Winners break through at Route 66 Nats
Written by Sheila Scarborough · June 9, 2008
The Route 66 NHRA Nationals in Joliet, IL (a bit south of Chicago) are held halfway through the regular NHRA racing season, and the who’s in/who’s out of the top drivers is starting to coalesce.
Tony Schumacher grabbed the provisional pole on Friday with a 4.513 at 331.69 mph and didn’t let go of the Top Fuel lead position, holding it all the way to win the Wally today in his second final round of the season against “Hot Rod” Fuller.
“Fuller said that we were ‘Dark Side Racing,’ and I would call that a ‘Dark Side’ wrath,” joked Schumacher. “You can throw names out, but the right word to say is ‘champion.’ We earned that name. The rivalries will come later in the season. If you are going to make a rivalry, step. Me and Doug Kalitta had a great rivalry and never had to say anything.
“The race we had against Vandergriff in the first round was fun [it was a big-time pedalfest] but we should’ve got beat. If you give Alan Johnson one mulligan — he plays golf a lot — he’ll get it figured out and be hard to beat.”
This weekend was also the US Army’s 233rd birthday, so timing was auspicious.
Thunderstorms and tornadic activity near Route 66 Raceway made for a few stops and starts in the action, including some Saturday delays that helped to set up runs in slightly cooler weather.
Melanie Troxel knocked off Friday’s provisional number one qualifier Ashley Force to become the first woman ever to win low qualifier in Funny Car. The run that gave her the pole also featured a big explosion and wall-crunch by Tony Pedregon, her opponent in the other lane.
“You come into any given race and it’s such a tight field, you know it’s going to be a struggle just to qualify,” Troxel said. “We got down the track on Friday but not in the nighttime session and came into today not even in the field, so that’s always a stressful way to start out the weekend. We laid a good number down out there in the third qualifying session, especially for the heat of the day, and we were pretty happy with that, but to be honest with you I thought we’re coming up to try a few different things, get down the track.
“Honestly, I’d never run a .70 before, so I wasn’t really anticipating that we were going to take that No. 1 spot away. But I knew the second I hit the throttle the car was on seriously good run, and it was quite a handful out there. At the same time that I’m trying to wrestle it and keep it in the center of my lane, I see Tony (Pedregon) in the other lane going up in a ball of flames. It was a pretty wild ride.”
Pedregon recovered from the accident to work his way to the finals Sunday and beat Scott Kalitta with a 4.818 at 319.75 mph .“That little incident last night took me back to the beginning of the year,” said Pedregon. “We had a low-flash fire that I thought would go out. It seemed routine, but it gradually got worse. It wiped the chassis out, so we had to roll one out that we haven’t run before. I felt good about it, though; I learned not to fall in love with race car parts.
“I’ve been doing this a lot of years, but this is the first time I’ve had a race where we’ve bounced back like this. We rose from the ashes after
In Pro Stock, Kurt Johnson had to get past Mike Edwards, a squeaker over Greg Anderson and then his father Warren Johnson to get to the finals, where he beat Jeg Coughlin.
“This is such a highly-competitive class,” said Johnson. “I felt like I should have done a better job on the starting line, but ‘Big Blue’ — the ACDelco Cobalt — bailed me out every time. We made four big changes in the car last night, and we made a good, fast run this morning.
“The way this class has been this year is scary. It’s like, ‘What the heck have we been doing out here?’ I raced Dad in the semifinals, and I thought it was the kiss of death because there were eight winners in the first nine races and he was the only guy who hasn’t won that was in the semi’s.”
Chris Rivas had a dynamite weekend in Pro Stock Motorcycle, winning the low qualifier award and then continuing on to his first Wally, punching through crosswinds and beating Craig Treble.
“I’ve been waiting for this for such a long time and felt I was so past due in getting it,” said Rivas. “We did so good so early with my other team that I felt like we would be dangerous all the time. When I went with Matt Smith and the Torco team [in 2007], I thought that would be it; it didn’t happen. When G2 Motorsports called me up and George Smith talked to me about riding, I thought, ‘This is it for sure. If I can’t do it with this team, I might as well retire.’
“Treble tried to play a little bit with me. He was trying a couple of things, and I knew he was doing it, but I didn’t let it shake me. He rushed the first light and brought the rev limiter on before he full-staged. It worked out for him when he did it in the first round but not in the final.”
The next POWERade event is the Lucas Oil SuperNationals at Englishtown, New Jersey, June 19-22.
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What is ESPN’s problem? The broadcast of the Route 66 race cut off right before semi-finals! ESPN didn’t expain anything, they just went to a commercial and came back with COLLEGE BASEBALL?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Does ANYONE even CARE about college baseball? What kind of ad revenue does COLLEGE BASEBALL bring into ESPN? I am beyond livid about this! I sent a scathing email to ESPN and I griped at my cable company too!
We NHRA fans should all flood ESPN with angry emails.