Wed, 3 Nov 2004, 09:19 AM Viva, Well, You Know!!

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2004 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Scelzi, Anderson, Ellis and Kalitta

There were a lot of great things about the A.C. Delco Nationals in Las Vegas, not the least of which was the tremendous racing. Once we got by the first round there were, basically, no smoking tires, no one-sided races and very few blowouts. OK, so Cory McClenathan and Tony Pedregon did smoke the tires but they were the exception and not the rule. And whether the credit for that goes to the teams, to the Safety Safari for preparing the track so well or to the folks at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in the end result it doesn’t matter because everyone saw great racing. Doug Kalitta, Gary Scelzi, Greg Anderson and Chip Ellis were the pro winners but the real winners were drag racing in general and the huge throng of drag racing fans who saw a very exciting race. It was so cool….

David Grubnic

The weekend got off to a great start with the Budweiser Shootout draw party and that proved to be a really fun night. In the end it was Larry Dixon and the Miller Lite car that made the show and then made the final round and it was Larry who had the best seat in the house to watch David Grubnic win his first major race. Did you know that David became the first driver to ever win the shootout (any shootout) before he won a national event? Led by David in the new look Zantrex-3 car, the “Team Kalitta” drivers had a pretty good weekend. In addition to David’s $100,000 payday, Scott Kalitta was the number one qualifier and he set low elapsed time and top speed while Doug went on to win the race. As I said before, the Kalitta clan will look back on some of those nasty first round losses that they suffered this year as the reason why they didn’t win the championship. By the way, while Doug took his wife and family on a vacation after the race, both David and Scott stayed around at the track on Monday to watch Ben Marshall make some runs as he tries to get his Top Fuel license. And he did it in Scott’s car….Speaking of driver’s licenses, Kenny Bernstein was seen at the “Strip” on Monday making runs to keep his TF license current. Hmmmm. By the way, Kenny made a great 4.55 run on Monday and he sure looked like he hasn’t missed a beat. I’m telling you , Kenny would really love to return to the driver’s seat….

Robert Hight, John Force’s son-in-law made a whole pile of runs on Monday in both the Castrol GTX Startup car and the Automobile Club of Southern California car and he looked good in both machines. In fact, Robert made a series of runs that went 4.77, 4.78, 4.79 and then he lowered the boom with a 4.750 pass in John’s car, a run that was quicker than anything that John ran over the weekend. I hosted a business gathering at which John was the featured speaker on Tuesday at the SEMA show and he did say that his game plan is to put Robert in the third funny car next year although he did add that it was not a completely “done deal.” John also spoke with great passion at that meeting about his parting with Gary Densham and he told the attendees how much Gary has meant to him over the years. For his part, Gary was at the track on Monday watching his son, Stephen, make some runs in their alcohol funny car. Everyone in the sport hopes that Gary will get a good deal for next year and he did say that no matter what happens in his sponsor search he will be at the Winternationals next year driving a fuel funny car….Jon Capps was also at the track on Monday making some test runs in the Jackson family alky car. Jon, who does a lot of test driving and stunt driving for a living, looked good as he handled the car that he will drive at the Las Vegas track this weekend in the final Lucas Oil Drag Racing series divisional race. Jon’s brother, Ron, wasn’t testing but his teammate Tommy Johnson was and “TJ” made a couple of nice runs including one that saw the Skoal blue car go 4.83. And yes, Ron is still rumored to be going to the Force team to drive next year, but as of now it’s just that, a rumor!!....And I am the only one who was amazed that Gary Scelzi didn’t foul out in that final round after staging really deep? I know that John Force was surprised by it.

Anderson and team celebrate.

Congratulations to Greg Anderson who set the single-season mark of fourteen national event wins when he beat his teammate, Jason Line in the finals on Sunday. Greg’s accomplishments this season are even more astounding when you consider how close the Pro Stock fields have been. Despite being only a couple of hundredths of a second quicker than the sixteenth car in most fields, Greg has gone out on Sunday and been flawless and that’s why he’s the champ. Very rarely this year did Greg beat himself on race day and more often than not he was first off the line and that’s a tough combination to beat when you have the best car out there. For example, Greg was first off the line in three of the four rounds on Sunday with only Kurt Johnson beating him when the lights turned green….Congrats also go to Fernando Cuadra who qualified for the first race of his Pro Stock career and Ben Watson who made the show after twenty-nine straight DNQ’s. Still, I have to wonder what Fernando was thinking about when he got into a staging battle with Allen Johnson in the second round. Allen is very tough on the line and Fernando should have simply staged the car and made the run, but that’s easy for me to say since I have never staged a car in competition in my life. Fernando was running a Frank Iaconio motor and I guess that certainly shows that Frank makes a lot of horsepower. I hate to say “I told you so” but I did predict in my column last week that there would be at least one first-time qualifier in Pro Stock….If Scott Geoffrion hadn’t lost his two runs on Friday because of testing at the national event track a week earlier, a violation of NHRA rules, he would have made the field and I think that Scott and Bob Panella will both make the show in Pomona. By the way, Scott sure drew a lot of attention when he showed up on Saturday sporting a “Bush / Cheney” sign on the side of his car….Jim Yates was also testing on Monday and the former Pro Stock champ, who has had a miserable year, looked really good with some strong 6.81 passes. Jim used someone else’s engine (I don’t know if he wants me to tell whose engine it was, so I won’t), but he certainly found out that it’s not his car that is the problem and you can expect him to make the show in Pomona, too. I also think that Jim will return to form in 2005 which means that he will be a factor in the PS class….By the way, for all of you skeptics out there, Erica Enders made the necessary runs to get her Pro Stock license and mark my words, she will get a lot of attention when she joins the class of 2005. She may not win, but then how many guys have won this year?

Chip Ellis

Andrew Hines suffered a rare first-round loss in Las Vegas and that kept him from clinching the Pro Stock Bike championship. Did you know that this was the first time this year that Andrew lost in round one and it’s also the first time since Brainerd last year, a span of nineteen races, that he didn’t get out of round one? Andrew now has to go to Pomona before he can wrap up his title and all he has to do there is qualify for the race….Chip Ellis won the race in the G-Squared, S & S Buell and he did it in only his third start. Plus, like Geoffrion, Chip was penalized one day and two qualifying runs for running at the AHDRA race at Las Vegas a week earlier. Didn’t seem to bother him much, did it? The Pro Stock bike class is loaded with talent and it isn’t just in the driver department. George Bryce, who took John Myers and Angelle Savoie to national titles, always makes a lot of power and he certainly seems to have a great relationship with his drivers because they all turn into winners and champions. I have to say that I was surprised when neither Chip nor Angelle fouled in the final run after they had to sit there for quite a while before beginning their championship match. Throw in the darker conditions and the quick movements by the bikes off the starting line and both drivers get credit for going green….The famous duo of Terry Vance and Byron Hines also gets tremendous credit for what they have done with their team and riders over the years. The new 2005 Harley-Davidson V-rods were on display at the track this week and they are spectacular….Both Angelle and Antron Brown were making special appearances at the SEMA show in Don Schumacher’s booth, and, while that may not seem like a big thing to a lot of you, having the bikes as a part of that team and on display before thousands of visitors at the show is a big thing and so were the lines at their booth to see the two young riders.

Larry Stewart, who was the feature story in my “From The Tower” column last week, won the Division 2 race in Gainesville and that vaulted him into the lead in the Super Stock point’s battle. Now we’ll have to see what Dan Fletcher, Buz Post and the other challengers do this weekend in Vegas. It will also be interesting to see what, if anything, Larry does to protect his lead. Anyway, nice going Larry….Jonathan Womack, the recent national event winner in Chicago, was the runner-up in Super Gas in Gainesville and suddenly he’s a challenger for the 9.90 crown. Tom Stalba still leads the chase but Jonathan, Jim Hughes and Ross Laris can all catch or pass the New Jersey ace. Good luck to all of them this coming weekend at the D-7 race in Vegas.