Tue, 27 May 2003, 08:21 PM This Time It Was Doug’s Chance to Watch!!

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2003 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Larry Dixon

Two races ago in Englishtown, New Jersey (where it still hasn’t stopped raining, by the way), Larry Dixon said that all he could do was “watch” as Doug Kalitta ripped off a 4.494 in the finals to beat Larry and take the Top Fuel title. Well, turn about is fair play, and in Topeka it was Doug’s turn to admire the handiwork of Larry and the “Miller Lite” team as they made runs of 4.533, 4.554, 4.541 and 4.534 (against Kalitta) en route to the win at Heartland Park Topeka. Larry is now 171 points ahead of Doug who moved into second place in the points and he appears headed for his second consecutive POWERade Championship. Now I know that I will get some arguments from the hard core fans out there, but this “Miller Lite” car just may be the best TF team ever assembled!! Consider this…did you know that since the start of the 2001 season Larry has been in 29 final rounds and over that time he has won an amazing 19 races? By comparison, in his two championship seasons of 1994 & ’95 Scott Kalitta won 11 races and so did Gary Scelzi in 1997 & ’98. I know that there are a lot of great TF teams in the history of this sport and if you think you have one that had a better stretch than Larry Dixon’s team I’d love to hear from you.

Dixon, Pedregon and Anderson

For one of the very few times all of the #1 qualifiers won in the professional classes at an NHRA national event. Did you know that the last time that happened was back in 2000 and it happened at, you guessed it, Heartland Park Topeka. In the fall of that year Gary Scelzi, John Force and Jeg Coughlin all won and, as hard as it is to believe, that’s the last time that three top qualifiers won at the same race. Larry helped the cause by qualifying #1 for the first time this year in Kansas. As a matter of fact, that’s only his second top spot since the tour left Topeka last year, and to make the win even sweeter for Dixon, did you know that he set low elapsed time at the race (4.509) and that the last time he did that was also at Topeka a full year ago? Just what the rest of the dragster teams need, Larry running low elapsed time, huh?...The sweep by the drivers in the top spot also got a boost when Tony Pedregon won from the #1 position. Did you know that his win was the first this year for a Funny Car driver who qualified #1? And how about this? Did you know that Tony Pedregon had qualified #1 at four previous races this year and that this was the first time that he even got to the final round after being number one? Tony, believe it or not, is the only FC driver to qualify at the top of the pack more than once this year and he’s done it five times now. Even with his win the driver of the “Castrol Syntec” car just can’t seem to shake Whit Bazemore, can he? Whit’s runner-up spot finds him 94 points back but still within striking distance of the leader. Whit’s numbers; one win, four final rounds, no round one losses and a semi-final appearance at every race but one this year would be good enough for most teams, but not the “Matco Tools” Dodge team. This week’s race in Chicago is another pivotal one for the leaders and challengers in each of the professional classes. Oh, before I forget, Dodge’s have now set top speed now at three consecutive Funny Car events. Hit it!!

While Tony Pedregon won at HPT for the third consecutive year, Del Worsham will look to do the same at Rt. 66 Raceway this weekend. Did you know that Tony’s “three-peat” at Topeka was the first time in his career that he won the same race three times in as many years? Now Del will look to do the same at the magnificent Chicago facility. Del beat John Force in a spectacular final run in 2001 and he stopped Scotty Cannon’s bid for his first win last year. If he can win for the third straight time in Joliet Del could get right back in the title chase. Del’s third car, or at least the third one that will be parked in the “Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen” pit area, will debut this week. Arnie Karp, the famed “Boston Strangler” of alcohol funny car fame, got his NHRA fuel license this week and he will debut the “Artisan Home Entertainment” car at Joliet (as mentioned here about a month ago).  Arnie, who has been to nine final rounds at NHRA national events, should be first up for the Funny Car contingent on Friday and it will be very interesting to see how he does. For those of you who may not be familiar with Arnie let me just say this, of his four national event wins, three of them came over Frank Manzo and the other came at the expense of Fred Mandoline. Now how many guys can say that they’ve beaten Manzo three times? Not many!! Good luck to Arnie and the whole team this weekend.

Greg Anderson

Greg Anderson’s win in Topeka may have been more impressive than his Englishtown victory a week earlier. Now I know what you’re saying, he ran 6.60’s at 207 the week before, so how could this win be better? Well, he completely dominated the field in Kansas, sweeping to victory and running four-hundredths quicker than every other car in the qualifying round on Saturday and that’s something he didn’t even do in New Jersey. And the 6.808 bomb that he dropped on Kurt Johnson in the final round was absolutely stunning!! Not only has Greg won back-to-back events, but he has swept both of them, that is, he was the #1 qualifier, set low elapsed time and top speed. Now if you want to know how good that is, think about this. Did you know that in the last five and a half years (going back to the start of the 1998 season), Greg is only the third driver to sweep a Pro Stock event, and he’s only the second driver to do it more than once? Of course Warren Johnson is one of the other two, and he’s done it about a dozen times, while Ron Krisher is the other one and he did it once. So, just how good is the “Vegas General Construction” team? Only time will tell, but right now they are dominating the field as only WJ and Bob Glidden did and they can only get better. Plus, when Jason Line, a.k.a. “Big Jake” comes out with the second car it could get tougher for the other teams to get a win. By  the way, in case you didn’t notice, after he beat V. Gaines in round one, Greg stopped Jeg Coughlin and Warren Johnson before beating Kurt. Now I ask you, if you’re going to sweep an event, does it get any better than that? Just to finish the book on Greg’s weekend, his top speed gave him three for the year and when was the last time anyone had more top speeds than WJ? Kurt, who has the second best car out there right now, has set the top speed five times this year.

The Topeka track didn’t prove to be a “get healthy” one for John Force, in fact it saw him foul out for the second consecutive event, something that he (obviously) had never done before. Now he’s coming to Rt. 66, the same place that he recorded his record 86^th win in 2000. Maybe this will be his break out weekend?...The Pro Stock class should be a dog fight since no one has won this race more than once in PS in the five short years that it has been in existence…Meanwhile, Kenny Bernstein and Larry Dixon are the only active TF drivers to have won the Chicago race before (now I’m not counting the fall race here).  I should mention here that Kenny got a huge ovation from the fans in Topeka every time he ran and during the driver intros on Sunday. Did you know that “KB” still holds the Top Fuel record at 4.477 and that it was set in Chicago two years ago. Now you may want to clip and save this because I’m telling you that the TF record goes down this weekend. Remember, you heard it here first (just like the Arnie Karp and Jason Line stories)….One story that you didn’t hear here first was the one about Alan Johnson going to the Army TF team. I have to admit that that one caught me (and probably most folks) by surprise. I don’t know if Alan can work his magic in one week, but I expect the Army car to be more competitive really fast with “AJ” calling the shots.

Sportsman Winners

Congratulations to Trisha Mustard who became the 34^th woman to win an NHRA national event when she beat another first-timer, Larry Piper in the Super Comp final round. Trisha also becomes the first new female winner since Janice Hogan won Super Gas at Seattle almost two years ago and she won at the same track where Wendy Johnson won back in 1992. The other sportsman classes in Topeka either featured first time winners or seasoned veterans. John Steffen and Bob Schmidt won their first while David Rampy, Jeff Hefler and Kevin Helms just continued to add to their legacies as some of the best sportsman racers of all time. Did you know that David Rampy tied Don Prudhomme on the all-time win list with his 49^th national event title?...Congrats to Alan Bradshaw who won his first national event in Top Alcohol Dragster and he made a little bit of history in the process. Did you know that Alan became the 100^th driver to win in the T/AD class?  Alan was driving the car that is owned by Randy Meyer, the one that went 5.13 and 5.17 when it was driven by Gary Ormsby, Jr. last year. By the way, did you know that Randy actually competed in Top Fuel at the first race ever held at Heartland Park Topeka in 1989? And guess who he lost to at that race? How about Gary Ormsby, Sr.? Small world, huh?...Marc White picked up his 4^th win for George and Jane Etterman and he did it at the site of his first win four years ago. And I had my picture taken with them in the winner’s circle this week, and that was so cool!!