Thunder in the Valley
Written by Sheila Scarborough · May 17, 2008
The weather is cooperating at one of drag racing’s most picturesque facilities; the Bristol Dragway that zooms between mountains in eastern Tennessee.
Top Fuel’s Tony Schumacher held onto his Friday night 4.502 run at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, and grabbed his second pole of the season; good thing, since Saturday was mostly tire-smoking.
“The first thing Alan [Johnson, crew chief] had to say this morning was, ‘We didn’t have to run a .50-flat or a .43, we just need to find out where the limit is and we found it,” said Schumacher. “I can’t enjoy racing on Sunday when we haven’t already found that limit, because you’re going to find it eventually, and I’d hate to find it Sunday.
“I’m as comfortable as I’ve ever been; the car is driving fantastic, the racetrack is outstanding, and it’s going to be great. There’s still a little something strange going on because yesterday we thought we could run 4.40s but only ran 4.50 and everyone else was behind us, so there’s still something out there giving us a curveball, but I would rather drive A.J.’s car any day of the week when all is wrong than drive anyone else’s car.”
Connie Kalitta’s crew had an excellent showing, with Dave Grubnic, Doug Kalitta and Hillary Will all in the top five. Antron Brown continued his consistent performance since switching to Top Fuel, with a 4th place qualifying position.
Mike “Zippy” Neff claimed his first pole in Funny Car since taking over the John Medlen-tuned Old Spice Mustang for John Force Racing.
“Today when the sun was out I knew that first session today it would have been difficult to run better than .78,” said Neff, “and tonight I started thinking that we might be able to do it, then Robert Hight fired a great run as did Ashley with an .82. Those were two impressive runs, but we held on and we’re happy. It’s an awesome feeling for us to do this for Old Spice, which as put so much into our program this season. I owe this all to John Medlen, who makes the calls and makes it perform like he does.
“We’re starting to get a little bit of momentum and the performance of the car is there,” he said when asked how far off his first win might be, “and tomorrow the conditions are going to be good for racing, and our chances are as good as anyone else’s.”
It’s getting a little rough this season for Tommy Johnson, Jr. (DNQ last three races) and Jack Beckman (this is his second straight DNQ.)
“To DNQ two races in a row is difficult to accept,” said the popular, fan-friendly Beckman. “Clearly this is something that if we want to remain a top-10 car we need to fix now. We have four Funny Cars here at Don Schumacher Racing and we need to pick up the performance on all of them. It’s time to put our heads together collectively and sort through the issues. It’s a very difficult position for [new crew chief] Johnny West. He came in, changed some things on the race car and we got four runs. It showed a lot of promise on run three. Unfortunately, it spun the tires further down track than you would expect, and dropped a couple of cylinders and made a hard move left.
“And then we thought we had what we needed for Q4 and we were looking at the run (on the computer) and there’s nothing obvious about it. It’s just trying to marry 8000 horsepower to the concrete out there and it wasn’t ready for it.”
At least Beckman gets to keep driving in one capacity — fans voted for him to take the pole for tonight’s NHRA Circle Track Challenge driving street stock cars for 25 laps.
W.J. and K.J. make it a Johnson family affair for the number one and number two qualifying positions in Pro Stock, with “The Professor” Warren Johnson’s 6.674 at 207.43 mph setting a track record. They’ve started at 1-2 during 36 events in their careers.
“Both Kurt and I have been working on our cars way overtime,” said W.J., who with Kurt tested at the track a week before the event. “I did my part in figuring out how to get more horsepower and then we turned it over to the crew to figure out how to get it down the track, and it’s coming together quite nicely.
“We’ve got a few areas to work on still, but hopefully we can shore them up in the next race or two and be competitive the rest of the season.”
The list of DNQs is always long in hyper-competitive Pro Stock, and this weekend it’s current POWERade champ Jeg Coughlin going home early (his last DNQ was in Topeka in 2004.)
The field does include guys like former NBA star Tom Hammonds, who finally made the show after multiple tries and starting his own engine program.
Top Fuel final qualifying positions
1. Tony Schumacher 4.502 (ET) 327.59 (mph)
2. David Grubnic 4.526 311.85
3. Doug Kalitta 4.536 320.66
4. Antron Brown 4.542 330.15
5. Hillary Will 4.570 323.50
6. Brandon Bernstein 4.571 328.86
7. Doug Herbert 4.578 316.97
8. J.R. Todd 4.584 328.30
9. Rod Fuller 4.584 322.73
10. Larry Dixon 4.586 321.19
11. Bob Vandergriff 4.598 319.37
12. Cory McClenathan 4.605 317.72
13. Morgan Lucas 4.728 312.50
14. Todd Paton 5.758 157.15
15. Troy Buff 7.602 308.50
16. Alan Bradshaw 11.289 85.45
Funny Car final qualifying positions
1. Mike Neff 4.783 (ET) 321.04 (mph)
2. Jim Head 4.785 323.89
3. Ashley Force 4.792 324.98
4. Tim Wilkerson 4.802 318.24
5. Robert Hight 4.803 311.63
6. Tony Pedregon 4.821 319.67
7. John Force 4.821 308.78
8. Bob Tasca III 4.823 318.02
9. Ron Capps 4.831 317.79
10. Cruz Pedregon 4.831 313.29
11. Melanie Troxel 4.839 318.62
12. Del Worsham 4.842 322.65
13. Gary Densham 4.880 310.27
14. Gary Scelzi 4.896 313.22
15. Jerry Toliver 4.901 314.09
16. Tony Bartone 4.904 288.52
——— Not Qualified ———
17. Mike Ashley 4.916 313.07
18. Jack Beckman 4.932 318.84
19. Tommy Johnson Jr. 4.936 301.00
20. Bob Gilbertson 4.967 318.77
21. Scott Kalitta 7.306 308.00
Pro Stock final qualifying positions
1. Warren Johnson 6.674@ (ET) 207.43& (mph)
2. Kurt Johnson 6.685 206.29
3. Greg Anderson 6.699 205.66
4. Allen Johnson 6.704 205.32
5. V. Gaines 6.709 204.26
6. Dave Connolly 6.711 205.54
7. Ron Krisher 6.717 205.22
8. Greg Stanfield 6.720 204.51
9. Jason Line 6.725 205.91
10. Todd Hoerner 6.727 204.98
11. Tom Hammonds 6.730 203.77
12. Max Naylor 6.731 202.91
13. John Nobile 6.734 205.41
14. Jim Yates 6.734 202.58
15. Johnny Gray 6.735 204.54
16. Mike Edwards 6.736 204.94
——— Not Qualified ———
17. Steve Schmidt 6.737 204.82
18. Larry Morgan 6.737 203.86
19. Jeg Coughlin 6.739 205.13
20. Dave Northrop 6.739 204.08
21. Kenny Koretsky 6.740 204.20
22. Matt Hartford 6.742 204.48
23. Rickie Jones 6.751 204.66
24. Justin Humphreys 6.758 204.35
25. Steve Spiess 6.771 203.86
26. Rickie Smith 6.795 203.28
27. Ben Watson 6.795 202.09
28. Vinnie Deceglie 6.815 202.52
@ = Track ET Record
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