| Funny Cars
THE FUNNY FARM
SEATTLE HAS BEEN GOOD
TO FUNNY CAR POINTS LEADER CAPP
KENT, Wash. (July 18, 2007) - NHRA Funny Car points leader Ron Capps is eager to return to the Pacific Northwest for this weekend's Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals, the fifth event of the six-race back-to-back swing that began in Englishtown, N.J., June 22.
Since then, the driver of the Brut "Test Drive" Dodge Charger R/T for Don Schumacher Racing has solidified his hold on first place, and is 154 markers ahead of Robert Hight. His goal now is to settle in to maintain a spot in the top eight to be eligible for the Countdown to the Championship playoff, which begins after the next four races, at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend.
With a Top Fuel win at Pacific Raceways in 1995, his NHRA pro racing rookie year, a 1998 victory in the Funny Car class (defeating John Force), plus a Funny Car runner-up finish in 2001 and last year, Capps is looking forward to his visit here.
"Seattle has always been very good to me," he said. "To get a win here in Top Fuel in my rookie year and to beat guys like (Kenny) Bernstein and Cory Mac (McClenathan), was unbelievable.
"This place has always been a great place to go to. I have been lucky enough to win in Funny Car here in 1998 and I've been close to winning a couple of times since then, including in the final round last year when I was runner-up to my teammate at the time Whit Bazemore."
His other runner-up finish in 2001 was also to Bazemore.
"The characteristics of the track make it challenging, with the bumps it's had in the past," Capps added. "These have been addressed several times, so it's a lot better. Also, the news that they're going to redo the whole place and that they've already started, is a plus.
"The Seattle race is unique, because it's one of the few places we race at where NASCAR does not, so we're very proud of that. And, for some reason, I always have great mojo at this event.
"We're back at sea level and good weather conditions, and that helps the drivers and the crew chiefs after we've been up on the mile-high mountain in Denver (runner-up last Sunday).
"Every time we show up in Seattle we know the power of these nitro engines is probably as high as it's going to get at any circuit we go to. The weather conditions and the atmospheric conditions make that happen. It's just a matter of whether or not the track can hold it."
Capps has the most Funny Car victories of any other driver this season, three.
HIGHT BATTLING MEMORIES
AS TOUR MOVES TO SEATTLE
Auto Club Driver Lost to Friend and Teammate in 2005 Final
SEATTLE, Wash. ? For Robert "Top Gun" Hight, a world class
marksman whose
ability to block out distractions has made him one of the dominant
drivers in the NHRA
POWERade drag racing series, this week's 20th annual Schuck's Auto
Parts Nationals
will provide a major challenge even of his remarkable powers of
concentration.
"It'll be emotional," the 37-year-old driver of the Automobile
Club of Southern
California Ford Mustang said of the team's return this week to Pacific
Raceways,
"because this is the first event we've been to (this year) where Eric
won before."
"Eric" is Eric Medlen, Hight's former crewmate, teammate and
friend, who just four
months ago succumbed to injuries suffered in a testing accident at
Gainesville, Fla.,
thereby dealing a devastating loss, not just to John Force Racing,
Inc., but to the sport
itself.
One of the tour's most popular young stars, Medlen had worked
alongside Hight
for five championship seasons as a crewman on John Force's Castrol GTX?
Ford
Mustangs before getting a once-in-a-lifetime chance to drive one of the
most powerful
Funny Cars on the planet as the successor to departing champion Tony
Pedregon.
Thrown into the mix as a rookie with no previous competitive
experience, Medlen
won a race at Brainerd, Minn., in his first season (2004) while
finishing fifth in points.
His performance amid rampant skepticism paved the way not only for
Hight, but also for
24-year-old Ashley Force, who is in her rookie season in a 330
mile-an-hour Mustang.
All the memories will come rushing back this week at Pacific
Raceways, the
Northwest track on which Medlen won the Schuck's Nationals in 2005 and
set the
existing track record (4.735 seconds). For Hight, though, those
memories will be even
more vivid insomuch as he was in the other lane for the 2005 final.
"I remember we had lane choice," said the 2005 NHRA
Rookie-of-the-Year. "The
right lane has always been the best lane, but the problem is, it can
suck you to the
inside and that's what happened. I got just a little too far inside
and Eric made it down
the bad lane and beat us by a couple feet (.055 of a second)."
Married to Force's oldest daughter Adria and the father of the
14-time champion's
only grandchild, 3-year-old Autumn Danielle, Hight has emerged as the
most likely heir
to the last great sports dynasty.
The only Funny Car driver to have led the POWERade point standings
each of the
last three seasons, he came within a broken supercharger drive belt or
two of beating
his father-in-law to the 2006 championship (he finished second) and
this year has been
the only driver consistently able to handle points leader Ron Capps.
In fact, the former California trapshooting champion has beaten
Capps and the Brut
Dodge in all three meetings this year and in five straight matches
dating back to last
season.
If there is a chink in Hight's armor, it is his recent lack of
consistency, the result of a
chassis change that followed an engine explosion, fire and crash last
May at Topeka,
Kan. Since moving to a back-up car, the seven-time tour winner hasn't
advanced
beyond the second round.
"We just haven't been able to get back in a rhythm (since the
crash)," Hight said.
"When we didn't qualify (at Joliet, Ill., the only such misstep of his
career), we missed
our best chance because we forgot to take the throttle stop off after
the burnout. Then,
last week at Denver, I thought we had a car that could win but a line
came loose in
round two and put oil under the tires. It seems like we're just a
little out of sync.
"It's been really frustrating for Jimmy (crew chief Jimmy Prock),
but I know he'll
figure it out and when he does, we're gonna go out and win this
championship."
SCELZI
EYES FIRST SEATTLE FUNNY CAR WIN
KENT, Wash. (July 19, 2007) - Four-time NHRA champion Gary Scelzi, who says he's stepping down at the end of the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season (he's calling it a sabbatical not a retirement), would like to complete this voyage with a Funny Car class victory at the Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals this weekend. He's won at Pacific Raceways twice in Top Fuel, but never in Funny Car since he joined that category in 2002.
With 35 victories in 56 final rounds notched in his pro career, which began in 1997, the driver of the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T for Don Schumacher Racing has a solid record at this track. Besides his two Top Fuel wins, he won his first Alcohol Funny Car race here in 1992, beating Pat Austin, the popular driver from the Northwest known as the "John Force" of his time in that category. Scelzi has also qualified No. 1 four times here (three in Top Fuel, once in Funny Car), has one runner-up finish in TF in 1997, and still holds the Funny Car top-speed track record here of 325.85 mph, set in 2005.
All those stats of success aside, the Fresno, Calif., native is somewhat ambivalent about his expectations for this weekend's event. "The track is the same it has always been, and it's the way it's always going to be, it seems," he said. "You go there looking for good results because of all the trees around which makes good oxygen, but you know you're going to a race track that needs a facelift.
"You're mainly trying to control all the easy horsepower you make because the air is so good while you're racing on a marginal race track. So, we'll go there and try to manage our power and hopefully we can win.
"The good news is that it's the same for everybody, and hopefully it won't get too hot, because if it gets hot it's really going to be a challenge to get down the track.
"I definitely like racing in Seattle. It's a great location, with terrific restaurants in the area. I just can't wait until they get their new facility done."
Wilkerson ready to go rounds at sea level
SEATTLE, Prerace: The time is here for the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing series tour to stop in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, for the 20th annual Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals. Set at sea level, Pacific Raceways presents the teams with a new set of challenges, completely different from the ones they wrestled with last week in the mile-high altitude of Denver. The talented tuner and driver of the Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car, Tim Wilkerson, is ready for what the majestic Mt. Rainer area has to offer. And he hopes that this weekend's outing will catapult him in the direction he's headed; forward in his strong performance and upward in his POWERade Championship point battle.
Wilkerson struggled in Denver and amassed a pile of broken parts, which resulted in the No. 17 berth. But just a weekend earlier in Bristol, Tenn., Wilkerson captured the prestigious No. 1 spot. So, he knows there is promise inside his beautiful hot rod. He just has to get it to shine through and make it in the show on Sunday.
"Denver and Seattle are so totally different, that we didn't learn anything last week that can help us in Seattle," said Wilkerson. "The only good thing we learned, if you can call it good, is that we got our fuel delivery system problems straightened out. So, this weekend we can concentrate on getting down the track. We need to get the No. 17 off our back and get ourselves into the middle of the pack where we belong.
"It's going to another tough weekend. Seattle is a lot like St. Louis. You make more power than you know. So, it's going to be easy to smoke the tires. We've been doing well not smoking them; so if we're lucky we may be able keep that up. If we can go a few rounds, we can accumulate the points we need. And that would make it a good weekend."
DENVER WINNER BECKMAN
MAKES SEATTLE RETURN
KENT, Wash. (July 19, 2007) - "Fast" Jack Beckman, his wife Jenna and son Jason Russell are touring the country between Denver, Colo., where he won his first NHRA Funny Car national event of the season last Sunday, and Kent, Wash., where he'll be competing in the Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals this weekend.
The "Wally" he earned for his Denver victory is tucked away in the motor coach and Beckman plans to take it out of the closet, he says, to photograph it, a la "The Roaming Gnome," at various tourist sites en route. We'll share those photos with you at a later date.
In his first full season in the Funny Car class and visiting venues where he's never competed in an NHRA pro category, Frank Hawley Drag Racing School instructor and 2003 Super Comp champion Beckman can claim he's raced at Pacific Raceways before, during his brief stint in the Top Fuel class in 2005.
"Yes, I actually raced a Top Fuel dragster in '05 here," he said." It was the only time I had ever been here, and we lost first round."
His focus is not on the past, however, but on the future and to maintain his place in the top eight in points and to earn a spot in the Countdown to the Championship playoff, which begins after the next four races, at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
In the last six races, Beckman has moved from 11th to seventh in the standings after scoring 11 round wins, including a victory!
"Coming off this momentum, our goal is to try to keep the win streak going," said Beckman, who drives the Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T for Don Schumacher Racing. "Rodger (Comstock, CEO of MTS) and Karen (Comstock) will both have their own Super Comp cars in Seattle that they'll be racing. And because Rodger missed Denver it's going to be exciting to see him with 'Wally' for the first time.
"Also, in Seattle, a lot of the legends of the early days of Top Fuel and Funny Car raced here, such as Jerry Ruth and Wayne King. And having those guys come up and even acknowledge you, much less say they're watching you race and enjoying it, is just huge to me.
"I still can't believe when people say to me, 'Yeah, we watch you on TV and we root for you.' Like, what? You mean me?"
Coming off the mile-high mountain in Denver to the sea level of Washington Sate will also have its advantages. "This might be the most dynamic shift of the season from Denver to Seattle," said Beckman."You're going from the worst air to one of the places with the best air. And, the last few years Pacific Raceways has been a fairly tricky race track. So, it could be an interesting combination. The conditions are fantastic for horsepower and it's a tuner's race track, for sure."
FORCE FINALLY A FACTOR
IN RACE TO COUNTDOWN'
14-Time Champ Seeks Eighth Win at Pacific Raceways
SEATTLE, Wash. Those who already had counted John Force out of
the NHRA
title race have grown strangely silent now that the sport's most
prolific winner has driven
himself back into contention for one of the eight berths in the
Countdown to the
Championship.
With only this week's 20th annual Schuck's Nationals and three
other races
remaining before the POWERade points are re-adjusted for the top eight
drivers, Force
is a single round-win away from giving himself a shot at an
unprecedented 15th NHRA
Funny Car championship.
In just two weeks, the 58-year-old drag racing icon and the crew
supporting his
Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang have managed to plug almost all
the leaks in
a ship that an unusually large number of skeptics believed was sinking.
They should have known better.
"I didn't wake up one morning and not know how to drive," Force
said on the eve of
his return to Pacific Raceways, a track on which he has won seven times
in his career,
"and (crew chiefs Austin) Coil and Bernie (Fedderly) didn't wake up not
knowing how to
tune a hot rod. We had some issues, but we're working it out."
Those "issues" put Force in a hole from which few believed he
could extricate
himself. Off to the worst start of his 30-year career, the 14-time
Auto Racing All-
America selection lost in the first round seven times before
mid-season, winning just
two competitive rounds.
Not only that, he saw his ironman qualifying streak ended at 395
consecutive events
when he failed to put the Castrol Ford in the starting lineup for last
April's Summit
Racing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
"We've struggled," Force said. "Everybody knows that. We went
from being one of
the greatest teams in history to being (one of) the worst, but now the
ol Mustang is
starting to talk to me. With all the yellin' and screamin' and
fightin' over here, we kept it
together because we're family."
Languishing in 15th place in Funny Car points after yet another
first round loss three
weeks ago at Norwalk, Ohio, the team opted to make a major change,
scrapping the
chassis they had run for the first 10 races for a fresh one. McKinney
Corporation built
them both.
"Everybody said it's just pipe,'" Force mused, "but every car I
ever had had it's own
personality. We had a car that wouldn't talk to me. So, we put the
new car together,
went out and tested it (the Monday after Norwalk) and here we are."
In his first race out with the new combination, he prevailed at
Bristol, Tenn., claiming
his 123rd career victory and extending to 21 the number of consecutive
seasons in
which he has won at least one NHRA tour event. Last week at Denver, he
might have
won again except for a mental error for which he took full
responsibility.
"I got too amped up," he said. "I was trying to get my energy up
and I overdid it. I
got too much caffeine in me and went up there with happy feet and
(fouled out). But I'll
fix that. I'm just glad I got my race car back. We haven't had a car
to race with all year.
Now we do."
However, it wasn't just the chassis that turned things around for
the 14-time Auto
Racing All-America selection. Attitude also played a role.
"It's real easy to be a good boss when you're winning," Force
said, "but the real test
of a leader is what he does when things aren't going right and I've
been a real jerk. So I
called all my guys in and I said, I want to apologize to all of you.
I've been wrong and
I'm gonna fix it' and the attitude seemed to change. They were ready
to race.
"It ain't just about winning," said the 1996 Driver of the Year.
"It's about doing your
best. I remember that when I think about Eric (teammate Eric Medlen,
the 2005 Seattle
winner who last March succumbed to injuries suffered in a testing
accident). In the end,
we may not make the chase, but at least we got our heart back."
A NEW FORCE HOLDS FORTH
IN FUNNY CAR DRAG RACING
Champ's Daughter Seeks Breakthrough Win at Seattle
SEATTLE, Wash. After consecutive missteps, Ashley Force tries
this week to
recapture the early-season form that carried her into the semifinals at
successive NHRA
tour events and identified her as the top contender for the Auto Club
of Southern
California's Road to the Future Award as drag racing's top rookie.
The 24-year-old daughter of drag racing icon John Force, profiled
in the August
edition of Men's Journal as one of "The Superstars of Summer," tries to
get back on
track Friday with the start of qualifying for the 20th Schuck's
Nationals at Pacific
Raceways.
In a Funny Car category in which gender equality remains an
illusion, Ms. Force has
become the quickest (4.730 seconds), the fastest (323.43 miles per
hour) and the most
successful (eight round wins) woman in history.
Furthermore, she became the first woman to beat her father, the
14-time Funny Car
Champion, when they met for the first and only time in the Southern
Nationals at
Atlanta, Ga.
That said, the graduate of Cal State-Fullerton has stumbled the
last two weeks,
failing to put her Castrol GTX? Ford Mustang in the 16-car field at
either Bristol, Tenn.,
or Denver, Colo. As a result, after occupying one of the provisional
starting spots in
NHRA's Countdown to the Championship, she finds herself on the outside,
looking in.
She rolls into Pacific Raceways 11th in the Funny Car driver
standings, 37 points
behind Cruz Pedregon, who currently occupies the eighth, and final,
Countdown
position, and 21 points behind her dad.
"It's been a little disappointing," she said of the last two
weekends, "but it's just part
of the learning experience. This is a new team from top to bottom and
we're all learning
together.
"My crew chief, Dean ("Guido") Antonelli, is a rookie like me and
most of the guys on
the crew had never worked on a Funny Car before this season. So we
started out with
a new driver, new crew chief, new crew and new car."
One of the stars of the real-life TV series Driving Force on A&E
Network, Ashley
admittedly is more comfortable inside the race car than in front of the
camera.
"I'm really shy," she said. "In high school, I was the only
cheerleader who never
got out in front to lead a cheer. In choir, I was the only one who
never (performed) a
solo. I get more nervous when I come back from a run (because)
there'll be a big
crowd cheering and my face will turn bright red. I can feel it. I'm
actually relieved when
I climb into the car (because) there's familiarity there."
Ashley credits the TV show, which debuted in 2005, for preparing
her for the media
circus that has sprung up since she announced last January that she was
moving up in
classification. Without that experience, she doesn't know whether she
could have
handled it as well as she has.
"It's been one of the most up-and-down years in my life," she
said. "I was pretty
prepared for the driving, but that's just a small part of this job.
You also have media,
fans, sponsors and appearances. It's definitely the kind of job that's
not routine at all.
"It's been fun, but it's been an emotional time this year losing
our teammate (2005
Seattle winner and Pacific Raceways record-holder Eric Medlen, who lost
his life in a
testing accident last March in Gainesville, Fla.). Facing everything
together, I think, has
brought us a lot closer as a team and as a racing family."
Although she thus far has been shut down in her bid to become the
first woman to
reach a Funny Car final round, Ashley has experienced almost everything
else. She
has banged the wall, hit the cones delineating the center line,
inadvertently set off the
fire bottles while sitting in the pits, been on fire and, along the
way, beaten three former
World Champions: Tony Pedregon, Cruz Pedregon and Kenny Bernstein.
"I hope I've gotten all the bad stuff out of the way," she said.
"Right now I'm just
trying to learn from my mistakes. My guys work so hard on this car and
the last thing I
want to do is let them down."
WORSHAM BRINGING A GREAT CAR
TO THE GREAT NORTHWESTP
SEATTLE (July 19, 2007) -- As the saying goes, when referring to bloop
hits in a baseball game; "They all look like line drives in the box
score." As Del Worsham, driver of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala
Funny Car can attest, the reverse is also true, as real line drives can
be caught, and they then "look like strike outs in the box score."
Worsham, who is on his way from the mile-high and arid confines of
Denver's Thunder Mountain to the lush sea-level forests of Seattle for
this weekend's Schuck's Auto Supply Nationals, has been ripping line
drives for weeks, but those pesky fielders keep catching them.
When this current six-week stretch of non-stop racing kicked off in
Englishtown, Worsham drove his Team CSK Chevy to string of solid runs
in qualifying, landing 9th on the grid, though he was probably 1st in
terms of confidence heading into race day. Then, when it appeared he
was on his way to big first-round win and possibly a grand and
victorious Sunday, a sheared blower pulley stopped him cold in his
tracks.
A week later, in Norwalk, he was on an enormous lap, and on his way to
a solid spot in the middle of the field, when a blower detonation
shredded his red CSK Impala. In Bristol, he and Tim Wilkerson put a
pair of beautifully competitive laps on the board during their
first-round match up, but Worsham came up a few feet short after
1,320-feet of side-by-side competition.
This past weekend, in Denver, it was yet again another hard-hit line
drive that found leather instead of open grass, as Worsham gave points
leader Ron Capps the best fight of the entire first round, and one of
the best of the day. Unfortunately, it was Capps playing the role of
the gifted outfielder, as he turned Worsham's hot shot into a loss, by
a matter of just a few feet. Four races, four first-round defeats.
In the box score, it looks like a slump, but Worsham knows better.
"We have the best car we've had in over a year, right now," he said.
"We seem to have fixed the parts breakage problem, we've been really
good in terms of consistency, and we've come out to a couple of race
tracks, lately, thinking we didn't just have a chance to win the race,
but that we really should win the race. Unfortunately, the breaks
haven't gone our way and we have very little to show for it.
"I say 'very little,' rather than nothing, because we've been
qualifying at every race since Gainesville, and in 2007 that's a big
accomplishment. Today, if you make the show, you're instantly picking
up a round on at least three very good teams, because that's how many
have to DNQ every week. So, we lost in the first round in Denver, but
we picked up a round on Ashley Force, Cruz Pedregon, and Tim Wilkerson,
and all three of those drivers are right around us in the points.
That's the 'glass half full' way to look at it, I guess, because we
also missed a shot at picking up tons of points. But, when you race
Ron Capps like that, and it's side-by-side the whole way, you can't cry
if he beats you. On that lap, we were 99 percent as good as the top
guy in the whole class, but we came up a few feet short."
Now, as he heads to Pacific Raceways in suburban Seattle, Worsham knows
he still has a fast car, and he'd like to finally be able to exhibit
that performance in front of his own sponsors. The Schuck's Auto
Supply Nationals bring with them a bit of extracurricular activity and
some added pressure, but also an indescribable amount of emotional
backing and support, from legions of CSK staffers who spend the weekend
with "their team."
"The extra stuff is easy, and I really enjoy doing all of that,"
Worsham said. "We'll go to the NHRA press conference at the Space
Needle, we'll have a race with the CSK managers in the NHRA Pontiac
courtesy cars, and we'll host hundreds of CSK people and their key
commercial clients, right in our pit all weekend. The amount of
support we get from all of those people, whether they're local store
managers, regional supervisors, people from CSK headquarters in
Phoenix, or even the commercial clients they're hosting at the race,
really means a lot to me and all the guys on this team.
"We've won in Seattle before, back in 1999, and that win really started
us on a long stretch of success. We've also won races where CSK is the
title sponsor, doing that twice in Phoenix at the Checker, Schuck's,
Kragen Nationals, so it would be great if we could get some hits to
fall in and do this for all of them this weekend. I know we're fast
enough, and I know we can put some great laps on the board, just like
we've been doing. We just need to keep doing what we've been doing,
and we'll get the results we deserve. It's just a matter of when, not
if."
Of course, it wouldn't bother Worsham one bit to find his way to the
Winner's Circle on the strength of the racing equivalent of bloop hits
and broken bat singles, but if given the choice he'd greatly prefer the
big home runs he's been so close to hitting over the past four weeks.
AREND'S AIM
IS TO PUT TECHRON ON THE SEATTLE MAP
SEATTLE (July 19, 2007) -- Seattle, the next stop on the seemingly
never-ending NHRA summer swing, is famous for many things. There's the
Space Needle, a remnant from the 1962 World's Fair and a direct "real
world" link to the cartoon environment of The Jetsons. There's the
first-ever Starbucks coffee shop, from which one of most widespread and
ubiquitous brand names in the world has sprung. In addition, the Pike
Place Fish Market, the birth of grunge rock, the production of Boeing
jets in all shapes and sizes, and the stunning beauty of both Puget
Sound and Mount Rainier, are all linked to Seattle and make up much of
its allure. Funny Car driver Jeff Arend, however, has another
landmark in mind when thinking of what he'd like to see in Seattle this
weekend. Arend simply wants to visit the Winner's Circle at Pacific
Raceways.
Along with teammate Del Worsham and his squad, Arend and his talented
team usually make up one half of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny
Car program. And, with this weekend's race being the Schuck's Auto
Supply Nationals, one might be excused for doing a series of
double-takes when seeing the Arend and Worsham cars pull to the line.
For the second consecutive week, Arend will be wheeling a stunning
Chevron Techron Impala, instead of his standard blue CSK Chevy, while
Worsham will be piloting the blue car, rather than his standard red CSK
Impala SS.
"The Techron car was always set for Seattle and Sonoma," Arend said.
"It's a program put together by CSK and Chevron, so even though it's
the Schuck's Nationals, we had always planned to have the Techron car
running here. When Del blew up his red Impala in Norwalk, though, we
shifted gears and gave him my blue body, and we just moved the Techron
car to a three-race deal, instead of two. We may have the big Techron
graphics on my car this weekend, but we still have the word 'Schuck's'
on the rear quarter panel, so it's an honor to be driving this car at
the Schuck's Auto Supply Nationals.
"For us, winning our sponsor's race would be the ultimate goal, but
going rounds here is the number one priority. We were guessing, all
along, that the fight for the last few slots in the Countdown playoff
system would be a huge dog fight, and here we are, right in the middle
of it with the fur flying. We're in 12th place right now, but only 42
points out of the 8th spot. With a good qualifying effort and a couple
of round wins, we could be leaving Seattle in 8th place. If we make
that tourist trip to the Winner's Circle, it would be all good."
Arend has been as high as 3rd in the POWERade points this year, and he
spent the first six races of the season in the top eight. Since the
current six-race swing around America has started, he has slipped to
12th, but has produced a 3-3 record (along with one DNQ) during that
time. This past weekend, Arend put a solid string of good laps on the
board in Denver, then managed to take out legendary driver Kenny
Bernstein in round one before losing to eventual race winner, Jack
Beckman, in a side-by-side battle during the quarterfinals.
"We broke some stuff in Denver, but the mountain has been known to do
that to a lot of good teams," Arend said. "But really, we ran well
there and got a big win over Kenny in round one. How close were we to
winning that race? Well, we were ahead of Beckman for the first half
of the track, but he got around us and beat us by a few feet. He went
on to win the race, and I think we would have done the same thing had
we been able to hold him off there in the second round. We're close,
very close, to ripping off some big wins."
To do just that in Seattle, at the Schuck's Auto Supply Nationals,
would probably provide all the sightseeing Arend needs. Starbucks, a
ferry ride, and the sight of Pike Place Market workers flinging large
fish through the air, can all be put on hold. As far as the
Techron/CSK driver is concerned, the rest of the classic "Seattle
stuff" can wait for another day, on another trip.
"If all we did was race and go to the hotel to sleep, and we won the
Schuck's Nationals, I'd be the happiest guy in the world. Seattle is
beautiful, and we love being in the Great Northwest, but all I care
about is winning rounds. We'll focus only on getting in the show, and
then we'll shift our attention to round one. If we get that one, we
might just go all the way. That's all I care about."
Perhaps not what the Seattle Board Of Tourism wants to hear, but it's
Jeff Arend's reality.
KENNY BERNSTEIN
HOPEFUL OF STRONG PERFORMANCE IN SEATTLE
TO CELEBRATE FALLEN FRIEND
AND TO EARN TOP EIGHT COUNTDOWN BERTH
KENT , Wash. – Competition is as fierce in the NHRA Funny Car category as it has been in all of NHRA’s 50-plus year history.
Kenny Bernstein, a six-time NHRA champion, came out of retirement this season to drive the Monster Energy/Lucas Oil Funny Car and scored runner-up honors at the July 1 event in Norwalk , Ohio .
Bernstein, who won in Seattle driving a Funny Car in 1988, is looking forward to the Schuck’s Auto Supply Nationals July 20-22.
“We know we have the talent in our camp to be competitive,” said Bernstein. “We proved that by going to the finals a few weeks ago. It is extremely important for us to go rounds in Seattle . Our focus with four races remaining is to try to earn a spot in the countdown to eight, which sets up the first cut line for the newly formatted championship chase.
“Additionally, we have a personal desire to win in Seattle to pay tribute to our friend, Russ Tom, who we lost in a helicopter crash last October. Russ was a sponsor on our Budweiser/Lucas Oil dragster driven by my son Brandon. He was also a personal friend and owned Downtown Harley-Davidson in Tukwila.
“On Thursday of race week (July 19), many of us who used to gather for an annual ride, will draw together to celebrate his life and love of motorcycles by participating in the Russ Tom Memorial Bike Run.
“Russ was a true competitor and used to come to Seattle and some of the other races to root for our team. He kept us in stitches most of the time with his stories and antics. He is truly missed.”
Nitro (Top Fuel and Funny Car) qualifying for the Schuck’s Auto Supply Nationals begins Friday, July 20 at 3:30 p.m. followed by a second session at 6:30 p.m. There are two scheduled qualifying runs Saturday, noon and 3 p.m. , with Top Fuel kicking off Sunday’s eliminations at 11 a.m.
Fans, motorcycle and car club members are invited to join Kenny and Brandon Bernstein for the Russ Tom Memorial Bike Run in Seattle Thursday, July 19. The riders will depart Downtown Harley-Davidson, 13002 48th Ave. S. , Tukwila, at 5 p.m. and will make the run over to BB Magraw’s, 440 16th NE in Auburn . At BB’s a local band will entertain, while fans and riders enter to win prizes. A silent auction will be held to benefit Boyers Children’s Clinic. There is no charge to ride. Russ Tom Memorial Bike Run t-shirts will be available for purchase.
Scott Kalitta
And the DHL Nitro Funny Car Team
Hope to deliver a win in Seattle
KENT, Wash., (July 19, 2007) - At the previous NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series national event in Denver, Scott Kalitta, driver of the bright yellow and red DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car, advanced to semi-final round for the first time since the NHRA event last fall in Richmond, Va. This weekend, July 20-22, Scott and the DHL team hope to build on their momentum at the Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash., just outside of Seattle.
"Going some rounds is fun," Kalitta, a 45-year old resident of Palmetto, Fla., said. "It's amazing how a good weekend can re-energize a race team. It was really good to see some smiles on the guys wearing the yellow and red shirts in our pit area Sunday.
"We want to build on our momentum from Denver. We are still in the Countdown right now, but we really need to turn up the wick and keep winning rounds."
This season the NHRA instituted the new Countdown to the Championship points system. Only the top eight in POWERade points after the first 17 national events will be allowed to vie for the season championship. This weekend's event is the 14th of the season.
Going into this weekend's event at Pacific Raceways, Kalitta is in 16th position in POWERade Funny Car championship points. He is 125 p`oints shy of 8th place.
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