. Louis event with three win (1998, ’99 & 2000) and for that reason, I think I’ll install him as a favorite this weekend. His team mate, Scotty Cannon, went to the finals last year before fouling out against John Force, while his other team mate, Whit Bazemore, would probably like to skip this race altogether. Did you know that in six starts here Whit has only gotten past the second round one time? And in six tries he has only qualified in the top half of the field twice, with four of his starts coming from the 10^th spot or lower. Good luck, Whit. 

Jeg Coughlin will also have something different up his sleeve this weekend. The reigning POWERade champ (he’d be in 10^th place in the 2003 Bob Frey championship points right now) will drive in both Pro Stock and Super Stock in St. Louis, looking for that very rare double win. Of course doing it in the professional and sportsman classes at the same race is extremely tough, but if anyone can do it, Jeggie is the one…Bob Yonke will compete in Pro Stock this weekend, moving up from the Competition Eliminator and the old Pro Stock Truck class. Everything Bob has ever raced has been very competitive and his Pro Stock car should be no exception….I understand that David Howard will also make his Pro Stock debut this weekend. Really!!...Look for a Pro Stock Dodge out of the David Nickens’ camp to be in St. Louis, too, which is always a guarantee of some excitement….The motorcycles will be out in force this week and that class looks to be more wide open than ever before. With Fred Collis adding his name to the PSB winner’s list, it will be interesting to see who the next first-time winner will be. Andrew Hines, Reggie Showers and Karen Stoffer have to get a lot of consideration to adding their names to the list, while Angelle, Craig Treble, Antron Brown and Geno Scali have to be considered favorites going into the weekend.

Frank Manzo

A big weekend in the sportsman ranks took place this past weekend with three divisional races being contested. Craig English pulled the biggest upset when he beat Frank Manzo in round one at Atco, but Bob Newberry couldn’t take advantage when he lost in the finals to Mickey Ferro. Mickey joins a very select group of guys other than Frank and Bob Newberry who have won Division 1 point’s races in the last decade. Did you know that after Scott Weney won the first Division 1 race of 1992 that Bob and Frank ran off 23 consecutive wins between them over the next four years in the “Land of Ned?”  And did you know that from 1997 through 2002 only three guys (Tony Bartone, Paul Gill and Paul Lee) won a Division 1 race besides the big two? And how about this? According to my stats, you have to go all the way back to the first race of 1994 to find the last time that Frank Manzo didn’t make it past the first round at a divisional event. Wow, that’s pretty impressive stuff.  Oh, one other thing. Did you know that in 1996 Phil Burkart beat Frank Manzo twice in one season on the divisional level? Now how many guys can say that?...Congrats also go out to Frank Aragona who won his second Comp race in as many weeks and to all of the other sportsman winners on the Lucas Oil trail last weekend.