Tumbling down the track like tossed dice, a qualifying run turned very wrong, Joe DeSantis and his Suzuki finally rolled to a hard eight stop at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Turns out the Ohio-based elder statesman of Pro Stock Motorcycles, a Metallica devotee, unintentionally set the tone for those dealing for points at the NHRA Countdown to the Championship table: “Sad But True,” it was a wreck.
ESPN selected the compelling DeSantis video to promote the qualifying show during college football preceding the NHRA broadcast – I was with a group spellbound by the images – and open both qualifying and final elimination shows from the Big O Tires NHRA Nationals.
Pain of a different sort wracked the emotions of drivers as their fortunes turned on a dime whether driving through tire smoke thick as an old casino’s air, banging blowers more often than rolling sevens, or passing the pay line but earning only gut-wrenching losses.
The Auto Club Ford Mustang of Funny Car championship contender Robert Hight twisted sideways in his “wild ride” as announcer Mike Dunn called the first-round loss to Tony Pedregon’s Herzog Chevy Impala. This lap virtually eliminates Hight from partaking in the Countdown table’s bounty.
Even Pedregon’s ride “had some problems,” noted Dunn, who provided the missing audio of the fiery scene: “Ka-boom!”
The resilience of drag racers comes through in scenes like reporter Gary Gerould interviewing the losing Hight. Pointing out the example of the St. Louis Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series after so close to elimination, Hight was stoic in his belief, “You never give up.”
Mike Neff portrayed the ideal first-round attitude as “(You) hope to have your ‘A’ game here.” Dunn proclaimed that just like his teammate Hight, Neff was out at the same point in the same lane.
“I backed a few things off,” the surprised tuner/driver said. “That’s a kick.”
With all of these changes, “The points will jumble up again,” surmised lead announcer, Paul Page.
Then it was John Force absorbing the carnage of results from his team: both Countdown contenders were gone. Reporter Dave Rieff carried the assignment to get comments before the 15-time champion’s lap against points leader Jack Beckman.
However, Force only waxed philosophical, “I’m always happy. It’s my job to take the other three out.”
Page was quizzical. “Who was that guy? One sentence?” poking at the talkative Force. Maybe it was something to do with Halloween ghosts as Dunn said, “Where’s John Force? Who took over?”
The Beckman vs. Force lap was the last pair, as Page noted the brackets (and other team’s choices) had saved the best for last. “This one is enormous” for John Force Racing, but such sentiments did not preclude the Countdown witch from sweeping the track of all Force entrants.
ESPN “Statman,” Lewis Bloom, rolled this gem on the felt: “Three (Force) cars out like Dallas. I don’t know guys, it’s hard to win a championship losing first round,” sounding every bit like novelist Joan Didion, who penned, “You can’t win if you’re not at the table.”
The eliminations broadcast opened with Matt Hagan fighting to capture the championship for his DieHard Dodge Charger, the one that slipped away on the last day in Pomona last season. “The biggest gamble of his life” waited at the table.
The camera finds Hagan gearing up in the staging lanes, a solemn look of winning etched on his face ... until first round opponent Tim Wilkerson suddenly appears, mugs right in the camera, and then hugs Hagan, who breaks out in a laugh.
Even though Wilkerson lost that round, he has to be a racer’s cheerleader, the go-to-guy when throws of the die are landing on their side. I would seek the source of Wilk’s secret sauce, his foundation of handling the randomness of Countdown cubes. Certainly some nitro players could have used more than a few sips.
Both Beckman and Hagan had chances to trump the class with points, but both were tossed out consecutively by NAPA’s Ron Capps Dodge Charger and a surging Cruz Pedregon’s Snap-On Toyota, respectively.
Not in the Countdown contention, Capps win affected the leaders in a major way as he continued to plow through the field by taking Pedregon out next. A rarity for the sport of drag racing, Capps bounced back from his shocking DNQ at Phoenix and won in the Funny Car class.
The broadcast put the drama in perspective: “It’s incredible to watch this unfold.”
Reporters caught up to Beckman, now cooling his heels, who quipped, “I’m going in the stands now.”
A proverb says “the devil is in the dice,” and with Halloween’s blessings, there were many fiends controlling nitro classes. Otherwise, why would teammates Tony Shumacher and Antron Brown be forced to meet in the opening stanza, a lap the broadcast called a “make it or break it” round for the Army team?
When champion Shumacher goes up in smoke at half-track, so did his season. “Did you see Tony Schumacher anger?” observed Dunn as the loser tromps away to the far side of the team’s transport vehicle. “(You) don’t see that much.”
In a quarterfinal pairing with Brown and Bob Vandergriff, Page exclaimed “This is huge ... Antron rips this thing right off the line.” His win was sullied as an explosion (“Look at that supercharger,” Dunn said, “just hanging on there!”) left oil with the resultant 10 penalty points deducted.
That was Brown’s last points event of this race as he now sits warily in the third place slot, a kind of purgatory between completely out of the Countdown game yet close enough to fantasize. “That’s drag racing, man!” was Brown’s response before his red-light loss to Al-Anabi’s Worsham.
Al-Anabi’s Larry Dixon, by losing to Copart’s Brandon Bernstein, is now effectively out of the points game. Gerould interviewed him back in the pits. Dunn listened, too, and then commented to the viewers along the lines of it is pretty hard to upset that guy.
Then Bernstein faced a goblin in his ignition as ESPN start line cameraman Nelson Jones captured an unusual scene: a devilish red ignition line glowing with fire, killing his round.
Losing a gut-wrenching final at Maple Grove Raceway Del Worsham looked to be in another room from the Countdown table. Nevertheless, he read his crystal ball clairvoyantly, foreseeing a good day; “I like my chances; it’s all business right now,” an accurate assessment of his Al-Anabi dragster.
“I’m convinced God doesn’t play dice,” Einstein said, but the gods of brackets must because the Top Fuel final in Vegas was reenacted from Maple Grove. Worsham faced nemesis Spencer Massey’s Fram Top Fueler, a team facing its own demons from a DNQ at the previous Phoenix race.
Then Worsham revived his championship hunt with a 10-inch redemption win as the broadcasters were saying, “Such great competition out there! Oh, my goodness, yeah!”
Drag racing fans won at Vegas as the exciting championship path remains open for both nitro classes at yet another event, the season-ending Pomona race.
A key moment in harvesting points for Pro Stock Motorcycle came as Screamin’ Eagle Harley racer Eddie Krawiec awkwardly kissed Angie Smith through her helmet, visor down. Apologizing publicly to his wife at home, he was recognizing the giant favor Smith’s Suzuki did for his championship chances by laying a holeshot win over Hector Arana Jr.’s Lucas Oil Buell.
And since that lap was just the quarterfinals, three of the possible seven remaining rounds of racing for the year were eliminated, a major stroke of good fortune for Krawiec.
Like a 1950’s record, Krawiec crooned, “Hats off to Hector, but I love Angie.”
Facing teammate Andrew Hines’ Screamin’ Eagle Harley in the final round, Krawiec cake-walked the win as Hines had his worst light (“Dead late,” noted Dunn) and slowest ET of the day.
Krawiec sauntered over and shook Hector’s hand telling him, “It’s not over.”
Technically that is correct ... and smart. Why? Because it is never wise to take chance in the Countdown game for granted.
“Statman” made the broadcast’s safe bet early by declaring the Pro Stock championship over. “Unless someone sets the national record,” he was awarding the championship to Jason Line’s Summit Pontiac after his first round, two-inch win over the .009 reaction time for V. Gaines' Kendall Oil Avenger. Two inches the other way, as Bloom explained to me, the story would have been different.
Page was flummoxed: “But you said always wait until it's over!” Perhaps, but this was more fun.
In the semifinals Line clicked a light red as Alan Johnson nailed a .026 RT. Bloom announced, “Jason is the champion” even with a red-light loss.
Gerould poetically informed Line, “In the strangest fashion, you hold a second (Full Throttle) championship trophy.”
When Mike Edwards won the Pro Stock finals in his Penhall / K&N GXP over Johnson’s Mopar Avenger, he happily said, “I kinda like Sin City.” But the devout Christian racer thought better about that, adding “I don’t like sin, but I like Sin City.”
His crew chief, Terry Adams, made it clear: “We love Las Vegas. It’s a good day,” but the damage was already done. Vegas ghouls loosened Edwards’ grip, and he dropped his Pewter Wally.
On the other hand, Krawiec fed his new Wally copious splashes of Full Throttle.
It’s good there’s only one event left.
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