Tue, 17 Jun 2003, 09:51 PM Hey, Mr. Engraver, That Name is Spelled D-I-X-O-N

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2003

Larry Dixon

Well, if it wasn’t a foregone conclusion before, it certainly is now, Larry Dixon will be the 2003 POWERade Top Fuel Champion. Now you can give me all the numbers you want about how many races we have left and all of that stuff, but believe me, it’s a done deal. Following his win in Columbus Larry is now 268 points ahead of the second place driver, Doug Kalitta. At the next race, Larry will look to tie the record of six consecutive final rounds in the TF class, a record that he currently shares with Scott Kalitta and Cory McClenathan. Larry has now won five of the eleven races this year and he has appeared in eight of the eleven final rounds. Did you know that Larry has only failed to make the final round at Gainesville (semi-final), Houston (second round) and Bristol (second round). He has already won 33 rounds and appears destined to break the one mark that he doesn’t hold in TF, and that is the most amount of round wins in a single season. Did you know that Kenny Bernstein won 61 rounds in his championship year of 2001 and that’s the most round wins ever for a dragster driver in one year? Barring anything wacky, Larry’s a lead-pipe cinch to shattered that record, too. Of course St. Louis is the next race on the schedule and we all know (or should know) what happened to Larry there last year…he failed to qualify. Somehow, I really don’t expect that to happen this time around, do you?...With his runner-up in Columbus, Darrell Russell moved past the injured Brandon Bernstein and into third place in the points. The battle for all of the other spots in the top 10 is wide open, with David Baca, who is in 9^th place, only 277 points behind Kalitta, and that’s almost as close as Doug is to Dixon….Larry became the first Top Fuel driver in the 39 year history of this event to win it in three consecutive seasons. Did you know that when Larry was born this race already had two winners, Maynard Rupp in 1965 and Jimmy Nix in 1966? By the way, the guy who Maynard beat in that ’65 race was competing again this week in Columbus. Chris Karamesines went to the final round at Bristol in 1965 before losing to Mr. Rupp. And here’s a really obscure bit of information. Did you know that Maynard Rupp won two TF titles in his career but only raced one driver to do it? At the ’65 World Finals, Maynard  was supposed to run Red Lang in the finals, but Red couldn’t fire for his single run in the semi-finals and, as such, he never advanced to the final round, giving Rupp the unopposed single for the Top Fuel win. Strange, but true!...Larry’s win keeps him undefeated on Father’s Day (since he became a father) and keeps Dick LaHaie undefeated in final rounds at the Ohio track. LaHaie won as a driver in ’87, as a crew chief with Scott Kalitta and Doug Herbert and as Larry’s crew chief.

Tony Pedregon

Tony Pedregon is just about as hot as Larry Dixon is, in fact, the two of them have won at the same race on five occasions this year. As strange as it may seem, when you throw in the Pro Stock champ, Greg Anderson, the three of them have won the same race three times this year. Maybe we should call the trophy engraver for all three of them, what do you think? OK, so Tony is still only 101 points ahead of Whit Bazemore, but he doesn’t seem to show any signs of letting down. John Force, who was disqualified for going across the center line in the final round, moved up another spot in the standings and is now in 6^th place, his highest standing of the year. En route to his win, Tony beat Dale Creasy in the first round, running his record to 22-1 in round one matches when he qualifies #1. On the other side of the coin, Dale is now 0-15 in round one when he qualifies 16^th. Tony’s top qualifying spot was the 23^rd of his career, sixth of the season and it marked the 11^th time in the last 21 races that he has been number one and the sixth race in a row where the “Team Force” cars have qualified in the top two spots. Tony and Whit still appear destined to be in a battle that won’t be decided until late in the year. Whit’s loss to John in the second round has to be declared a hole shot win for John, after all, when two drivers turn the exact same elapsed time, the winner has to be the guy who got off the line first, right?  And, while that hardly ever happens, did you know that Whit beat Tony Pedregon at Columbus in the second round in 1999 when both drivers had the identical elapsed times?...Tony beat both John and Gary Densham to win the race and is now 5-0 against the pair this year…If you don’t think that timing is everything, just ask Arnie Karp. Arnie, who qualified the Artisan Home Entertainment car in his second race in Funny Car, did so by running 4.95 after running quicker (4.91) but failing to qualify in his initial outing in Chicago. He and his team did manage to take away the best appearing car award in Columbus.

Greg Anderson

As mentioned, the Pro Stock champ was Greg Anderson and he won it in spite of the fact that his team mate, Jason Line, crashed in that wild first round. With Jason in the field, and Greg Stanfield just missing the cut, there were no less than three 1993 World Champions entered in Pro Stock. Warren Johnson, Jason (Stock) and Greg (Super Stock). So next time you wonder where the future Pro Stock drivers will come from, just take a look at the current crop of sportsman racers…Greg added his name to the other multi-time Columbus winners whom I mentioned in the last article (including Jerry Eckman who’s name was added after some of you read the story), and he becomes only the third guy to win it in consecutive years. Did you know that only Ronnie Sox and Bob Glidden were able to put back-to-back wins on the board in Pro Stock at this race, and Ronnie did it 34 years ago when Greg was just nine years old!!...I asked Greg after the race about the return of the second car and he said that they will bring it back but that there is no hurry and they’ll wait until Jason feels like he’ll be comfortable behind the wheel again….With Kurt Johnson losing in the second round, Greg is back in the points’ lead, 64 ahead of the AC Delco Chevrolet driver. Did you know that the last time we were 11 races into the season and only had three Pro Stock winners was in 1991? That year, over the first eleven races, Darrell Alderman won 7, Warren Johnson won 3 and Bob Glidden won 1. Larry Morgan would be the only other guy to win a race that year, meaning that there were just four winners in the 18 race season.  As stingy as that may seem, in 1980 we only had two guys win in Pro Stock, Mr. Glidden and Lee Shepherd. Of course there were only ten races back then, but I think those guys may have split all the wins even if it were a twenty-three race season they were that good.

Fred Collis

The Pro Stock Bike class saw two racers in the final round, neither of whom had ever won an event. That makes it the first time since Ron Krisher beat Troy Coughlin in Chicago in 2000 that we were guaranteed to have a first-time winner in a pro class regardless of who won the race. When Fred Collis beat Karen Stoffer for the title, he became the 29^th different driver to post a win in the Pro Stock Bike class. Among some of the more notable names on that list are Gary Watters, Mark Sauro, Rick Stetson and Joe Folgore...Fred won in only his 11^th race after going to his only other final round in his very first race back in 1999. Karen lost her second final round in her 12^th race and for the second time she fouled out in the final round. Still, to make it to the money round is pretty special and to do so twice in a dozen races isn’t bad, either. Nice going, Karen and a huge congratulations to Fred and the entire Star Racing operation. George Bryce has proven that he can make a winner out of anyone he works with, just like Angelle has shown that she can win for anyone she rides for. George, by the way, is one of those winning drivers in the Pro Stock Bike class and did you know that he also won in the old “Funnybike” class and that he went to a final round in the Top Fuel Motorcycle class, too. Now that’s versatility. By the way, the last time two bike racers met with both drivers looking for their first win was in 2001 when GT Tonglet beat Shawn Gann in St. Louis. The PSB class appears to be very healthy and getting new winners is always good. By the way, it should be noted that the Star Racing folks are now the sole supporters of the Collis bike (with some help from Snap-On Tools), with the Area 51 team going away... And if you read it wrong last week, I never said that Angelle would be leaving Team 23, just that she might join another team (there is a difference), but make no mistake about it, she will be part of Team 23, but they do need to get that additional funding deal wrapped up soon…for them and for Pro Stock Bike fans everywhere.

Frank Manzo

One of the great performances of the weekend (again) was turned in by Frank Manzo as he won for the 54^th time in his great career. Not only did he win, but he beat another great driver, Bob Newberry in the finals. As good as Bob is, he just can’t seem to be able to stop Frank at those national events. Did you know that Manzo is now 14 – 3 against Bob in final rounds alone? And did you know that Bob has actually been to more final rounds in his career (78) than Frank has (77)? Still, Frank is the man in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class, although Bucky Austin has to get some credit for winning the Division 6 race this past weekend and keeping his title hopes alive. If Bucky does well when the tour hits the west coast it cold be a great stretch drive in the battle for the TA/FC crown. Props, also, to Jeff Wilson who won in the dragster class and has announced that he is looking to add a second car and that he will be testing a fuel injected dragster real soon. Things could get very exciting in the dragster category, too. Stay tuned.