Sunday's final results from the 50th annual Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. The race is the first of 23 in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series:

The second round of NHRA Winternationals Funny Car eliminations produced one of the oddest scenarios as a parachute malfunction, a broken rear-end and a 14-time champion all converged in one race.

As John Force and Ashley-Force Hood rolled through the water box to do their burnouts, the second-generation drag racer’s parachute deployed before she nailed the throttle. Meanwhile, Force did his usual long burnout.

Instead of throwing in the towel, Force-Hood’s crew thrashed frantically to repack the parachute. Force backed up slowly from his burnout.

There’s a generation gap of sorts in drag racing.  It’s not among the teams out there racing, but the gap is evident in the spectator seats here at the 50^th Anniversary Winternationals – and it’s not a problem.  Sometimes with generation gaps we’re talking about one generation’s inability to politely converse and interact with another.  Put another way, it’s like when you turned 13 and realized your old man didn’t know anything, and certainly had nothing whatsoever to tell you about life, your friends, your music or the electronic wizardry that packed your bedroom.  By the time you were 18 or 19 it was amazing how much the old guy had learned in those five or six years.

In this instance, however, we’re talking about how some younger drag racing fans don’t have much appreciation for the sport’s early cars and even some of its stars. That was evident this afternoon when a half dozen nostalgia Funny Cars came up to make demonstration runs.  A lot of younger fans bailed out of the grandstands, while the more mature among the crowd stuck around to be once again thrilled by cars like the Candies & Hughes ‘Cuda, Twig Ziegler’s Satellite, the Pisano & Matsubara Vega and the topless Beach City Corvette.

Mike Edwards believes one of the great things about the NHRA Winternationals is its ability for teams to see where they stack up after an off-season chock full of relentless work. The defending NHRA Pro Stock champion could only smile to see that not much has changed since the last time he raced in Pomona.

He’s still an arm and a leg ahead of the competition.

“Ran a really good run the first run today,” said Edwards, who was .013 seconds ahead of second-ranked Jeg Coughlin. “We kinda tried some things tonight but didn't feel like we got what we needed. I am just really, extremely really proud of guys and the effort they put in. It feels real good to come out here and run good starting out the year.”

Robert Hight, 2009 NHRA Funny Car world champion, understands that being the champion has its privileges. Case in point, when you’re sitting in your

Funny Car, you can look up and see an airplane towing a banner of your likeness across the Southern California sky.

“That was pretty cool,” Hight said of the sponsor AAA Auto Club of Southern California’s sponsorship/championship activation. “Flying banners around and buying USA Today ads. All of the big papers on Thanksgiving.”

It’s called a slingshot and Top Fuel racer Cory McClenathan plans to perfect it this season.

Trailing behind Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon, two drivers apparently running at peak power, McClenathan pulled out of line to slingshot past them for the 34^th No. 1 qualifying effort of his career.

“We saw the air getting better and better as time went on, and then we just figured, ‘what did we have to lose?'” McClenathan admitted. “We knew Tony would run good, just a tick above us, and we knew that Larry would too.”

Perennial bridesmaid Cory McClenathan stated his championship case with a stout 3.787-second pass in the next-to-last pair Saturday night to claim the No. 1 qualifying position in Top Fuel at the season-opening Kragen O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline.

The other No. 1 qualifiers at the 50th annual Winternationals were Robert Hight (Funny Car) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock), each of whom celebrated his first career NHRA Full Throttle Series championship just three months earlier at this track when the curtain fell on the 2009 season.

McClenathan (FRAM dragster) was followed in the final pair by defending champion Tony Schumacher (U.S. Army) and runner-up Larry Dixon (Al-Anabi) and his run held up by a thousandth-of-a-second when Dixon just missed with his time of 3.788.

Pro Stock team owner Victor Cagnazzi, who lives in and headquarters his JEGS.com-sponsored team in NASCAR-crazy Charlotte, N.C., said he gives a thumbs-up to IndyCar regular Danica Patrick for dabbling in stock-car competition. In Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway, her JR Motorsports-owned No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevy will carry the yellow and black JEGS logo that's so familiar to drag-racing fans. It's part of the as part of JEGS contingency sponsorship program.

The NHRA drag racing community rallied around Cagnazzi Racing fabrication manager Todd Bevis last year with prayers, encouragement and fund raisers as he underwent treatment for head and neck cancer. Cagnazzi was proud Friday to report that doctors have given Bevis a cancer-free diagnosis.

“What a blessing!” Cagnazzi said. Bevis, he said, has started working again. “He came back slowly, starting at the end of September. By the end of October, he was storming.”

For the last three years John Force has been funding the Mustang driven by Mike Neff largely out of his own pocket.  While Ford Motor Company did provide some support, it wasn’t enough to keep the operation going by itself, and despite some involvement from the Southern California Auto Club and a one-year deal with Old Spice, something had to give.  Force just could not keep paying the bills himself, and had to make the hard decision to at least temporarily park Neff’s car.  Although Neff is not a member of the Force family as are the other drivers (Ashley Force-Hood and son-in-law Robert Hight), Force has a reputation for treating all of his employees as members of his extended family.  This was not an easy decision to make.

As time passes people tend to forget that before he was a driver Mike Neff was a highly respected crew chief, most recently at Don Schumacher Racing before he got the JFR driving opportunity.  Force was not about to let someone with his talent and skills get away.  In truth, while it probably doesn’t seem like it to Neff, parking his car may have a long-term and very positive impact on the whole race team – and on Neff’s career.  Force has officially named him co-crew chief on his own car, where he’ll work hand-in-hand with Austin Coil and at least part of the time with Bernie Fedderly.