EVENT RESULTS EVENT NOTEBOOK POINTS AFTER EVENT ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS FINAL SPORTSMAN RESULTS

FRI. GALLERY SAT. GALLERY SUN GALLERY

 

SUNDAY NOTEBOOK

 

PRUETT GETS LONG-AWAITED TOP FUEL VICTORY AS HEAT SICKENS ASHLEY - If California’s Auto Club Raceway at Pomona were a baseball diamond, the Top Fuel box score from Sunday’s Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals might look something like this:
 

A solo home run for Leah Pruett – to score at her home base
But there was no joy in Mudville, for her final-round opponent, Justin Ashley, ended up on the disabled list
Swing and a miss and Steve Torrence was out
Antron Brown, hitting from the bottom of the lineup as the No. 11 qualifier, makes his pitch for a second victory this season a reminder to Torrence that he’s coming on strong
Brittany Force was the leadoff hitter, qualifying No. 1 for the third straight time
But Brown and Force’s pitches were out of the strike zone, posing no threat to runaway points leader Torrence
Double play for Don Schumacher Racing, which claimed victories in both nitro classes
Strikeout for Doug Kalitta, the perennial Pomona power player who lost in the first round

And after all that, anyone who doesn’t believe Brown’s theory that “there’s a ridiculous amount of intensity and drama that has to do with our sport” should be tossed from the game.

For the statisticians . . . Pruett capitalized on her second straight trip to the final round, earning her ninth overall victory and her first since August 2019, at Brainerd, Minn.

But it came on a single pass as extreme heat did more than give fits to Camping World Drag Racing Series tuners. It also threw a health alarm into her final-round opponent, Justin Ashley.

Racing-surface temperatures soared to more than 140 degrees, and the air temperature creeped toward 100 degrees. Ashley, 26, became ill, unable to make the final pass. That handed the victory to Leah Pruett, who had been longing for a victory after a two-year lull but wasn’t thrilled to get it this way.

His team reported that he was battling heat exhaustion bordering on heat stroke. So Ashley withdrew from the competition and was taken back to his pit via tow vehicle for treatment.

Within an hour or so, Ashley said from his hauler, “These race cars are too powerful to drive if you aren’t 100 percent.

“I was drinking water throughout the day, but before the final round I just didn’t feel right,” he said. “I talked with my crew chief, Mike Green, and my father [former racer Mike Ashley], and they encouraged me to do what was in my personal best interest.

“There will be more races, and I take this as a learning experience. I congratulate Leah and look forward to racing her in a final very soon,” Ashley said.

Pruett was hoping for the same thing after her race. “That’s what racing is all about, the competition.”

She said she saw some sort of commotion going on in the opposite lane. She said she knew her own crew chief, Todd Okuhara, was telling team owner Don Schumacher that it looked as if they would be making a single pass.

“I comprehended it, but I didn’t want to, to be honest. I really wanted to have a final round. Leading up to that final round, I was thinking about when I had raced Doug [Kalitta] in the final and close races and feeling extremely, extremely proud and really, really being up on the tire. So I changed my mentality from being up on the wheel – which I’ve been trying not to get, to do whatever it takes . . . be more in a safe zone than a “want to choke someone out zone” . . . to just do what we normally do.”

So with just seconds to process what was happening, she went through her paces and won with a rather meaningless-at-that-point 0.130-second reaction time, 4.021-second elapsed time, and 247.61-mph speed on the 1,000-foot course. Clearly and understandably, though, her team had a muted celebration at the starting line in Ashley’s absence.

At the top end of the racetrack, Pruett said, “We dug deep, and this Wally . . . is about the perseverance of the Sparkling Ice Spiked/Mopar/Dodge SRT team and dedication.” Later, she said, “The most impressive part for me of today was how our team has continued to persist and persevere and grow,” gratified that she and her Okuhara- and Neal Strausbaugh-led crew “are pulling the rope in the same direction.”  

Pruett called Ashley “such an incredible racer, and an extremely difficult one [to race against]. For anyone to get out of the car in a final round at an event like this shows that he was being smart for what is best for him. I think it also shows to what a degree we are athletes and how important it is to take care of our bodies and our minds.”

Meanwhile, Ashley said, “I want to thank the entire racing community and especially my sponsors, Smart Sanitizer, Strutmasters.com, Auto Shocker and KATO Fastening Systems, for the outpouring of support I received today,” he said. “I especially want to thank Tony Stewart and Leah Pruett for their concern and interest in my health. I have known NHRA as my racing family for a long time, but today it really showed how special our sport is. I thank everyone that stopped by, texted, or posted well wishes on social media. I will be ready to go for Topeka.”

That’s where the tour heads next for the Menards NHRA Nationals Aug. 13-15 at Heartland Motorsports Park.

Pruett’s victory combined with Ron Capps’ Funny Car to help Don Schumacher Racing hit a double in the nitro classes for the 68th time.

Earlier in the day, fans likely thought they had witnessed the biggest Top Fuel drama in the first round, with Antron Brown ruining best buddy Steve Torrence’s quest for a sweep of the challenging Western Swing.

Torrence said he wanted to score hit that triple at Pomona and sweep the three-race-in-three-consecutive-weekends Western Swing, but that wasn’t what he primarily came to do. His focus simply was on winning this race – and every one after it through November on the way to a fourth straight Top Fuel series crown. So the runaway class leader wasn’t heartbroken that he didn’t become the sixth dragster driver and eighth overall to master the mid-season challenge. But he didn’t come to this historic track for the first time in 20 months, since he clinched the 2019 championship (his second of three), expecting to lose in the first round. That hadn’t happened in 16 races, dating back to last July at Indianapolis.

Brown’s crew chief, Brian Corradi, said early Sunday morning before racing started, “Good luck to Steve. I know what it was like to [sweep the Swing] in ’09, and I know what it was like in ’12, where it got taken away at the last race, too. That’s how it goes.”

Torrence’s early exit – a shocker in itself – meant that for only the third time in 15 races, the Top Fuel final round would not have a Capco Contractors Dragster, including Billy Torrence’s, at the starting line.    

“We just got a little behind in qualifying,” Torrence said.  “We didn’t get down the track on the first two [qualifying] runs, and then we had to be a little conservative just to move up in the field and get lane choice. But give all the credit to Antron and his guys.  They figured it out and made a good solid run.”

However, Brown, in the Matco Tools/Toyota/Sirius XM Dragster had plans of his own. He knocked off Torrence on the hot, tricky racetrack that already was approaching 130-140 degrees and called it “a blessing we got through that round.” He defeated Shawn Langdon next but lost to Ashley in the semifinal.

Brittany Force earned the No. 1 starting position for the third time in a row and advanced to the quarterfinals on a bye. But she fell to Ashley in Round 2. So neither she nor Brown gained much ground in the standings, which will be reset and bunched up per NHRA order after the next three races, anyway.

Kalitta was optimistic this would be a season-turnaround this weekend for him and his Mac Tools team, but in the first pairing of the day, Clay Millican eliminated him. Kalitta lamented that “it sucks” to “lose in the first round at your favorite place.”

It’s Pruett’s favorite place, too. She said, “I don’t think I’ve seen as many win lights in my life as I’ve seen at this racetrack.”

It’s where she started her drag-racing career 25 years ago, racing with guidance from her father Ron, who passed away suddenly in January. So the moment for her was bittersweet, nostalgic, happy, relieved, and wistful all rolled into one.

At the end of the day, the day belonged to Pruett, who had worked on her driving and her mindset for months to earn the honors.

She said, “Some people are optimists. Some people are pessimists. I’m an opportunist,” Pruett said. “The glass is half empty. The glass is half full. I don’t know. There’s water in it. I’m going to drink it.”

And she did. Susan Wade

CAPPS COLLECTS FIRST WIN WITH NEW TEAM, DOMINATES AT TRICKY WINTERNATIONALS - It is the kind of race where legends are made.

And it is the kind of race people will talk about for ages.

Let’s set the stage. A difficult racing surface combined with brutal weather conditions? Check. Head-to-head matchups between future Hall of Famers? Check. A unique twist that makes the race standout more than most? Check.

One day after boasting about what a win this weekend would mean, Ron Capps turned in a performance for the ages. On Sunday, the driver of the Napa Auto Parts Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car put together a dominant showing on a tricky racetrack to collect a memorable win at the mid-summer edition of the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

“This is still hard to believe, especially here at what I consider hallowed ground in the sport of drag racing,” Capps said. “To win at Pomona at a special Covid race and take home a win at the Summernationals and have it say Winternationals on the trophy, it is an amazing thing. I’ve been saying a win is coming and I started to wonder if I shouldn’t say that and jinx our team, but we have just been running so well and eating up those Camping World points. Today was big.

“To take out the points leader and to have that big matchup with John Force in the semifinals, which is always big at Pomona, was huge. And to do it camping here at the track in our RV with all of our friends and family, right now this just feels really good. I’m really happy for Guido (Dean Antonelli) and John Medlen and our whole Napa Auto Care team. Time and time again they gave me a good racecar and I certainly didn’t want to be the weak link. This is just an unbelievable win.”

Facing a brutal combination of high heat and a challenging racing surface, Sunday proved difficult for all of the competitors in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series. The nitro racers were especially susceptible to the conditions and it showed on the track, with nearly every team watching helplessly as their 11,000-horsepower race machines limped to the finish line gasping for air.

And that included Capps. After placing his race machine No. 1 on Saturday with one of the few full pulls of the weekend, Capps drove through smoking tires and dropped cylinders to collect his first win of the season and the 67th of his career.

Capps defeated J.R. Todd in Sunday’s Funny Car final in another imperfect race typical of the day. Capps got away cleanly in the final round matchup, but his machine started dropping cylinders and began pushing toward the wall before he lifted. Todd had the better reaction time and was chasing down his final round opponent, but he too began losing cylinders and was forced to lift. Capps crossed the stripe with a 4.151-second pass at 297.75 mph to collect the win in one of the slower victories of his recent career. Todd followed him across the line with a 4.289 at 286.56 mph in earning the runner-up spot.

“That was probably the most extreme conditions I have driven in a Funny Car. And it was probably the most fun car to drive,” Capps said. “Every run you would go up there and everybody is tearing their hair out trying to get down the track. We had weird stuff with cylinders going out in certain spots and we were leaving it alone because it was running like a bracket car. Most of the time you would be concerned about that, but we’ve got such a nice tuneup you could put a cylinder out and get through that rough spot. It sounds so bad from half track on that you start to duck, but then they tell you it runs 4.15 which is incredible. We were quietly going about ourselves each run.”

The day as a whole, while difficult, was not completely foreign to Capps. He recalls similar races earlier in his career where it required atypical answers to solve the riddle of the day.

“My first win in Funny Car was in St. Louis with Roland Leong as our crew chief and he was putting cylinders out on purpose. It was the hottest race and he was putting them out on purpose and he won the race that way,” Capps said. “This race really reminded me of that as we were going along. I didn’t want to say anything, I didn’t want Guido to fix it and try to go faster. I just wanted to go cylinders out, driving it until we saw sparks.”

All four of Capps’ runs fell in the four-second zone on Sunday, as he began the day with a couple of close wins over Bobby Bode and points leader Bob Tasca. He had the low elapsed time of both rounds, recording a 4.020 and a 4.151 respectively, with his 4.020 at 309.77 mph in round one proving the best pass of the entire day in the Funny Car category.

In the semifinals, Capps squared off against fellow drag racing legend John Force in a showdown for the ages. Force drove his Peak Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car in deep, turning off the pre-stage bulbs on the tree, but it would prove fruitless as he began to spin the tires at the hit and immediately began dropping cylinders.

Capps beat his opponent to the line with a 4.158 at 300.06 mph, while Force coasted home with a 4.659 at 195.19 mph.

“I was laughing in my helmet when he (drove in deep). First of all, he always stages last, but I made him go in first,” Capps said. “I was like, ‘We are in Pomona, John Force is pulling the top light off on me and we are just getting it on.’ It was just so much fun.”

Todd reached his third final round of the year with wins over Jeff Diehl, Robert Hight and Jim Campbell.

Of course, the biggest storyline coming out of Sunday’s race was the first win for Capps with his new team. After his former crew chief Rahn Tobler retired earlier this year, tuning duties fell to decorated co-crew chiefs and longtime Don Schumacher Racing team members Dean “Guido” Antonelli and John Medlen. In their 10 races together, the new team has qualified first in half of the races, but had not won a race together. That all changed on Sunday.

“You get in this comfort zone like I had with Rahn Tobler, but things just happen for a reason sometimes,” Capps said. “Getting put together with this team was pretty incredible. We have been longtime friends with Guido, but we have never worked together. I have already worked with John Medlen and I know how he operates and he is light years ahead of a lot of people with these great ideas throughout the DSR shop. It is great to have them in our lounge.”

With the win, Capps puts himself right in the thick of the Funny Car championship picture, with less than 100 points separating nearly the entire Countdown to the Championship field with only three races remaining until the postseason.

“We aren’t comfortable at all. If you have a couple of bad races, you are going to drop like a rock,” Capps said. “We are just going to keep up what we are doing. We are going to see some really good teams who may not even make the top 10. But we aren’t worrying about that, our focus is on Topeka next.” Larry Crum

STANFIELD DENIES ANDERSON HISTORIC WIN, EARNS FOURTH CAREER WALLY SUNDAY AT POMONA - Maybe next time, Greg Anderson.

It has been three months since Anderson earned his 96th career victory in the Pro Stock category, leaving him one win shy of tying Warren Johnson for first on the all-time win list. And he is still waiting.

Anderson has been denied that historic 97th win in multiple final rounds since then, with the man standing in his way in most of those defeats being Aaron Stanfield.

Stanfield did it again on Sunday, besting the No. 1 qualifier in another thrilling chapter in their budding rivalry. Stanfield collected his second win in a row, third of the season, and fourth of his career at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

“It was a tricky racetrack today. The crew chiefs had their work cut out for them,” Stanfield said. “Right before that final round, my crew really did a lot of work. They made a lot of changes and obviously it seemed to work out really well.”

Stanfield pushed his all-time round record against the mutli-time class champion to 4-2 on Sunday, using a tremendous .016 light to pull away and never look back. He drove his Elite-powered Camaro to a 6.652-second pass at 207.69 mph to collect his third win in the last four races, just edging out Anderson’s 6.660 at 207.08 mph in his HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro.

“I am extremely hungry and I have a lot of great people around me. I want to do well and continue to do well,” Stanfield said. “I am thankful for the people I am around and the people that give me these great opportunities.

“After the race (Greg) said congratulations, but he is competitive just like I am and I am sure he is disappointed.”

Stanfield added wins over Kenny Delco, Matt Hartford and Erica Enders to reach his sixth career final round. He was dominant in the opening rounds - recording a 6.637 and a 6.673 - before facing his Elite Motorsports teammate Enders in one of the closest races of the afternoon.

The pair were welded together at the start, with only .006 separating them on the tree, and it was just as close at the top end with Stanfield taking the win by eight thousandths at the line. Stanfield had a 6.684 at 204.76 mph in the winning effort, while Enders followed with a 6.686 at 206.04 mph.

Alltold, just like the other competitors on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series tour, Stanfield faced a tricky racetrack with track temperatures pushing 150 degrees muddying up an already difficult racing surface.

“That is something as a young driver I am still figuring out,” Stanfield said. “It was really loose for us out in the middle of the racetrack, so that was definitely an adjustment. I went out there with the mindset not to get too complacent and expect anything because you never know what could happen those first several feet. They did a great job with the car today. All of the crew chiefs came together. Tim Freeman did a great job, as did Mark Ingersoll and Jeg (Coughlin). It was really cool to be a part of.”

While Stanfield is still very early in his Pro Stock career, he has been thrust into the middle of a longtime rivalry between two of the most dominant teams in class history - KB Racing and Elite Motorsports. While Stanfield represents the latter, his win over KB Racing’s Anderson only added to that feud.

“Our job is to keep him away from (the record) for as long as possible,” Stanfield said. “I would imagine one day he is eventually going to get it, but we want to make it as hard as possible. The KB-Elite rivalry is great. They are both really competitive teams and it is cool to be in the middle of it and have a chance to win. I am very grateful for the opportunity I have been given.”

With his win on Sunday, Stanfield remains right in the thick of the Pro Stock championship battle with only two more races remaining for the class until the Countdown to the Championship. It is a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that Stanfield was racing in the sportsman categories just a few years ago.

“I didn’t expect to be thrown into it like I have been. It has been so cool,” Stanfield said. “I’ve only dreamt of it as a kid watching my dad and Greg Anderson and others go at it. I’ve dreamt of it for a long time and we have been working really hard to be able to get in this position.

“I think we are definitely a championship contender. Our goal is always to win every single race. I’ve always been told that if you go and win races the championship will take care of itself and that will be our main focus.” Larry Crum

MATT SMITH AS HOT AS THE POMONA RACING SURFACE IN PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE CLASS - With ambient temperatures at Pomona, Calif., zooming up toward triple digits and track temperatures at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona well exceeding that – blistering enough to cause Top Fuel finalist Just Ashley to wilt in his cockpit and concede a solo run to opponent Leah Pruett – Pro Stock Motorcycle winner Matt Smith acknowledged that it was maybe the toughest victory he ever had earned. 

“It was a tuners race, a lot of it,” the man who has led the standings after all but one of the 10 completed races said following his triumph at the NHRA Lucas Oil Winternationals. 

Luckily for Matt Smith, he’s a tuner, too. 

After defeating three-time champion Angelle Sampey in the final round, four-time champ Smith said it was grueling “just battling this track, as hot as it was out here. 

“We were just trying to get a hold of the track, and it got really greasy and 140-some degrees track temp. We just had to adjust everything and do the best we could. And we made it work,” the Denso-sponsored EBR racer said. 

Ultimately, Smith used a 6.828-second elapsed time at 199.52 mph on the quarter-mile course to defeat Angelle Sampey in the final round and hit the 30-race victory plateau. 

She was no match for him this time, with smoke coming from her Vance & Hines Suzuki. Sampey’s runner-up finish came with a rather tardy .102-second reaction time (to his .042), a 6.911-second E.T., and 173.96-mph speed. 

Smith indicated he saved his best for last, although that wasn’t exactly what he had planned. 

“Our Q2 pass Saturday (6.841/198.96) was a good example where we should have been at. I stayed there, but the track got a little bit worse than that and I spun [the tire] a little bit more in the semifinals. So I came up here for this [final] round and I just took a little bit more power out of it. And it actually worked, because we went back to where we were all day qualifying. We just over-pounded the track today the first three passes. We finally hit it right in E4.” 

The race – oddly named, considering the heat and the fact it began in late July and ended in August – marked the NHRA’s first event at Auto Club Raceway since the 2020 Winternationals, for the first time in 18 months. Neither the 2020 Finals nor the February edition of this traditional season-opener in February took place at Pomona. During that drag-racing absence, the racing surface itself became a drive-through food pantry for needy Southern Californians during the height of COVID restrictions. 

It’s no surprise that Smith extended his points lead, but it was a bit of a wake-up call for his challengers that they have just one last event before they either make the Countdown to the Championship chase or are left with hard choices to make and 2022 plans to design. 

While the other Camping World pro classes are moving on to Topeka, then Brainerd, Minn., before their Countdown to the Championship fields are set at the U.S. Nationals, the Indianapolis race is next on the schedule for the Pro Stock Motorcycle class. 

“We got one race before the Countdown. We got Indianapolis,” Smith said. 

And if anyone though the class was a tough one, imagine the combination of the NHRA’s most prestigious race and the fact this is the last chance to makde the field of 10 racers who even can hope to earn a series crown this year. 

“Everybody wants to win Indy,” Smith said. 

But he isn’t worried. 

“We got a good team,” he said. “We got three strong bikes.” 

He does – Matt Smith Racing does. But the trouble at Pomona for his three-bike contingent is that they “were just all paired up on one side of the ladder and we had to run each other.” 

All went well in that department for the Matt Smith trio in the first round. But in the second round, Matt Smith and wife Angie Smith had to race each other. And in the semifinal, Matt Smith had to line up against Scotty Pollacheck. 

The team boss said that “hopefully we’ll try to work that out in Indy and get everyone on opposite sides of the ladder and we’ll see if we can meet in the finals.” Susan Wade

SATURDAY NOTEBOOK

SALINAS MAKES NEW FRIENDS, POSSIBLY SAVES LIVES; TORRENCE HAVING FUN, BROWN KNOWS WHY; ALEXANDER’S ‘FREAKIN’ GNARLY’ RUN; FORCE STUNS WITH 3.71 TO LEAD TOP FUEL CLASS

 

SALINAS HELPING MAKE A DIFFERENCE – If the term Familial Hypercholesterolemia, or FH, doesn’t sound familiar, Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Jianna Salinas can explain. Her friends Scott Radabaugh and his 15-year-old daughter Chloe, who like Salinas are from Northern California’s Bay Area, know all about it. 

FH is an inherited condition, one not exactly rare but definitely underdiagnosed, that results in high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, “the bad cholesterol”) and increased risk of premature cardiovascular disease in men and women. 

Salinas has joined the Radabaugh family in raising awareness of the condition as they have bonded through motorcycle racing and their steeliness in overcoming adversity. For Jianna Salinas, the struggle has been to triumph over her spill from her bike during eliminations at Chicago, shake off criticism from people who know virtually nothing about her, and improve her riding in NHRA competition. For Chloe Radabaugh, the adversity could be life-threatening if untreated, and for her father it’s a daily task to maintain regained health after suffering a heart attack and undergoing quadruple bypass surgery at age 34.

His incident led to his children having their cholesterol levels tested, and that’s when Chloe learned hers was astronomically high. So while FH is relatively common, she was diagnosed later with the rarest and most dangerous form of the condition. The one-in-250 ratio doesn’t apply to her. Her condition - Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), the most serious and more rare form – affects about one in 300,000.

Chloe Radabaugh began treatment at age 5 and visits Oakland Children’s Hospital every 14 days to have cholesterol filtered from her blood through the process of Lipoprotein, or LDL Apheresis. Naturally, she has encountered emotional, as well as physical, struggles through it all. But what gets her through her taxing routine are encouragement from Salinas and from a custom build of a café racer motorcycle she and dad Scott completed. (A café racer takes its name from the 1960s British counterculture and is associated with pub-hoppers and others who used the bikes for quick, high-speed trips.)

Scott Radabaugh grew up around motorcycles, raced them for a time, and spends a lot of time tinkering with them. With his passion for bikes, he enlisted Chloe’s help with the bike – which he named “The Motorcycle that Saves Lives.” It displays hand-painted DNA strands, inspirational sayings, and the FH Foundation website. He said that after a car show where he exhibited the motorcycle, he received an email from someone who saw the motorcycle and was prompted to have his cholesterol tested and was diagnosed with FH.

Their project motorcycle has become a work of art, and the Radabaughs have it on tour to raise share news about FH. They took it to Sonoma Raceway last week, just after Jianna Salinas and Chloe Radabaugh met and exchanged greetings and gifts. The teenager learned about Salinas and her experiences on the Pro Stock Motorcycle after dad Scott watched FOX reporter Amanda Busick’s “Walk 1,000” interview at Las Vegas in 2019. He told his daughter, “See? If you stay in the fight, good things will happen.”

Salinas proved that. After her accident, she got back on the motorcycle as soon as it was repaired (much like her sister Jasmine Salinas did after crashing in her Top Alcohol Dragster this March at Gainesville) – and earned a victory that same year here at Pomona at the Finals . . . a victory that helped shape and preserve a sixth championship for Andrew Hines. Chloe Radabaugh indicated she has gained a lot of strength and resolve since watching that video and continuing to follow Salinas’ racing journey.

They met the Wednesday before the Sonoma race in San Francisco at Alice’s Restaurant, a famous meeting places for motorcycle riders and enthusiasts. There they listened to each other’s stories. Salinas gave her new friend the helmet that was scuffed up during the accident at Joliet, Ill., as a symbol of perseverance and courage. In return, Chloe Radabaugh gave Salinas a guardian bell that is meant to keep evil spirits and bad luck away from a rider’s motorcycle.

Salinas has displayed FH Foundation decals on the scoop of her Pro Stock Motorcycle in hopes of helping the Radabaughs’ mission.

She’s the No. 10 qualifier this weekend, and she’ll open eliminations against No. 7 Joey Gladstone.

MOST RECENT ‘SWEEPER’ TRYING TO STOP TORRENCE – Antron Brown stands in unyielding Steve Torrence’s way like some seemingly doomed target in a video game. He’s the Top Fuel points leader’s first-round opponent in Sunday’s eliminations, which kick off at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. And he might be the toughest rock to budge. 

Torrence has the chance to become the first since 2009 to sweep the three-race Western Swing. The Capco Contractors Dragster driver would be the sixth Top Fuel driver to accomplish that (following Joe Amato, Cory McClenathan, Larry Dixon, Tony Schumacher, and Brown) and the eighth in all (including Funny Car’s John Force and Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson). What he’s laser-focused on instead is winning this race – and the next and the next and on down the line to a fourth straight championship. 

That’s what Brown, who’s directly behind him in the standings, is trying to do, as well. 

“Sweeping the Swing would be a great accomplishment, but that is not what we are setting out to do,” Torrence said. He said his goal Friday night was “to make a solid, clean, and fast run down the racetrack.” (He didn’t, losing traction right away and having to start Saturday qualifying front the No. 12 spot. Only Brandon Welch, whose attempt Friday night was disqualified because his out-of-shape Max Mileage Dragster clipped the guard wall.) 

“It’s one run at a time for us. One run at a time equals one race at a time, and if it happens to be three races in a row that equates to sweeping the Swing, then that’s what happens,” Torrence said. “Racing in Pomona during the middle of the summer is also a different ball game. We generally run in the cooler months there, so it should get interesting.” 

Torrence has secured his berth in the Countdown to the Championship, winning six of the nine completed races this season, including three in a row and four of the past five. And his dad Billy, who just won THE Super Comp trophy at a Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at Topeka last weekend in a break from the Camping World Series, won at Epping, N.H. That has left only Gainesville to Josh Hart and Atlanta to Brown. 

“These CAPCO boys are unbelievable,” said Torrence, who has 46 career victories. “It’s hard to not be confident when you’ve got [crew chief] Richard Hogan, [car chief] Bobby Lagana, and the rest of the Capco boys behind you. I’m just the fortunate guy who’s blessed to have the opportunity to drive, and I couldn’t be more excited. These guys, they work hard and they love their job. You learn a little bit each day and we have so much fun when we come to the track.” 

He has fun because he’s winning. Brown – the three-time champion who managed to derail Torrence with a victory at Atlanta and was the last to sweep the Western Swing – understands why, all while plotting to spoil his close friend’s party. 

“They have raised the level of the game,” Brown said of the Torrence Racing team. “You know why their car runs so consistent? They run brand-new parts almost every lap. You know why their car doesn’t vary? It doesn’t vary because they killed all the variables. 

“They don’t have a head gasket that’s been welded up or redone and put back in. They’re running everything fresh. So you know what they do? They’re able to replicate a lot more. They’re not doing anything different than anybody else. They’re not smarter than a lot of different people out there. Their efficiency is way better than everybody’s else’s because of the procedures that they do,” he said. 

And Steve Torrence has said several times that he and his team buy parts off the shelf. He says, “We’re not smart enough to make our own parts – or maybe we’re smart enough not to make our own parts.” 

Brown said, “That’s their whole way of doing it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Everything’s out there. Don Schumacher sells parts and pieces to a lot of people, but now he’s gearing up to do more of that [with his DSM manufacturing arm of his racing business]. NHRA’s got stipulations on everything. They’ve taken out all the R&D that you can make your stuff better with. Now, you’ve got to make your packages better, not the parts you run. That’s where the cost has gotten fixed, where everybody can afford the same stuff. And the more people that make the same stuff, the cost does get a little bit cheaper that way, except for the materials.” 

So the emphasis is on personnel. And that has been the mantra of both Torrence and Brown all along.  

“It takes so many people. We know how that is” Brown said. “We had an all-star group of people together for over five years. In five years, we were unstoppable. If you took out the Countdown to the Championship, we would be five-time champions. And Steve would be four-time champion if you took away the Countdown to the Championship. So it shows you how dominant teams [can be]. And it takes the same guys going out there and being better each and every time. And Steve’s team has been together for eight years now, same guys. And they’ve only gotten better. 

“What it’s going to take is you getting your package together where you compete on the same level,” he said. “Our team’s getting close. We’ve just got to qualify better. If we can start qualifying better, we can be in that same realm that he’s in. He qualifies in the top three every race. When he does that, he sets himself up where on race you see him going down the track, putting up great laps, and Steve’s a great racer, too. They’ve got the full package. And that’s what our team has – our team has that full package. But we’re still just getting in synch with all the new crew guys that we have on our team.” 

‘FREAKIN’ GNARLY’ – Blake Alexander entered this event ranked 11th in the Funny Car standings, just two points behind No. 10 Terry Haddock with three races (Topeka, Brainerd, Indianapolis) before the fields are set for the Countdown to the Championship. FOX’s Amanda Busick asked him Friday night as he awaited qualifying results, “What's your pressure right now?” 

For a second he looked taken back by the question but quickly said, “None. None at all. We're just out here – every single time I pull up there, I do the same thing. It’s simple, very, very simple. We’re obviously trying to collect as many points as possible but we’ve been trying to do that all year.” 

That was spoken like a true Jim Head Racing driver. 

Alexander said, “It’s starting to show right now. I really appreciate all the hard work these guys [his crew] put in, and I'm trying to deliver.” 

He delivered Friday night in the Pronto Auto Parts/Head Racing Ford Mustang, grabbing three bonus points and the provisional No. 1 qualifying spot with a 3.961 elapsed time. 

“It is dark out there,” Alexander said, “and there's not a lot of groove. And I saw Cruz doing the veteran moves over there in Pomona, right hand lane. Kind of looping it to the outside or it just sucks you in. Hey, it's fun to be out here. And when you hit the gas in one of these things at night, it’s just freakin’ gnarly.” 

Team owner Jim Head, unaware of what Alexander said at the top end of the track, said, “Track’s real good. There's no question about it. We were a little afraid of it way down there late.” 

But he said, “So I think you'll see a lot better times than that tonight.” 

His prediction was wrong, happily, for Alexander had hope of scoring his career-first No. 1 qualifying position. And he gained three qualifying bonus points, while Haddock took the tentative No. 16 starting spot overnight for this race. 

But Ron Capps and Robert Hight burst his bubble in the final qualifying session, as they leapfrogged him with runs of 3.941 seconds and 3.953 seconds, respectively. So Alexander will be the No. 3 qualifier, going in Round 1 against No. 14 Jim Campbell.   

HULL ON WHEELS – Terry Haddock Racing driver Buddy Hull, of Dallas, was bowled over by his provisional No. 3 qualifying spot in the Top Fuel class Friday night – which was No. 1 for a few minutes, until Leah Pruett came along two pairs later and topped his 4.105-second, 278.69-mph performance. 

He had posted on his social-media account earlier this week that he was “hungrier than ever” to race at Pomona. After his Friday-night pass, Hull explained: “I'm a third-generation drag racer. I grew up at the racetrack, and hungrier than ever just means that Terry and the whole THR team have been working super-hard to get the hot rod back in fully functioning condition and get it A to B – and we did. Thanks for our sponsors, Circle Racing Wheels, everybody, Vertex Roofing. We can't do this without you guys. We're out here racing the best of the best. It's amazing. I’m wound up. This is awesome. Number One’s pretty cool.” 

Then, almost giggling, Hull joked, “Can the rest of the guys just stop now?” 

They couldn’t, and they didn’t Saturday, either, as Brittany Force earned the right to lead the field with a 3.714-second pass at 330.72 mph. Hull ended up qualifying No. 8 and will meet No. 7 Justin Ashley in the first round of eliminations.  

COSTLY KABOOM – Jason Rupert made a significant move up the Funny Car ladder in the early Saturday session, from 15th place to a much-safer ninth – but it came at a significant price – in dollars, points, and opportunities. 

He was on a career-best pass of 4.269 seconds at 289.01 mph, but his Rupert & Bays Mustang detonated as he approached the finish line. 

He said he had no warning: “The track was really hot, and I was pretty happy just to be going down it without smoking the tires. Came up to the finish line and I was just about to lift [when] the thing went kaboom and it was time to stop then.” 

Rupert didn’t make an appearance in the final qualifying session for obvious reasons, but he had no idea immediately after the incident what his plan for Sunday would be. He earned the No. 11 starting berth and will face No. 6 Alexis De Joria. 

“I'm not sure. I mean, we're going to look at it,” he said. “I've got a good group of guys. We’ve got to see, obviously, why it happened first, and then we'll just assess the situation. I just feel bad about oiling the track down and making a mess.” 

Steven Densham, who was in the opposite lane, sorting out issues with his own Mustang, empathized.  

“It's one of those things that this run with Jason, I feel bad for him,” said the second-generation driver who practically grew up at this racetrack with driver dad Gary Densham and teaches school like his father did for years. 

“It's kind of one of those things – we jinxed it. We were literally talking in the staging lanes about how much more stuff there is with the cowl and the hand shields to get out of these cars. Jason's like, ‘Man, I'd really hate to have to get out of one of these in a hurry.’ And then this happened. So I feel bad for them, and we’ll try to help him any way we can. We had low oil pressure at the starting line and then it went out there and it shook, so I left it. And then Jason came by me and he's on fire. We're independent teams and we're trying to come out here and play with the big boys, and it sucks. But we’ll help Jason any way we can.” 

Densham, originally from nearby Bellflower, Calif., missed the cut, along with another hometown racer, Alex Miladinovich, of Orange. 

SURPRISE – The Top Fuel class had a huge surprise during qualifying. Steve Torrence was 12th off the trailer Friday and last among the 13 entrants Saturday after the second overall session. 

If Torrence is going to capitalize on his chance to make some Western Swing history with a sweep Sunday, he knew he had to give a performance like he has been giving most weekends. 

“We’ve got to do better than what we’re doing right now. It’s been tricky for us. It’s tricky for everybody. We don’t have any data coming here,” Torrence – who skipped the 2020 Winternationals, not that it would have mattered with these conditions – said. “We’re trying to put on a show for the fans, but it’s unfortunate. It’s just tricky. We’ll get it figured out before tomorrow and do the best we can. 

“As far as sweeping the Swing,” he said. “we’ll just take that one round at a time tomorrow and see if we can get there. If so, great. It would be huge. It’s definitely an accolade you can boast about. If not, I’ve had a pretty storybook season so far, so I’m not disappointed about anything. We’ll just do the best we can.” 

His car chief, Bobby Lagana, explained the uncharacteristic situation that beset this seemingly unstoppable team for the second straight weekend. “We’re struggling,” he said but took it back right away. “We’re doing normal for right now. We’ve been fortunate. A lot of good things have come our way, and there are a lot of good teams out there. God bless.” 

Torrence came back out in his final chance to improve. And he did improve – just like a week ago, he vaulted to the No. 2 starting position with a 3.808-second pass. It wasn’t unluck for him – won at Sonoma. 

And guess who aced him out for the No. 1 spot. Yep, Brittany Force. This is the fifth time this year they’ll start eliminations ranked 1 and 2 in the line-up.  

After Q2, both Torrence and Brittany Force were at the bottom of the field. She had slipped from sixth place after the opening session. Her car went nowhere at the hit of the throttle, and crew chief Dave Grubnic said, “There's a protection system, a safety system in these vehicles, so we suspect something in the throttle disconnected. We'll have to go back and look at it. But we really needed that. We were hoping to get down there with a mid-[3].80.” 

He did better than that. He gave Force what she needed to claim the No. 1 qualifying position for the third straight race and fifth time this year in 10 races.  

Torrence said, “It’s going to be tough tomorrow. That .71 [Force’s low elapsed time of 3.71], that was stout. You expect that from Grubnic. You expect that from Brittany. But tomorrow’s going to be a whole new ballgame. It won’t be anything like this, and we’ve just got to survive. It’s 14-degree track temp. It’s 100 degrees here. If you can leave here with not a lot of [parts] carnage and just try to go some rounds. That’s all we’re going to try to do.”  

 

MUSICAL CREW CHIEFS – This race has brought some curious crew chief news. Rahn Tobler had joined the ranks of the retired, but he has helped Paul Lee since then. And he came back out to the racetrack here at Pomona to help buddy Johnny West with Jason Rupert’s Funny Car.

He said he’s just another set of eyes, “just trying to help them out a little bit,” he said after Rupert eased into the No. 14 position in the Friday-night order. “We need more cars out here. So if we can help some people and maybe keep the car counts up, that's a good thing. Johnny West is the crew chief. I'm just kind of looking things over and trying to help all I can.” 

In the Top Fuel pits, Competition Plus was told that Alan Johnson, Mike Salinas’ premier tuner, was putting in some time with Kalitta Motorsports this week, helping Rob Flynn with the set-up on Doug Kalitta’s dragster. Ronnie Thompson also came on board the Mac Tools Dragster team after the April race at Las Vegas. 

CHRISMAN IN THE HOUSE – NHRA legacy racer Steve Chrisman, driving the Worsham family dragster that Cameron Ferré ran last weekend at Sonoma, is the No. 13 and last qualifier in this short field. He’ll race No. 2 starter Leah Pruett in Round 1. 

WHAT AN OR-DIEHL – Jeff Diehl just turned 57 this past Tuesday, and although he had competed at Las Vegas in April and at Sonoma last weekend, the seasoned independent Funny Car racer talked Friday night like a man feeling much older. 

“Man, oh man, I'm not ready for this,” Diehl said after taking the No. 8 place in the provisional order. “But you got to get some laps in and get your comfortability back. You're always waiting for it to be on fire and stuff. So I was cool. I was just a little lazy.” 

He thought for a second about what pushes him to race, then said “I think it's my wife [Leeza]. It's insane. Every day, I get up [and] I'm like, ‘OK, I'm done. I got to quit. I'm just a mellow surfer. 

“But there's something about this. It just draws you out here. I love working on cars and the camaraderie with my guys. We yell at each other and we're hugging the next minute, and I'm sure they're happy right now. But yeah, that's kind of what's the drive is.” 

His reward for qualifying 10th in the order is squaring off Sunday morning against No. 7 JR Todd. 

GOIN’ FOR GOLD – The Summer Olympic Games – which have been postponed, just like the Winternationals – are going on at Tokyo, and Leah Pruett couldn’t help but get in on the Olympic spirit after zipping to the top of the Top Fuel leaderboard Friday night. 

She said after the Sonoma race last weekend that her Sparkling Iced Spiked-sponsored team is “closer to gold” than they have been in awhile. 

“They put in 150 percent, and that’s to the leadership of Neal Strausbaugh and the crew chief, Todd Okuhara, and the leadership Don Schumacher,” she said. “So can't get too excited. It's nice. I knew about halfway down the track we were on a good run. We were looking out for that new patch that was down there. As soon as I hit it straight and we were square I'm like, ‘We're on,’ and I started hootin’ and hollerin’ just because it's those small little glimpses of success that we are on the right track. This isn't the Olympics, but we're after our own gold.” 

Pruett said, “Honestly, we are living up to our expectations, and that is being a force to be reckoned with. This is a continuation of momentum from Sonoma. Being out here with the Sparkling Iced Spiked, I mean, my guys deserve a good hard seltzer at the end of the day going into tomorrow to keep up that momentum.” 

Her 3.780-second elapsed time at 321.88 mph held up as low E.T. until the final session Saturday, when Brittany Force pushed her down the ladder with a 3.714-second blast. 

FORCE OPTIMISTIC – John Force and his PEAK / BlueDEF PLATINUM Chevrolet Camaro SS team aren’t letting their points bump at Sonoma from second to fourth deter them. Force trails leader Bob Tasca III by only 52 points, and for him that’s nothing a victor at his home track, Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, wouldn’t fix. 

“This PEAK team is still very much in this fight. There’s only a handful of points separating the top five. I’m still in that top five,” Force said. “We’ve had a good season. There’s always ups and downs, but these young guys with Daniel Hood and Tim Fabrisi, they’re working hard and we’ll be right back at it.” 

He still has won two-thirds of his elimination rounds (he’s 14-7). 

Force, who won this year at Charlotte and Epping, is seeking his 154th victory. He’ll start Sunday from the No.12 slot against No. 5 qualifier Matt Hagan. It’s a match-up that represents 19 championships. 

HIGHT AT HOME, LITERALLY AND TOWARDS TOP OF LINE-UP – Robert Hight, the Funny Car class’ most recent winner, is under no delusions he’ll be able to sail to back-to-back victories or even a fourth championship untouched. 

“You look at the top eight in Funny Car – any one of these guys can win a championship, and most of them are champions. It’s a tough class, even Steven Densham, his dad, Gary Densham, is a cagy old veteran and you’ve go to be on your game,” Hight said. 

“Jimmy and Chris [crew chiefs Prock and Cunningham] have this thing running on a string. I have to have confidence in myself.” 

He said the team “learned some things” last weekend at Sonoma Raceway, where he said he fell in love with drag racing as a young man growing up in the Northern California town of Alturas. But now this track, Auto Club Raceway, is home for the Auto Club Chevy Camaro driver. He said, “Oh, just love this place. You get to sleep in your own bed. This is where all our families come to the races. My daughter, Autumn, she's out here with us this weekend. Our family, the Auto Club, they're all here, and we missed all these people. It's so good to be back, and it was actually good to come from Sonoma and spend a little time here with friends and family this week.” 

Whatever the team learned at Sonoma, it must have trusted again this weekend. Hight was No. 2 both Friday night and in the first Saturday session, with an elapsed time that was a mere one-thousandth of a second behind leader Blake Alexander (3.962 seconds to 3.961). Cruz Pedregon (3.967) and Ron Capps (3.971) were the only other Funny Car racers who could navigate the hot track and pull out a three-second E.T. 

In the end of qualifying, Hight (3.953) finished second to Capps (3.941). Alexander was third, and Pedregon fourth. And those four still were the only ones in the three-second range. 

DE JORIA, WORSHAM DEFUSE PRESSURE – In Funny Car competition, Alexis DeJoria jumped to sixth on her final qualifying pass of the weekend with a 4.021-second run at 313.13 mph. She has started eliminations in the top six in nine of the 10 races so far this year. Her first-round opponent is scheduled to be Jason Rupert, but she might end up with a solo if Rupert can’t answer the bell because his battered race car. His engine blew up Saturday in the second overall qualifying session. De Joria has advanced to the semifinals or beyond in each of the last three events.

For team owner / crew chief Del Worsham, the ordeal was a nail-biter.

“It’s an enormous amount of pressure. I'm not going to lie,” he said. “I'm sitting here looking at JK, the man that owns ROKiT right here, and you always want to impress for the boss and here he is and here we are in the last qualifying run. For Bandera Toyota, ROKiT, Alexis De Joria and of course, her father, JP, right here. I'm just out of words. This has just been incredible day. I cannot tell you the amount of pride I have in this team – where we've come from, where we started. The pressure on her out there to get that car down the track and hold the groove and be smooth and she did it. So for her dad and everybody else, we are very proud.”

FRIDAY NOTEBOOK 

WELCH RE-ENTERS TOP FUEL FRAY WITH FRESH SPONSOR, WORSHAM NOSTALGIC AS NHRA COMES HOME, ODD TIMING OF POMONA RACE MIGHT BE PERFECT FOR KALITTA, MARONEY SENSING A TREND, PEOPLE DRIVE BROWN’S SUCCESS, SOME LIKE IT HOT 

Brandon Welch is back at the racetrack and ready to re-embark on his Top Fuel career – a driving career that began in 2015 under his late grandfather Chuck Beal’s tutelage in the family-operated Funny Car. He and his Tyson Porlas-led crew have put in the hours, days, and months, even a couple of years and then some. And thanks to funding from a new, first-time-in-the-NHRA sponsor, Max Mileage Fuel Borne Catalyst / Pittsburgh Power, the San Diego-based team is back after its February 2020 debut. 

In addition to this weekend’s Lucas Oil Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Calif., Welch & Company also will compete with the Max Mileage Dragster at Las Vegas at the end of October and the Finals back here at Pomona in November.  

“I had to just kind of figure out what amount of racing is worth all this work,” Welch, who qualified 10th at the 2020 Winternationals and fell out in the first round, said. “And you notice that as this car is on the racetrack, it builds its own momentum. More people want to be involved. And it’s easier to get the crew guys motivated. Really, I owed it to all these guys who have been working in the shop for a year and a half, without much fun to show for it. We were able to put together this three-race deal with this company, Max Mileage, and put this car on the racetrack. That opens the door. My Auto Anything deal started as a two-race deal, then we expanded it to eight the following season. If you're not on the field, playing ball, you can't win the game, right? We're just so excited to get back.” 

Through the demands of earning a living, helping his wife juggle her remote-learning teaching job while they instructed and corralled kindergarten-age twins and a new baby, and starting a financial planning business, he has managed to field this race car. 

And it wasn’t all that easy to begin with when the Beal Racing team started its transition from Funny Car to Top Fuel. They purchased a two-year-old Kalitta Motorsports chassis and showed up to take delivery of it at Pomona – at this race ahead of Saturday qualifying in 2019. They arrived with their flatbed truck – just in time for a cloudburst. So the crew was drenched but undeterred. 

“The one constant in drag racing is it never goes how you expect it to go. It never goes perfectly. There's always going to be a curveball,” Welch said. “And we've come a long way from that day where I was really excited to pick up our chassis. And we, of course, we had an open flatbed to take it home. And, and that was going to be the start of the Beal Racing Top Fuel team. We had to call a lot of audibles to figure out how to get it home in the rain and everything else. 

“But thinking forward to today, I've had a year and a half now since the 2020 Winternationals to think about how to improve our program, think about the adversity that we've faced in the past, and how to tweak and improve and grow. We’ve been tinkering. We never stopped working, but I'm certain that we're going to pull this car out of the trailer at Pomona and we’re going to have some sort of challenge, some sort of adversity,” he said, amused. 

“And all you can bring is whatever preparation you've done and just the never-quit willingness to figure out how to solve any problem.” Otherwise, he said, “You wouldn't last very long in drag racing.” He said a start-up team – any team – will succeed “if you're willing to stay all night, work all night, and weld and cut and bang and do whatever you needed to do drive hours to get a part you need, whatever it takes to get back to the racetrack the next day.” 

All that planning was costly, he discovered. 

“I probably spend far more money than I need to if the goal was just to show up and be there. We really invest a lot in in identifying areas of weakness and areas for failure and then investing in redundant and spare parts and just getting the car ready to service if it burns to the ground and you know all those little things that you think, ‘Oh, a part-timer is not going to be able to do that’ . . . having spare motors in the trailer that are fully ready to drop in so that the service is just as fast as throwing a new set of heads on . . .  you know, putting up a motor with a rack of pistons in it and mags in it and everything just ready to drop in – something that we haven't been able to do in the past,” Welch said. 

“We've been able to upgrade our program to be able to have a couple of those in the trailer . . . you know, just little incremental improvements. Between every race, we want to add something to the toolbox that makes us that much closer to being a threat. So that's the mindset,” he said. 

He admired how underdog Joey Haas took Terry Totten’s dragster to the finals at Denver against the mighty Torrence Racing team. “It’s just so cool to hear things like Terry Totten’s team never had to pull the heads off of that car and they were able to keep running it. Like, I don’t own a leak-down tester. We’re just going to pull the heads every time. We're going to do it the way we know how to do it. But it's cool to see that there are so many ways to get it done, so we’re going to have a great time drag racing.” 

Welch has a strong pedigree in the fundraising department, and he has secured funding for three races from the Max Mileage brand of Pittsburgh Power. 

“The more I learn about their company, it's fascinating,” he said. “They’re booked out for a year plus for people to come to their place or location – sometimes they come from across the country – to have Pittsburgh Power work on their big rigs: performance upgrades and fuel-economy upgrades. And they have a wait list to get in there. The owner and founder, a man named Bruce Mallinson, is just a guru. He has a Sirius XM Radio show that targets truckers, and he writes all kinds of technical articles for trucking magazines. So people come from far and wide, and they’ve got this consumer product that happens to work great in big rigs but he said, ‘I’ve put it in a Ford super-duty diesel pickup truck and then a tractor and then in a construction excavator’ – and it works great in all of those applications. 

“So they're bringing that brand and they're not targeting, racing-engine developers or fans that have hot rods, necessarily. They’re targeting people who own trucks and truckers and construction workers. So it feels automotive, but they saw data that shows our fans are super-passionate they support sponsors and they happen to own trucks and work in construction and drive big rigs and all of that. And that’s why they're here. So that, to me, is really encouraging, and that's the type of sponsors I want to continue to bring to the sport,” Welch said. 

He has spent a fair bit of time re-training himself to think like a race-car driver and not just a race team owner. 

“Every time we are away for a little while and we come back, it’s like I forget to think about driving the race car, you know?” he said. “So much of my time is spent thinking like a team owner and a sponsorship sales person and a team manager and ordering parts and ‘What do we need?’ and ‘Where's the budget?’ and ‘Who are we selling to?’ – and everything but driving the race car. And then for, like, two weeks leading up to a race, I have these dreams, like momentary daydreams and flashbacks like ‘Oh yeah – at some point, I'm going to be in a race car, driving 11,000 horsepower to 300-plus miles an hour in three seconds. I need to take that seriously. I can't ignore that. It's really hard, sensory-wise, to remember the experience of driving a Top Fuel car. 

“Unfortunately, there's been a few times over the years where we've had a year off or whatever, and I haven't driven the car in a little while. And there's always that first time you hit the gas– you just you just have to put it out of your mind and hit the gas and see what happens. And then after that first 300 feet, you think, ‘Oh yeah, this feels familiar. I can do this. I remember now and you're right back. But in that two weeks leading up to the race, I have to keep pinching myself: ‘Remember - you're going to drive a Top Fuel car. Don't forget that.’ I know: people need tickets, you’ve got to schedule social media posts and press releases. But you're driving a Top Fuel car and what a privilege and how crazy it is that you get to do that.” 

His Friday qualifying pass was crazy, too. The car got sideways and frighteningly close to the outside guard wall right after the launch. 

LOOSENING TIES – Southern California is the cradle of drag racing, but the NHRA has grown up. It’s celebrating its 70th birthday this season. And the reality is that it is moving away from home.

With the sanctioning-body headquarters at Glendora for sale and operations shifting to the more centrally located Indianapolis bedroom community of Brownsburg and leaving just a handful of executives on the West Coast, the sport no longer revolves around Pomona, Calif. 

But Del Worsham almost is the Lone Ranger among Funny Car team owners, still operating his fulltime Bandero/ROKiT Toyota Camry entry with driver Alexis De Joria (and occasionally his family-owned vehicles) out of his shop in Southern California, in the Los Angeles suburb of Orange. 

So while Southern California remains the cradle of drag racing, Worsham – a champion in both nitro classes and a respected and popular crew chief in the pits – has seen the sport’s gradual migration. 

As the Camping World Drag Racing Series returns for a belated stop this weekend at its fabled Pomona facility for the historic (but incongruously titled) Winternationals, Worsham talked about the changing traditions. 

“When I started driving, nearly every Funny Car driver was based out of California and more specifically Southern California,” he said. “There were so many manufacturers there that if you were in the Orange County area, you could have a car built, your clutch built, an engine built. Basically, anything you needed was in Southern California.  It just made sense to have your Funny Car there. Everybody was here. Not as much today.” 

Adding to the sense of detachment is the fact that with tight COVID-related health restrictions, the NHRA was unable to host last November’s Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, and it had to reschedule the Winternationals for August instead of its familiar mid-February date.   

John Force, a Southern California fixture, has moved his race shop more than 2,000 miles away, to Indiana. But he said, “This race is home. We’re just down the way in Yorba Linda. We used to be completely based out in Southern California. Now there’s the museum, corporate offices, and where we run John Force RaceStation, as well as our rentals. There’s a lot of history in Southern California for me. Racing in Pomona, it’s a big event,” Force said of the Lucas Oil Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com. “Stands will be packed, even though it’s going to be warm. It’ll be a good summer show for them. I’m looking forward to getting in my PEAK Chevy at home.” 

So is Alex Miladinovich, who runs his Hot 4 Teacher Toyota out of Orange, as well. That’s where their Funny Car competitor Paul Lee is based, but his car stays at the Stringer Motorsports shop in Southern Illinois rather than Southern California. That makes Worsham’s organization the only fulltime Funny Car team to anchor itself here.

"Well, we don't race as much on the West Coast anymore,” Worsham said. “Logistically, it just makes sense to be more centrally located. Back then, the way race teams worked was we traveled race to race, including the drivers and the crew chiefs. You all got in the rig and loaded up your tow vehicle and drove to the next race, where you worked on your car in the parking lot. We unloaded, then ran our race. Besides national events, we ran a lot of exhibition races and match racing. You would run IHRA. You just did a lot of racing. You didn't spend a whole lot of time at home. 

“Then, as NHRA progressed and there were more events, it became obvious that you couldn't do the smaller side events and exhibitions. It just made sense to become more centrally located, where you could go back every week and re-load and re-stock and go to the next race,” he said. “That's when the whole Brownsburg thing came in.” 

The “Whole Brownsburg Thing” has changed the rather sleepy Indianapolis-area outpost into a hot new zip code for drag racers in the past few years. The State of Indiana, Hendricks County, and Brownsburg have been collaborating to establish a motorsports-centric community. Developing business relationships with the motorsports industry via attractive economic incentives, connections between the industry and schools, and growth initiatives is the top financial strategy. Because of its central location about seven miles west of the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the town has become a hub for race teams. 

Kasey Coler, manager at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, has served on the steering committee for the town’s Economic Development Strategic Plan. And the main arteries (for drag-racing teams) – Northfield Drive and Southpoint Circle – have taken on th nickname “Nitro Alley,” although it’s home to teams from other forms of motorsports, as well. 

Geographically and financially, the lure of Brownsburg makes sense. Just the same, Worsham is entrenched in California. 

“My dad [Chuck Worsham] first got involved around 1976 with a local guy from Southern California in an Alcohol Funny Car. My dad became his partner and eventually owned the car by the late ’70s. We did that all the way through the '80s, until about 1987. We were introduced to Art Hinde, who was a boat racer, who wanted to go Funny Car racing. He came on board as a partner, and he definitely upped our program,” he said. 

“My first race I ever entered was the Winston Finals in 1990 [at Pomona Raceway, known today as Auto Club Raceway at Pomona]. I qualified 12th and got beat by Ed McCulloch in the first round. Then in 1991, I started touring full-time. Then I won in April 1991,” he said.  

So it’s only natural that he would say, “Pomona is still a special place. It's awesome. Growing up, I'd miss school on those days to get to go to the races. I'd run around the track, taking pictures, like I did at Orange County Raceway . . . but those weren't national events. But Pomona is when you got to go to the Winternationals and see everybody's new stuff. 

“We didn't have the Internet or the media coverage we have today, so I'd be on my doorstep, waiting for the mailman to deliver National Dragster (the NHRA’s official publication) to see what was new, then get to go to the Winternationals and see all the new cars and see what guys like Kenny Bernstein and Don Prudhomme were going to bring out. It was exciting,” Worsham said. 

Worsham has won series championships in both Top Fuel and Funny Car (as one of only three to do so, joining Bernstein and Gary Scelzi) as a driver. But a Winternationals trophy is one he hasn’t snagged yet.  

“I've won Pomona multiple times in my career, but I've never won the Winternationals. I've runner-upped multiple times, so it would be really cool to win the Winternationals even as a crew chief,” he said. “Alexis is a Southern California girl. So we have huge ties to the area, and I think it would be a great place to get that first win.” 

De Joria, whose home base is near Austin, Texas, these days still is a Southern California girl at heart. Her old haunt is Venice Beach. And right here at Pomona, as a teenager, De Joria fell in love with drag racing.  

“Southern California was always known for Funny Car racing,” the ROKiT Toyota Camry driver said. “I was born and raised in Southern California. The first time I ever went to the drag races was Pomona for the Winternationals. I knew right then that's what I wanted to do with my life is drive a nitro Funny Car. 

“Pomona's very special to the Funny Car class, which has always been very big in Southern California,” she said. “DC Motorsports is based in Orange, Calif., out of Del's shops, and we're the only ones left in nitro full-time.” 

As for her own performances, she said, “I've gotten a No. 1 qualifier there, but I've never been to a final round in Pomona. That's something I'd desperately like to do in front of my sponsors, my family, and my friends. Hopefully, we can get it done. We're on a good roll right now.” 

She has qualified No. 2 five times in the past nine races and reached four semifinals or better in the past six events, including a runner-up showing two weeks ago at Denver. 

“I have a good feeling about Pomona,” De Joria said. 

So do fans. California has allowed racetracks to re-open at Sonoma (last weekend) and Pomona for this race. The Finals are set to come back here in November. So their world once again is in its proper orbit.  

For Force, he’s seeking his record-extending 17th victory. He has won the Winternationals seven times, most recently in 2015. In 2020, one of only two pre-pandemic events, he scored a runner-up finish. Force and Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Angelle Sampey are the only active winning drivers from the 50th Anniversary NHRA Nationals in July 2001. Top Fuel’s Doug Herbert and Pro Stock’s Jeg Coughlin Jr. also won in that only other event in NHRA history contested here during the summer. Force also is one of only two pro drivers (Coughlin is the other) to have won three different races at Auto Club Raceway. Force has qualified at the top of the order 16 times at this track, 10 of those times at the Winternationals. 

YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE – Doug Kalitta could use a break right now, and the Mac Tools Dragster driver probably can think of no better racetrack to have next on the schedule. It’s a bit odd for the Camping World Drag Racing Series to find itself at “the Winternationals” in August, at Pomona, Calif., which traditionally is the first stop on the tour in February.

But maybe it’s an omen for the driver who, uncharacteristically, hasn’t advanced beyond the quarterfinals in the past four races, not since his runner-up finish at Houston. This usually is the place Kalitta jumps to a command and rides the early-season momentum – since 2004, he has won the Winternationals four times in nine final-round appearances.

“That place has a ton of history for a guy like me. I have had good luck there,” he said, eager to “go to a place like Pomona, where you are real confident and it has been really good to you. Getting back there is another great opportunity to win again. It is going to be a lot of fun for sure [to] end the Western Swing there.”
 
Last weekend, upstate at Sonoma, Kalitta made a strong first-round run and lost a close quarterfinal race to eventual winner Steve Torrence. The Rob Flynn-/Troy Fasching-led crew reportedly made improvements to the tune-up, and that led to minimal engine issues – and the feeling the team can get aggressive without risking serious parts damage.
 
“We had a good run first round,” Kalitta said following the Sonoma Nationals last Sunday. “We are finally to a point now where we can actually race this Mac Tools Dragster. There were a few races we were out there in survival mode, and I think we have that behind us now. We’re turning the corner. After today we have a lot more confidence in what we’re doing. Everything looks really good. We can start turning the screws up on this race car and see what we can do.”

Kalitta entered the weekend in eighth place in the standings, but he’s just 40 points (or two rounds) out of fourth place. He knows the drill – just three more events after this one until the Countdown to the Championship begins after the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis. But he isn’t looking too var ahead: “We are looking forward to these next few races leading up to Indy. This weekend our focus is 100 percent on doing well at the Winternationals and finishing the Western Swing on a high note.” 

A POSITIVE TREND STARTING? – Top Fuel owner-driver Jim Maroney enters an NHRA national event when he has the opportunity with both time and finances. And he said he can’t see any advantage to being a part-timer, other than saving money. He’s a racer, and he wants to race. 

At least he can have some satisfaction in knowing that part-timers play a valuable role in “The Show.” 

“As you can tell by recent car counts, there are fewer full-time teams than ever,” he said. 

This week’s Western Swing finale has attracted just 13 dragsters. 

“Without the part-time racer, the [16-car] fields would probably be down to eight cars,” Maroney said. “When it takes $2-3 million a year to campaign a full-time team, without corporate involvement, most people can’t do it. This is the exact reason we are a part-time team. My team is funded though my company, American Flowtech. Bottom line is when funds are down, we don’t race.”  

However, he said he’s seeing a positive trend coming from that. 

“There seems to be a trend of ‘new’ part-time racers, most of which I believe are people that might have a dollar and want to full fill that lifetime dream,” he said. “I can’t blame anyone for doing it. I did the same thing with Terry Haddock. Fortunately or unfortunately, I got the bug really bad and decided to take a stab at doing it on my own.  

“I think you’ll see that trend grow, and I think it’s good for the sport. Hopefully these part-time teams will be able to step up and run competitive numbers. Everyone wants to root for the underdog,” Maroney said. 

Of course, it comes with one major drawback: It’s difficult to get that Top Fuel adrenaline rush, then have to shelve that thrill for months. 

He said, “It’s very hard. I’m a racer. I’ll race just about anything. In a perfect world, I’d be able to compete full-time, but I can’t. So I have to fill the void with other venues. In our house, we work hard and play even harder. In addition to the Top Fuel dragster, I have three other drag cars: a non-wing sprint car and three boats. I think it’s actually harder on my crew. They are all volunteer, and it’s hard to stay motivated to spend time at the shop, prepping for the next event, when it’s months away.”   

PEOPLE KEY INGREDIENT TO BROWN’S SUCCESS – A quarter-century ago, Funny Car privateer Al Hofmann was talking about how the sport required “cubic dollars.” Today the need is just as great, probably greater. A racer has to be extraordinarily boardroom-savvy. 

Antron Brown, who has a business-administration degree and can hold his own when it comes to securing and satisfying marketing partners, understands the financial demands as he prepares to launch his own team – and he has a solution.

“That’s the whole thing. It just multiplies – and multiplies and multiplies,” he said. “But the thing about it is if you do it right – like, that’s the game plan – if you surround yourself with the right people and you do it right, it’s just like anything else: If you do something great and you want to win championships, you’ve got to surround yourself with the best people. That’s what it all boils down to. When you do that, that’s when unbelievable things happen.”

Brown said that waiting to start his program was worth it if it meant having the personnel he wanted.

“I had different opportunities. I had opportunities plenty of times,” he said. But when the urge might have been strong, his trusted crew chief, Brian Corradi, moved to John Force Racing to tune Courtney Force’s Funny Car.

“When Brian left and went to John Force Racing, it wasn’t because he wanted to leave Top Fuel or wanted to leave our team. He was just ready for something new. He wanted to go tune in Funny Car and win in Funny Car. He was a Funny Car crew chief before he was a dragster crew chief. And he won in that,” Brown said.

“At the time, I couldn’t make that switch or that change. [He told Corradi,] ‘If that’s what you want to do, man, do it.’ You can never hold somebody back. We always remained brothers. That’s my brother. So we all remained family. It didn’t make a difference. When you need somebody to talk to, he’d come talk to me and I’d go talk to him. That relationship never changed – never changed,” he said.

And Brown decided, “I was in that train of thought, in my mindset at that time, it was like, ‘We won’t switch to Funny Car just yet.’ I’d like to race Funny Car one day, without a doubt. But with the opportunity that had arisen for Brian, I took myself out of my shoes – I didn’t want to be selfish. The selfish me goes, ‘No, you can’t go. I don’t want to you go.’ But then I thought, ‘That’s my brother. I want the best for him.’ And the opportunity he had was incredible. It was an all-star contract. We just won three championships, two back-to-back. And he got offered the deal of a lifetime to go. It was a perfect opportunity.

“He said, ‘I won’t go if you don’t want me to go.’ I said, ‘Look, I don’t want you to go. Absolutely not. Don’t even ask me that question. That ain’t even a question,’” Brown said. “I said, ‘Brian, do what you want to do. Trust me, there’ll be time down the road. I’m not there yet.’ I always talked about owning a team, but it was not near my mindset at the time. There were no means. We had just signed a new deal with Matco at DSR. We did all kinds of different stuff. So my next few years were already etched in stone.”

After a couple of years, Corradi returned to DSR and Brown’s team, and the plan was back on track as Brown put in many one-on-one study and preparation sessions with Don Schumacher.

Brown said having that steadfast core of crew chiefs and team leaders such as Corradi, Mark Oswald, and Brad Mason gave him the confidence to pull the trigger on becoming an independent Top Fuel team owner.

“That’s what made me able to do it. We’re all doing it together. There’s no way I would have done this on my own. There’s no way that I would have gone out and said, ‘Hey, this is what I want to do: start from scratch and do this and do that.’ For me, it was something strategic where I started doing all of this, I reached out to all the people that are in my family,” Brown said.

“When you have people who want to be somewhere and want to do something, that’s when they’re at their best,” he said. “The crazy part is when you’re so comfortable. Like, I can communicate with Brian without even talking to him. Same thing with Mark. I can look at him, and he already knows what I’m thinking and I know what he’s thinking.”

Many look to Brown, 45, as the new face of team ownership, but the Matco Tools/Toyota/Sirius XM Dragster driver downplayed that and dismissed the notion that the growth of the sport is on his shoulders.

“It’s not just by being a team owner that’s making it better. I think the way to make is better is that we all do it together: the sanctioning body, the teams, the drivers, all the partners that are involved, and all the tracks. It takes all of us together. That’s what makes it better,” he said. “I see it’s already in that realm right now. The more and more I talk with NHRA and see the NHRA tracks where now it’s starting to come together, where it is together, because that’s what it takes. It takes everybody, not just us from the owners’ spot trying to make it better. It’s that we’ve got to be in it together, really be in it, and have more of a sharing deal. When you have a pro show, everybody comes in and you know who does what and you help the teams out that way. That’s the way I see the teams getting stronger and better, that we’re all getting better and stronger together.

“The thing about it is hopefully I can be motivation for some people out there to say, ‘Hey, AB’s doing it. I can do it.’ And it helps them figure out how much to put in and how they need to work to do what they need to do. That’s all it is,” Brown said. “A lot of people are gun-shy. I think there’s a lot of people that should be capable of being team owners. They put their heart and soul into it. Team ownership’s not made for everybody, of course. But if you put yourself with the right people and the right partners, it makes it that much easier.” 

He reminded, “I owned my own Pro Stock Bike team a long time ago. Different people make different deals of different things. The cool part is it’s a young owner coming in. It’s going to be a new deal. And that’s the excitement. And hopefully it’s exciting because what it’ll do – what I hope comes out of it – is that it motivates and energizes other people into saying, ‘Hey, we can do it, too. Let’s go fuel racing. Let’s go nitro racing. Let’s go Funny Car racing.’ It may shake some people up. Look at Josh Hart stepping out this year. We need more teams like this to do that. And that’s what this is all about, for me.” 

FORCE-TORRENCE CHALLENGE STILL HOT – No. 3-ranked Brittany Force continues her relentless pursuit of Steve Torrence’s command in the Top Fuel standings – and not just in eliminations. She’s dogging him in the qualifying bonus points race, as well, because every single point counts and possibly could decide a championship. So far, he has 35 to her 25, but she outscored him 6-3 at Sonoma last weekend. And it’s all swirling around No. 2-seeded Antron Brown.

Torrence has qualified No. 1 three times this year, but Force has aced him out. She scored back-to-back top-qualifying honors at Denver and Sonoma for four so far this season.

At Sonoma, they qualified 1 and 2 for the fourth time in nine races this season – and Force was the higher qualifier each time. However, he has won on each of those occasions (at Las Vegas, Charlotte, Denver, and Sonoma). And he has beaten her in their only two head-to-head matches this year, both in final rounds (at Charlotte and Norwalk, Ohio).

At the first race of the Western Swing, the Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver, Force’s Flav-R-Pac Dragster team set a track elapsed-time record during qualifying. She also had the track record at the Summit Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio. And at the Charlotte four-wide event, Force set both ends of the zMAX Dragway record. So she has methodically improved from as far back in the standings as 10th to third at the outset of the Pomona race. 

“We’ve had great performance at our last couple races. Unfortunately, we’ve just come up short, made some mistakes, but we are keeping heads up,” Force said. “Luckily, with this three-in-a-row Western Swing, we get to head right into the next race.” She’s feeling comfortable as the tour is “wrapping up the Western Swing at my home track, Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.” 

She got to race at just two events in her pandemic-derailed 2020 season, here and at Phoenix. And she was top qualifier at both of those races. Overall, she has two No. 1 qualifiers and a victory at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. Most memorably, she swept at the Auto Club Finals in November 2017, as low qualifier and race winner as she clinched her Top Fuel title. 

“This is my home track and a track I’ve had some success at in the past. I’m looking forward to getting this Flav-R-Pac dragster qualified in the show and going rounds on race day,” Force said. “This team is looking to turn our luck around this weekend.”

SALINAS STAYS WITH BLAINE TRIBUTE DRAGSTER – Mike Salinas is hoping the crowd will get to appreciate his tribute livery to Top Fuel legend Blaine Johnson for a few more rounds than they were able to last Sunday. He has brought to Pomona the Blaine Johnson throwback Travers Tools Dragster that salutes the blue-and-gold race car in which Blaine Johnson – younger brother of Salinas’ multi-time-champion tuner Alan Johnson – won the Sonoma race 25 years ago. The sport lost him to an accident just 34 days later, at the 1996 U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis.

The back side of the rear wing displays the slogan “Champions Flight XXV.” That was the name proudly decaled on the rear wing of every one of Alan Johnson’s team cars in the years following Blaine’s loss to pay tribute to the rising star and to keep his memory alive. “XXV” and the Brandon Baker design represents the 25th-year anniversary of that victory at Sonoma Raceway, the Johnson family’s home track. 

The tribute livery was a surprise for Alan Johnson, a combination of a belated Fathers Day gift from daughter Melanie Johnson, the team’s publicist, and simply a token of respect from Scrappers Racing crew chief Brian Husen, who has worked with Johnson for 18 seasons and has shared his past nine series championships. 

During the recent event at Epping, N.H., Alan Johnson tuned the Scrappers Dragster remotely from his home at Santa Maria, Calif., and that gave Melanie Johnson and Husen the chance to discuss their preparations freely and plot to keep it a surprise. They received the blessings of Salinas and Travers Tool Co., and they let Alan’s mother, Agnes, and sister, Pam, in on the planning.  

A week ago Thursday evening, Alan and Melanie Johnson arrived at Sonoma Raceway to view the car privately. The Scrappers Racing Top Fuel crew had unloaded the car earlier in the day and parked it inside one of the onsite garages and secretly transferred the pre-wrapped body panels from the spare car to the race car. Melanie Johnson said that “it was especially important to me that my dad got to see the car before any other teams or fans. And I know the crew is so honored and excited to run this car, knowing how special it is for him and our whole family.” 

In 2018, Salinas ran the English Leather paint scheme of the late Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen. 

Salinas said he never had met Blaine Johnson but told Competition Plus last Friday, “I was one of those guys on the other side of the ropes and the other side of the fence and on TV watching [him]. It's a touching experience. I hope I can live up to the driving part of it, you know? Just to be as good as he was." 

Salinas took the special Scrappers Racing entry to the No. 5 qualifying position that weekend but bowed out in the first round. He staked the Scrappers team to a tentative second place Friday night at Pomona, the track at which Blain Johnson earned his first nitro victory. 

NASTY, HOT – AND PERFECT FOR TODD – Funny Car’s JR Todd has been in the Winternationals winners circle at Pomona before, in 2007 – in a Top Fuel dragster. If he can repeat the feat in his DHL Toyota Camry this weekend, the Kalitta Motorsports driver will join Hall of Famers Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, and Gary Scelzi as only the fourth to win this event in both nitro categories. 

“You look at the drivers that have won Funny Car and Top Fuel at any event and they are all Hall of Famers, like Prudhomme or Bernstein. You definitely would like to see your name on a list with those guys,” Todd said. “But we are really just focusing on getting the best qualifying position and then getting as many round wins as possible on Sunday. The rest will take care of itself.” 

So what he’s paying more attention to is the blistering heat and track conditions here at this historic racetrack. 

“Those conditions are the kind of conditions I like,” he said. “I feel like we run really well when it is hot and nasty out like that. There is no doubt in my mind it will be like that, and I am sure it is going to be tricky with the sun on the track. I love going to Pomona.” 

He said it’s “weird being [here] in the middle of the summer and not February to start the season.”

Todd is in sixth place in the standings but less than three rounds out of third place and less than 100 points behind Funny Car leader Bob Tasca. Todd led the standings after winning the season-opening Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., and was no worse than fourth in the order until last week at Sonoma, where he dropped a couple of places with a quarter-final finish. But he’s aiming to climb back up among the class’ elite. 

Todd has won all of his first-round matches except at Denver, and that is a class-best distinction. 

“We just need to get three good qualifying runs and then string together some good runs on race day,” he said. “We have been aggressive, and I like that. There are a handful of races before the Countdown, and we definitely want to be as high up in the points as possible when they get reset. A good weekend at the Winternationals would go a long way.” 

He was sixth in the provisional order at the end of Friday’s action.