The recipe for winning NHRA world championships includes many ingredients – one being off-season testing.

With that in mind, the Al-Anabi Racing team is sending its two cars – the Top Fuel dragster driven by Larry Dixon and Top Fuel Funny Car driven by Del Worsham – to Palm Beach (Fla.) International Raceway Jan. 11-15 for testing. Each day test sessions will be taking place from 10 am.-7 pm. Eastern Time.

The Al-Anabi Racing team has rented the track exclusively and the test sessions are not open to the public or the media.

“We’re there to test and we’ve invited 12 other cars to join us (at the test),” said Chad Head, the director of racing operations for the Al-Anabi Racing team.

 

The recipe for winning NHRA world championships includes many ingredients – one being off-season testing.

With that in mind, the Al-Anabi Racing team is sending its two cars – the Top Fuel dragster driven by Larry Dixon and Top Fuel Funny Car driven by Del Worsham – to Palm Beach (Fla.) International Raceway Jan. 11-15 for testing. Each day test sessions will be taking place from 10 am.-7 pm. Eastern Time.

The Al-Anabi Racing team has rented the track exclusively and the test sessions are not open to the public or the media.

“We’re there to test and we’ve invited 12 other cars to join us (at the test),” said Chad Head, the director of racing operations for the Al-Anabi Racing team.

The Don Schumacher Racing Top Fuel dragsters driven by Tony Schumacher, Cory McClenathan and Antron Brown will also be at the test as will the DSR Funny Cars driven by Ron Capps, Jack Beckman and Matt Hagan.

Kalitta Motorsports Top Fuel dragster drivers Doug Kalitta and Dave Grubnic along with Funny Car driver Jeff Arend will also be at the test session. Top Fuel pilots Morgan Lucas and Shawn Langdon of Lucas Oil Racing are scheduled to be at the test, and Bob Tasca is expected to test his Funny Car.

Head is anxious to get his drivers back on the track to see how their cars are going to run.

“This is a new year and we have new parts and new pieces,” Head said. “We have new chassis, new combinations and we’ve had a month and a half to think about things and plan and we’re just going to try and make them all work. Everybody is excited to get out there from Alan (Johnson), the drivers, the crew chiefs, to the crew to myself. Al Anabi Racing team owner Sheikh Khalid Al Thani won't be there but will be keeping close tabs on our progress. We’re racers and anytime we get the opportunity to do what we’re paid for, and that’s go up and down the race track, we’re excited.

Lee Beard, the team manager at DSR, knows there are many things his team will be evaluating at Palm Beach.

“The Army dragster, that’s is a brand-new in-house car, and this will be their first test session with a DSR chassis,” Beard said. “It’s basically the same design that Cory Mac ran from the U.S. Nationals on, when we first debuted the DSR dragster chassis. Obviously, there also have been some minor improvements in all areas in the clutch and the engine and everything, but nothing major changed combination-wise from what they (the Army dragster) won the championship with. With the other dragsters and Funny Cars, there have been minor improvements in a lot of areas and they’re just going to be making sure they have the bugs worked out. Everybody pretty much has brand-new chassis, including all the Funny Car guys, and they all just have a lot of new engine stuff. We just want to go run the cars and get the bugs worked out and get ready for the first race.”

The season-opening 50th annual Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals are on tap Feb. 11-14 in Pomona.

According to Beard, McClenathan has a couple of DSR chassis now. The first being the one he ran from Indy on last year, and a brand new one that’s ready for use. Beard added that Brown will be campaigning an in-house

DSR chassis this season and all of the organizations Funny Cars have DSR chassis.

Like DSR, Jim Oberhofer, who is the crew chief for Doug Kalitta’s Top
Fuel entry, has some things he’s focusing on in Palm Beach.

“We’re running a different fuel/engine combination in our cars this year so
we want to make sure we have all the bugs worked out of that before we show up in Pomona,” Oberhofer said. “We want to get in as many laps as
we can to shake the cobwebs loose and get a baseline on all our cars and see what we have and build from there.”

Head realizes how valuable this first test session is to the team.

“This test is extremely important to set the stage correctly,” Head said. “What I mean by that is that we limit how many cars come with us because we need to take every day and make as many runs as we can. We are set to run for five days and in those five days, we want to try and make four to six runs per day. We also want to get as much knowledge as we can before we hit Pomona because once we hit Pomona, if nothing has changed from the 2009 season and the (NHRA) testing policy is still four days per team during the season, that’s very, very tough to deal with.”

Beard concurred with Head.

“Basically (at Palm Beach), we’re hoping we can get everything accomplished to where the crew is back in the groove of racing, all the little bugs and glitches are worked out with the equipment,” Beard said. “If they can accomplish all of those things, then they will not test anymore. They will go right to Pomona. If there’s one of the teams which is not comfortable and not feeling like they’re ready to go race, then we have the opportunity to go to Phoenix.”

Obviously, Al-Anabi didn’t want to invite other teams to test with them in Palm Beach, but Head believes bringing the other teams is beneficial.

“We do this (invite other teams) for a couple of reasons,” Head said. “Obviously, you need a certain number of cars to get the track to act correctly. If you just bring two or three cars, it takes longer for that track to act like a national event track. Our whole goal is to try to prep the track and get that track as close to what we’re going to run on a national event or there’s really no sense in testing. It’s not like an Indy car or a Cup car where the track changes a little bit the more rubbered up it gets. That’s nothing like when you come to test with a drag car. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to get that 1,000 foot drag strip ready to go. I’m actually going down to work with the staff (at Palm International Raceway) all day Saturday and all day Sunday to try and get that track in such good shape to where our first run on Monday morning, the track is as good as we can make it.”

Following, the Palm Beach test, many NHRA teams are going to travel to Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix for an open test session Jan. 22-24. The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway also has an open NHRA test session from Jan. 29-31. Franki Buckman, the vice president at Firebird International Racing confirmed that John Force Racing and Kenny Bernstein’s Top Fuel dragster driven by his son Brandon Bernstein have already registered to test at Phoenix.

“I’m not a crew chief, but when we go test at tracks from the East Coast and then to the West Coast, crew chiefs have to take into consideration the elevation of water drains, the air temperature, the correct altitude, just all of those factors,” Head said. “Is it different in West Palm than it’s in Phoenix or Las Vegas? Yes. We take West Palm because we have to find a place where it’s at least around 70 degrees outside and that’s even tough to do down in West Palm this time of year. I’ve been watching the weather for West Palm every day three times a day during the past week. Right now, the weather is supposed to be between 65 and 75 degrees when go down there.”

Beard is optimistic Mother Nature is going to cooperate in Palm Beach.

“It looks like it’s going to be a little chilly on Monday and Tuesday, but it gets warmer every day after that,” Beard said. 

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