There was no time for relaxing as pressure was the feeling of the weekend with the performances at zMax Dragway never more exciting in the cooler weather.
Indy intensity transferred with no hesitation to the Countdown to the Championship’s first event at Charlotte’s O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals.
Teams not qualified for the Countdown are cutting no slack to those who are. That was proven as No. 4 qualifier Del Worsham’s Al-Anabi Top Fuel Dragster unceremoniously was dumped in the first round by the C&J Energy Services entry of Bob Vandergriff.
Vandergriff just may be exorcizing the chip on his shoulder from lingering Indy failures.
Worsham’s fairytale season and championship hopes may have been squashed in this one round of racing, a point made about teams throughout the broadcast as Mike Dunn’s “you’re done” line moved up and down the pro lists like a yo-yo.
Happily for the affable Worsham, he still ranks above Dunn’s marker, which for Top Fuel is the top five teams. In other words, after the first of six Countdown events, half the Top Fuel field is judged by Dunn out of the hunt.
Drivers, though, were in a philosophical mood.
“The mood in our pit was different than it’s been all year, by a lot,” Tim Wilkerson said.
In pre-recorded interviews with top players, comments such as Robert Hight’s “You gotta rip the heart out of the other guy” were more dominant.
Unfortunately that sentiment often goes on both sides of the track. In this case, Hight’s AAA of Southern California Ford had its heart smoked-out by tires while Cruz Pedregon took advantage in his Snap-On Solara.
Ron Krisher’s Valvoline Pontiac struck out in qualifying and did not make the field. He was one of the first of the Countdown drivers in any pro class to fail this weekend, describing to ESPN, “Not qualifying is a nightmare.”
Points leader and No. 2 qualifier in Pro Stock, Greg Anderson, looked like an early favorite to win the day. Dunn even had his line below Anderson, meaning Jason Line and Anderson were two early contenders to dominate and win the title with their Pontiacs.
Nevertheless, Shane Gray put his Service Central GXP out front in his first-round matchup with Anderson and hung on to bench the Anderson-half of the Summit team.
Dunn exclaimed, “What an upset!” Anderson didn’t panic, though, as he absorbed the blow while noting, “We’re not giving up, we’re coming back.”
Though Line lost his second finals appearance in a row – to a heartfelt fan favorite, Kurt Johnson – he inherited the points lead.
Yet ... Line was not happy. The cameras captured his contorted grimace, confirming there was no question about that.
Johnson had already told reporter Gary Gerould that entering the finals “I’m about ready to jump out of my skin.” After the win, he rated the victory “unbelievable,” and it has “been a sour note” for some time.
Line seemed to hurt even more after his Charlotte defeat than after his loss at Indy. Why shouldn’t he? He lost with an ever-so-slight red light of .003 seconds, and his run down the track indicated he could have won.
Or, as he said, “We had the best car. It is what it is.”
Warren Johnson delivered one of the best comments of the day after his son's win. Pointing out, “We’ve got a small team comparatively,” he went on to explain an undisputable truism: You can “never have too much money, too much horsepower, or too much loving.” That’s about max for the “Professor’s” risqué scale.
Dunn pointed out in qualifying “Someone has to do something early on or Anderson or Line will run away with it.” Leave it to the Pro Stock Johnsons of Sugar Hill, Ga., to be that someone.
A boiling keg of emotion left over from Indy spilled out in the Pro Stock Motorcycle pits. ESPN broadcasters and reporters explained – condensed from several entertaining interviews – the Savoie camp feels Indy winner, Hector Arana Jr. and his crew chief, were messing with the start-line bulbs, flicking them on and off to distract the Cut Off, La. racer. This was, of course, denied.
A better answer, even if untrue, could have been, “Yeah, and so what?” Perhaps teams caught a glimpse of the ESPN film documenting the Savoie alligator farm crawling with reptiles and thought better of going too far lest they end up as a meal for a handbag.
Then, verbal shots were taken at the Screamin’ Eagle Harley teams with the “chicken” word tossed around like so many raw eggs, insulting Eagles nesting everywhere along North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. As only the Gods of Brackets could arrange, Andrew Hines lined up against Savoie in the first round of eliminations, creating keen excitement in the class nice and early.
Hines finally drove around the 1985 Suzuki for the win, and promptly quipped: “This Screamin’ Eagle got to eat some alligator, and it tasted like chicken.”
Broadcaster Paul Page put it in perspective with, “They’re talking smack everywhere now.”
At the day’s conclusion Dunn noted, “We saw emotion, and it’s only the first race of the Countdown!”
Certainly that was the case with Matt Hagan’s DieHard Charger. Hagan set the national ET record and won the race to reinstate his swagger for the first time since his crushing championship defeat at the 2010 Pomona finals.
That championship slipped away there like a helium balloon soaring away from the hand of a kid. But instead of John Force at Pomona, Hagan is now chasing Mike Neff and is in a position to capture the lead at the next event.
He gave Neff his due – “Neff is Superman” – while answering that the team’s view is “pressure is what you put in tires.”
In his post-win interview Hagan was understandably emotional: “I’m a big ole country boy, and I’m about to cry.”
Force may have suffered in this event by running the Honoring Our Heroes Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang, a body he told me “wasn’t working in Indy.”
While at the Castrol Advance Auto Parts 2011 Mustang Sweepstakes, Force talked about the personal impact of meeting the heroes of the 9-11 attack – firemen, policemen, others – convincing him to honor them no matter the consequences. “I’m not pulling the 9/11 body.” That’s a courageous decision.
He qualified poorly with the heavier shell on his car, the gingerly named “Baby Cakes,” and lost a controversial, at least in his view, first-round pairing against Johnny Gray’s Service Central Charger.
ESPN replayed the run multiple times to confirm race officials’ view that Gray did not touch the wall as his Funny Car slapped a warning cone down track.
Force’s eyes saw something else indeed: “(Our) cars are struggling ... I’m aggravated. Johnny lit both bulbs (on the start), and he hit that wall ... I’ve got to get my (stuff) together.” His goal: “I’m going after 16.”
A disappointing race day like the Charlotte event can be just the trigger to laser Force’s focus. “I can turn it on, switch it on” and this aggravation may just do that. “(Our) focus is not to fail.”
Dunn’s line of demarcation has him out of contention, but that is not set in concrete. The champion has a way of surprising. “I gotta dig deep, but I wanna win for the sponsors, and win for me. ... I love my job,” like handing out free Mustangs to sweepstakes winners.
Tommy Ivo, opening the race as the legend-of-the-day, commanded the drivers to “Rip the asphalt off the ground,” which they promptly took to heart. Rieff displayed chunks of it in his hand as the track had broken in patches before the race’s conclusion.
Ivo was the most animated of the legends this year, but with his television and movie experiences, he is a natural performer (see Media Matters reviewing the book documenting his life: “TV” Tommy Ivo - Drag Racing’s Master Showman” bit.ly/qfnq2j).
Early in the broadcast, Gary Gerould identified the Aaron’s Don Schumacher Racing dragster driven by Antron Brown as “the man with momentum. His challenge is to maintain momentum.” Brown, in capturing his third Top Fuel dragster race in a row, handled that challenge with aplomb.
He now is closer to his objective: winning the Full Throttle Championship “so you can bring that big Wally home, you know, the one with the glass case on the bottom.”
Brown’s comments in the winner’s circle were a cool blending of excitement and sponsors: “I’m blessed to be on this team. I have the Aaron’s Dream Machine, and this is a dream.”
His crew chief, Mark Oswald, told Rieff how they coped with computer problems all day: “We did it old school and with a little luck.” Brown ensured expectations remained in check, perhaps a lesson in managing emotions when he commented in closing, “There’s five more (races) to go.”
Drag racing is one tough sport. How can teams handle the emotional ups and downs with dramatic losses such as Worsham and others experienced?
Perhaps an example is with the calmness and cool of Al-Anabi team manager Alan Johnson. His response was “Sometimes things don’t go as you planned,” an insight that transcends a moment of frustration and perhaps the sport itself.
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