 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
presented by
More of the same at Topeka. It is starting to sound like a broken record in the NHRA. Almost cookie cutter like, as the points leaders in the pro classes all won again. Some other teams are going to have to step up or it will be a two horse race in the big three classes. Top Fuel has Larry Dixon defeat Doug Kalitta 4.53/327 mph - 4.57/324 mph. Dixon was #1 qualifier as well, and was not really threatened at the 20 foot victory in the final was the closest of the event. He now leads Kalitta by 170 points heading into the Joliet event this weekend. Funny Car also saw the points leader win. Tony Pedregon, won his fifth of the year, and it was also against the #2 guy in the standings, Whit Bazemore. Tony, like Dixon was also the #1 qualifier. Tony's biggest threat was a 3/10ths of a second victory against Bazemore, a 4.84 - 5.12 convincing victory. His points lead is now 94 points. Pro Stock result, see above. Greg Anderson #1 qualifier romped through the field and defeated #2 qualifier Kurt Johnson 6.80 - 6.84. With the win his lead atop KJ is now 31 point. While it is a close race between the two rivals, they are over 100 points ahead of their nearest competitor Warren Johnson. For round by round results, go to Drag Race Central or NHRA.com May 23, 2003 Topeka, Kansas Race #2 of a three race back to back swing in NHRA's POWERade Series. And it is race two of three, of one of the quickest strings in the POWERade tour. Other than the Gainesville, Vegas (this year anyway) Houston events to start the season, the Seattle event in the middle of the season and the Reading, Dallas, Pomona events to end the season. The way Pro Stock ran last weekend, it will be hard to top Englishtown, but the fuel cars and the Alky cars should be a good as they were last week. The BIGGEST story in the nitro ranks, is in Top Fuel in the
Budweiser camp, where King Kenny will replace son Brandon in the seat
after Brandon's back breaking crash in the 1st round of eliminations
last Sunday. With Brandon expected to be out at least 8 weeks, Kenny
is back in the seat he really wants to be in anyway. Don't be surprised
to see Kenny stay in a second car when Brandon returns. Kalita got
the win last week, and Dixon extended his lead in the points, due
to Brandon's early departure. Kalitta is now the odds on favorite
to challenge Dixon for the title. In Funny Car, it was more
a matter of Team Force self destructing in eliminations as it was
about Whit Bazemore getting his first win of the season. Tony P. and
John F. both red lit away their chances of victory. Both lost when
they were the quicker car. Tony still leads the points, but it is
down to less than 4 rounds when second place Bazemore got the win.
Pro Stock was the talk of the event, as Greg Anderson walloped
the field with both a speed and ET record and an event win to take
over the lead in the point standings over Kurt Johnson. The cream
has definitely risen to the top in Pro Stock to the surprise of many
after the parity in the previous two seasons. Anderson, father and
son Johnson, Jeggie and Allen Johnson are leading the points and are
the most consistent guys in the field.
Pro Stock takes front page headlines at Englishtown! Anderson Wins. So does Kalitta and Bazemore. Greg Anderson avenged his Pro
Stock "Demon Shootout" loss from Saturday,
when he romped through eliminations Sunday getting the final round
victory against Darrell Alderman (below right). In the process
he shattered both the et and speed records in what
1. Larry Dixon 723
1. Tony Pedregon 737 2. Whit Bazemore 665 3. Del Worsham 549 4. Gary
Densham 523 5. Ron Capps 499 6. Johnny Gray 446 7. Tommy Johnson Jr.
425 8. John Force 399 9. Gary Scelzi 321 10. Frank Pedregon 317 The next couple events will prove to be the last real quick events as the Summer heat will take effect (with the possible exception of Seattle), and there will not be a chance for records again, until Reading after the US Nationals. That being said this weekend at Englishtown is the race where Pro Stock and the bikes really see how fast they can go. With the sea level track and a high barometer reading to go along with cool temps, the Pro Stock cars did fly. The field was set after only three qualifying sessions due to Friday nights rain, but it sure did not dampen the performance of the factory hot rods. The bump spot (6.741) was quicker than the National record of 6.750 that started the season and The first ever 6.60 pass was made. Greg Anderson dominated the qualifying with both the speed and et records when qualifying was complete. But he could not win the Demon Challenge race. Greg ran 6.684 @ 207.08 so shatter both records and to sit # 1. Kurt Johnson is in the the #4 spot, but he won the $50,000 in the Demon Challenge when he defeated Greg Anderson in the final round. In the #2 spot in qualifying is Jeg Coughlin, who pulled a rabbit out the his hat , on his last ditch effort to get in the field. There is the field after the three rounds of qualifying: 1. Greg Anderson Vegas General Constr Grand Am 6.684* 207.08* Four Dodges made the field this weekend, for their best effort of the year, and one Ford (driven by Scott Geoffrion) will compete Sunday. In Eliminations, Expect Anderson, Coughlin, all three Johnsons, (if Allen doesn't red light), Yates, and Alderman and Scott Geoffrion to advance to the second round. There, Anderson, KJ, Jeggie, and Yates will take wins and battle in the semis. I see Anderson red lighting in the semis giving Kurt the win and Coughlin taking out Yates. The final round will see Jeggie getting his first win of the year on a holeshot. Top Fuel and that other Nitro class took second fiddle to the gasoline powered door cars this weekend. But not only because the fuel cars did not perform. Nine of the sixteen qualifiers were in the 4.50 range. Doug Kalitta of course leads the pack as he has done at almost every event this year (6 of 8 events), as he ran 4.51/327. Clay Millican is #2 with a great 4.538/322. Rit Pustari anchors the field with a 4.857/289 blast. The biggest surprise in Top Fuel was the DNQ by Tony Schumacher and by Rhonda Hartman-Smith. Here is the qualifying list at Englishtown: 1. Doug Kalitta MAC Tools Dragster 4.511@ 327.59& First round match-ups of note include Cory Mac and Larry Dixon and Shirley Muldowney and Darrell. Teams advancing to the second round should be the entire top half. In the second round, Dixon, Kalitta, Bernstien, and Herbert will advance. The semis will see Herbert defeat Kalitta and Dixon get by Bernstien. Dixon will get his fourth with of the year. In Funny Car, Tony Pedregon and his boss lead the pack by half a tenth after only two qualifying runs were made due to the weather at Englishtown. Both John Force and leader Tony Pedregon ran within a couple hundredths on both their attempts. Tony ran 4.760 and 4.786 with a top speed of 322.50. Force ran 4.799 and 4.803 with a top speed of 317 mph. Terry Haddock with a 5.18 gets the task of facing Tony in the first round. Two very surprising non qualifiers were Dean Skuza in the "Black Label Society" themed rock-n-roll Funny Car and Frank Pedregon in Jim Dunn's "K& N" ride. Here is the field: 1. Tony Pedregon Castrol Syntec Mustang 4.760 322.50 Sunday eliminations will (maybe look like this): All the top half will advance except for Tim Wilkerson who will loose to Gary Densham. The second round will have team Force (all three) and Whit Bazemore. Tony and Force will make it to the final where John gets his first win of the year. May 5, 2003 Dixon, Pedregon and WJ win again! Drag Racing is proving to be, "He who has the most money, wins!", in the professional ranks in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing. Larry Dixon got his third win of the year to Match Brandon Bernstein in Top Fuel. The only other winner is the other high dollar team Doug Kalitta who won two races ago at Houston. Dixon now leads the points by 35 over Brandon and the Bud team. Kalitta is 172 points back of Dixon. Darrell Russel and the Amato team had their best result of the year, getting to the final for the first time this season. The team seems to have abandoned the new style body for the time being, and will surely keep it off after this runner-up finish. John Smith, who was in the top three after the first three races, is now down in the bottom half of the top ten in ninth after losing in the early rounds for the past four races. This past race was his first second round appearance since Gainesville. Funny Car winner was to no one surprise Tony Pedregon. His season is modeling his bosses last thirteen years of dominance. With four wins already this year, in four finals, and nothing worse than two second round losses, he is looking like the 2003 champion. While it is early yet, and Whit Bazemore is going rounds at every race making the semi finals at least, at six of seven races so far. If these late round losses turn into wins then, he could make the Force team sweat like they did two years ago. And to top off the fact that Tony and Whit have a bit of a pissing contest going on right now, scripted or not, it is making for an exciting battle between two of the top four funded teams. The top top single car teams out there, Jim Dunn/Frank Pedregon and Skuza Motorsports/Dean Skuza are sitting in #9 and #10 in the points. Pro Stock is pretty much a two team race right now With Kurt Johnson leading the pack, but loosing to Dad Warren in the second round at Atlanta. Warren went on to win the race on a hole-shot over Greg Anderson. Greg was not that happy in the top end interview. Greg is second in points and Warren is sitting third only 55 points back. Well back in fourth is Jeg Coughlin, over 200 points behind KJ. But I seem to remember Jeggie coming on strong in the second half last year, but last year, there was no dominant players, as there was 7 different winner in the first seven last year. This year Kurt had three, Dad has two and Greg has two wins. Pro Stock Bike is looking very competitive this year, as the Harley's are performing well and five or six bikes at any given race can win. The only contraversy is the Christmas tree, and no rider is happy with the new LED lights. There were no less than 8 red lights in 15 elimination races at Atlanta. Actually there was 9 red lights as both finalists red lit. The guy that red light least was Geno Scali, as his .014 red light was lees than the .023 by Antron Brown. With the win, Scali took over the points lead over Angelle Savoie who lost in the first round. There was two Harley's and one Kawasaki to go along with the 13 Suzuki's in eliminations. For all the qualifying and round by round results go to Drag Race Central and NHRA.com
|
|
May
26, 2003 Topeka, 
(All photos courtesy Greg Gage and cannot be used
without permission of 
is
possibly the most dominant Pro Stock victory in recent memory. He
made three passes in the 6.60's including a best of 6.67/207.13 (get
your bulbs changed guys) in the second round. With the win and
the National record, he jumped into the lead in the points by ten
over Kurt Johnson. In the semis Anderson took
out Kurt Johnson and Darrell defeated Jeg Coughlin. Here is the top
ten in points after this the 8th of 23 events in the POWERade series:
1.
Greg Anderson 692 2. Kurt Johnson 682 3. Warren Johnson
604 4. Jeg Coughlin 467 5. Bruce Allen 373 6.
Allen Johnson 360 7. Darrell Alderman 358 8. Scott Geoffrion
343 9. Mike Edwards 319 10. Ron Krisher 317 
In
Top Fuel, all eyes and thoughts
were on Brandon Bernstein after his first round crash against John
Smith. His injuries while not life threatening, will keep him out
of action until the end of June at the earliest. Doug Kalitta turned
n a performance very similar to his earlier win at Houston where he
was #1 qualifier and dominated eliminations. Much the same here at
Englishtown. He qualified with a great 4.51/327 but ran even during
the final rounds. In the semis Kalitta defeated Paul Romine (his best
effort in a long while) with a great 4.481/328 and in the final, Doug
(above) drove past a game Larry Dixon with another '40, this
time a 4.494/328 to Dixon's 4.554/326. With the win, he edges closer
to Bernstein in the standings. With Brandon out of action for a few
races, Kalitta should move solidly into the #2 spot and possibly challenge
Dixon at the top. Here is the standings at this, the eighth of 23
events: 
Funny
Car saw a new winner for the first time, but it was more
of a case of one guy or team losing their chance to win, than it was
one another guy earning the win. Sorry Whit (right with team),
but you weren't the best car out there this weekend, but you did have
a good car. Team Force self destructed, when John red lit in the second
round with a -.002 light (and a quicker et then TJ), and then Tony
P. red lit in the semis against Whit after running 2/100's quicker
there also. Red lighting against Whit is just plain a "screw
up" as hew is not one of the best leavers in the class. He is
much better then last year, but is far from being a hole shot threat.
Tony's -.019 foul ruined his better 4.81 to Whit's 4.82. In the final
round Whit, got left on by Ron Capps, but Capps had all kinds of problems
giving Whit his first win of the year. The numbers were: 4.86/306
to Capps 8.30/100. With the win, Whit moved to within 80 points of
the top spot in the standings. Here are the top 10 in points after
Englishtown:
