Tue, 10 Oct 2000, 08:14 AM AutoZone Pit Notes

By Keith Burgan

MILLINGTON, Tenn. -- The big story out of Memphis was a pair of violent Top Fuel crashes with both coming late in the afternoons of Saturday and Sunday. Thankfully Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon both came out of the incidents relatively unscathed although Schumacher's title defense hopes took a beating.

Schumacher was the first victim when, during his final qualifying run on Saturday, the rear wing on the Army backed dragster failed, rolling back on the struts before totally detaching itself from the car at about the 1000 foot mark. The wing detached from the right main mounting point last and that allowed the left rear tire to unload and grow quickly with that result the car made a hard right turn into the wall.

As Schumacher rolled over the concrete barrier the car began to break apart and the initial impact with the ground on the far side of the wall saw the cockpit separate from the front and rear sections of the frame. That small section of the car had much less momentum and bounced to a halt relatively quickly while the motor careened off for some distance after breaking out of the rear of the car.

Tony was airlifted to a nearby hospital where he was diagnosed with a fractured left tibia and a broken bone in his right ankle along with a bruised eye and general soreness from the pounding that he took. Schumacher hoped to be out of the hospital late on Sunday and plans to be racing at Dallas in two weeks time.

Dixon was apparently on his way to a final round victory over Gary Scelzi who smoked the tires at the hit but the Miller Lite dragster suffered a chassis failure at half track. The chassis had a slight lateral "S" bend well forward of the cockpit after the semifinal that had been straightened by the team between rounds, but the incident did not appear to be related to that fix. The very dense air present here was obviously causing both the front and rear wings to exert more than normal downforce on the car. With the front of the car stuck firmly to the track and the rear wing exerting extreme leverage on the frame the slight bump in the track surface seemed to be the precipitator of the collapse of the chassis.

When the chassis did fail just ahead of the foot box the cockpit was launched vertically into the air and as the car fell back onto the track surface the left rear wheel was torn off. Although the car stayed within the track boundaries it flopped from side to side several times and the resultant impacts rendered Dixon unconscious as well as breaking his ankle. Dixon regained consciousness while the roll cage was being clipped off the car to allow easier extrication and like Schumacher was airlifted to the hospital for evaluation and treatment.

Team personnel later confirmed that they did not see any connection between the repair and the subsequent failure of the chassis, noting that the bend in the frame was slight and a considerable distance from the front of the foot box. Dixon too suffered a broken ankle and severe bruising.

Funny Cars by nature are not prone to flying through the air but two drivers were the victims of serious fires here in what became the busiest weekend for the Safety Safari in some time. Again the dense air created by the extremely low temperatures appeared to be the problem as virtually every team on the grounds was having problems getting enough fuel into the motor. The subsequent lean condition "nuked" pistons at best and also resulted in a number of blower explosions and rods exiting blocks.

Terry Haddock was once again at the wheel of the Richards family Oldsmobile and after smoking the tires just off the line in his early qualifying attempts made it off the line in his final shot at getting into the field. Just past half track the car lit up in a big way and Haddock eventually steered into the right side wall to get it stopped after the parachutes burned away. Terry got the hatch open early, but had some trouble getting out of the cockpit and it was some time before he exited the roof hatch. Haddock suffered minor burns in the incident and was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Just three pairs later Louis Sweet suffered the same fate as Haddock in a similar incident as his Ahrens Motorsport Camaro bodied machine also caught fire at half track. Sweet was able to exit via the roof hatch while the car was still rollling and rode atop the roof until he too ground to a halt against the wall.

Even with all the destruction the F/C field was the quickest ever with Al Hoffman on the bump at 5.024 and Phil Burkhart just a tick slower at 5.026. At the sharp end John Force set a new track record with a 4.870 shot that just edged Tim Wilkerson’s 4.871 effort for the top spot.

The carbureted doorslammers also revelled in the dense air with the Pro Stockers equalling their all time bump record of 6.880 set at Englishtown in similar conditions with Darrell Alderman in that spot while his teammate Scott Geoffrion paced the field with a National Record setting 6.809 at 201.43 mph. Larry Morgan’s Dodge also made the cut with a 6.830 which was the fifth quickest run in NHRA history and was also the first of the hemi powered cars to crack the 200 mph barrier with a 200.59 in round three of qualifying.

Morgan went on to the semi finals, his best showing for some five years, before losing to Jeg Coughlin who then eliminated Geoffrion in the final. The Coughlin brothers were hard on the Dodge drivers this weekend as Mike Coughlin took out Todd Patterson in the second round of Pro Stock Truck on his way to the victory in that category.

Mike's win was the first for the Coughlin clan on Sunday, but brother Jeg Jr followed just minutes later with his 10th of the year in Pro Stock to be just one short of Darrell Alderman’s all time season record of 11 wins with three events left in the year.

Earlier Jeg had clinched the Pro Stock season title when Warren Johnson eliminated Ron Krisher in round one of competition. Going in to this event Kurt Johnson was the only other driver with a mathematical chance of catching Coughlin but he failed to qualify for the first time this year. The championship victory put a cap on the Jeg's 40th year celebrations.

The Trucks were not part of the Englishtown program this year so this was the first time that they were presented with such great air conditions. Topeka runner up David Spitzer looked ready for another good showing when he paced the initial session with a career best 7.498, but by the close of the third session he was on the bump as he failed to improve. The final session run on Saturday evening saw a wholesale shuffling of the order with Greg Stanfield coming out on top with a 7.438 at 180.69 that set both ends of the National Record. At the other end Brian "Lump" Self anchored the field with a 7.495 while Rob Slavinski headed the DNQ's with the same time, but less speed. Following Slavinski's Castrol truck were Larry Kopp, Ruben Celedon and Spitzer all at 7.498.

Mike Coughlin's win allowed him to join brother John as the only drivers to win in the category this year apart from championship contenders Panella and Randy Daniels.

While the cars slowed a little on race day some of the trucks actually picked up the pace and in the opening race of round one Bob Panella Jr. took the elapsed time record back from Stanfield with a 7.428 shot.

Tony Pedregon was forced to run one of John Force’s Castrol GTX Mustang shells here rather than his regular Syntec unit as the "B" team was fresh out of bodies after some recent car damaging engine explosions. Luckily the unit assigned to Pegregon survived this weekend as Force needed to use it for his second round race with Frank Pedregon after damaging his own body while defeating Al Hoffman.

Pedregon's shortage of bodies was a result of the newest of the Roush constructed Mustangs being painted in a "Dracula" scheme that will debut in Dallas in two weeks time.

Wayne Dupuy managed to tune Don Lampus into the T/F show, but Cristen Powell missed the cut in F/C. Lampus then red lighted away his chances in round one with a way early leave.

Last week's notes from Topeka mentioned that your reporter felt that Melanie Troxel was the first to run one of Jeff Burnett's injector hat in Top Fuel but a phone call from "down under" brought some more information. Burnett noted that Shirley Muldowney has been using one of his four butterfly hats for six months or so and in fact had it on the car when she ran her best ever IHRA speed of 320 mph earlier this year.

Although Joe Gibbs confirmed the rumours reported by announcing earlier this week that he was shutting down his T/F team, Cory McClenathan noted here that major backer MBNA is still interested in being involved in the racing side of the sport (as well as hawking their credit cards in the pits) and discussions are ongoing with the company. If these talks come to fruition Cory may either take the money to another team or once again run his own operation.

Jim Yates is one driver who knows his future plans as the former Pro Stock champ recently signed a three year extension of his Splitfire/Peak sponsorship package. That move has also seen Yates divest himself of his auto parts chain in an effort to concentrate on racing.

With the IHRA event at Shreveport, LA coming up next weekend the three T/F title contenders used the event here as a tune-up session. Clay Millican, Paul Romine and Bruce Litton all have a shot at the championship being separated by just 19 points and all felt that more track time would help especially as the penultimate event at Rockingham was rained out and postponed.

Although all three ran in the opening session it was with mixed results. Romine smoked the tires while Litton shut off early with an 5.071. Millican oiled the track for the first time in a season that has included 35 runs at IHRA events, thus copping a $500 fine for his trouble. When the second session finally began at a little after 8:30 on Friday night Romine was the only contender in line and he was rewarded with a 4.747 lap despite the extremely cold track.

On Saturday both Millican and Romine broke in the opening session while Litton improved a little to a 4.954 that was good enough to keep him in the show. Once again only Romine came out for the second time on the day and he carded a virtual repeat of his second shot with a 4.746. Both Romine and Litton were first round victims on Sunday.

In Federal Mogul Dragster action Keith Stark finally made some sense out of his new package after struggling recently and during the first round of eliminations on Saturday afternoon set the national speed record at 271.24 mph.

Due to corporate policy second generation racer Todd Veney had not been able to compete at NHRA events while employed as a staffer at National Dragster, but in his new capacity as a freelance writer he was here at the wheel of the Service Tech backed Pontiac Firebird Federal Mogul Funny Car. Running somewhat average machinery in his previous IHRA outings has hindered Veney’s efforts, but here he made it all the way to the final round. In the semi final Veney strapped a holeshot on veteran Jay Payne and won with a career best 5.787 when Payne had troubles and slowed on the top end. In the final Veney again left first with a killer .418 light but got out of the groove early in the run. Although Todd rounded up his errant steed opponent Chuck Cheesman made up a lot of ground after a late leave and drove by at the 1000 foot mark to win by a couple of car lengths.