Friday's Super Shots
Friday, June 01, 2012
NHRA's pre-race press conference was held Thursday at The Chart House in Weehawken, N.J., in the shadow of the New York skyline. Tony Pedregon's STP Toyota was on display, and NHRA Full Throttle stars, from left, Pedregon, Erica Enders, Antron Brown, and Eddie Krawiec met the media to help publicize the weekend ahead. (John McCartney photos) |
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(Right) Eddie Krawiec, the hometown hero and two-time NHRA Full Throttle Pro Stock Motorcycle champ, also took part in a display at the P.C. Richard & Son store on Route 18 in nearby New Brunswick, N.J.
Former world champ Tony Schumacher's U.S. Army Top Fueler was on display, as was the Gary Richard-driven P.C. Richard & Son Super Stock Mustang.
(Below) Local DJ Chris VanZant of 106 Rockin' Country Thunder joined Krawiec and Richard. |
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Friday is day two at one of the East Coast's most famous drag racing venues: Old Bridge Township Raceway Park near Englishtown.
The Toyota NHRA SuperNationals are the ninth event of the 2012 season and represents the midpoint of NHRA's regular season.
After opening yesterday with Sportsman time trials and qualifying, today will be the first time the Full Throttle teams take to the famed racetrack, with qualifying scheduled for 3:45 and 6:15 p.m.
Prior to that, Sportsman cars will continue to run down the track with eliminations beginning under partly cloudy skies. Forecast for the weekend calls for pleasant temperatures in the low 70s with humidity in the mid-50s. |
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The Full Throttle teams are hard at work preparing their machines for the first two of four qualifying sessions allotted them this weekend.
David Grubnic's Optima Batteries/Kalitta Motorsports team (above), the tour's most recent Top Fuel winner two weeks ago in Topeka, and teammate Jeff Arend's DHL Camry Funny Car crew got busy. Arend's entry is one of at least five Toyota-bodied machines in Funny Car competition this weekend. |
Class racing is underway in Super Stock, including the popular SS/AH Hemi machines. |
Event sponsor Toyota has a nice display, showing off their cars and its various motorsports efforts. There are plenty of opportunities for fan interaction, too, with photo ops in Funny Cars (below left), a reaction-time game (below right), and (bottom) an autograph session with Tony and Cruz Pedregon, Alexis DeJoria, and Jeff Arend. |
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[4 p.m.] Reigning world champ Eddie Krawiec broke both ends of the Raceway Park track record with a 6.794-second, 197.36-mph blast aboard the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson. Krawiec, a former track manager at this facility, broke his own year-old e.t. mark of 6.819 and Michael Phillips’ speed mark of 197.36 mph, also set last year. Krawiec’s run is the ninth-quickest pass in class history. LE Tonglet, with the returning backing of Nitro Fish apparel, is second with a 6.862, and Krawiec’s teammate, Andrew Hines, is third at 6.874. |
[4:20 p.m.] (Above) Jason Line, who won this event three straight years 2004 to 2006, grabbed the early lead in Pro Stock with a 6.524 at 212.16, just a few ticks shy of the 6.508 track record he set last year and of Ron Krisher’s 213.03 standard, also from 2011. (Below) Line’s teammate, Greg Anderson, debuted his new Summit Camaro after a successful North Carolina test session and clocked a 6.560 on its official maiden voyage that was good for the No. 8 spot. |
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[5:20 p.m.] Defending event champ Mike Neff picked up in the first session where he left off last year -- at the head of the Funny Car pack -- with a 4.052 at 312.71, a speed matched by teammate Robert Hight on his second-best 4.077. Hight holds the track record at 4.025, recorded two years ago, and Neff set the speed mark last year at 314.09. |
Funny Car rookie Blake Alexander, whose Paul Smith-tuned Funny Car is sponsored at this race by long-time backer Gates Auto, made a nice 4.191 pass despite towing an inadvertently-deployed parachute from about half-track. Gates has supported Alexander for seven years through entries in Comp, Top Alcohol Dragster, and now Funny Car. |
[5:55 p.m] Tony Schumacher, who won this event in Top Fuel in 2008, 36 years after his father won it in Funny Car, is the No. 1 qualifier after one qualifying session in Top Fuel after posting a 3.755 at a track record speed of 327.11. Schumacher’s speed broke the two-year-old mark of 324.75 set by Cory McClenathan but just missed McClenathan’s 3.752 e.t. mark. Schumacher’s teammate, Spencer Massey, qualified No. 2 alongside him with a 3.766 at 326.40. |
Mike Castellana was the low qualifier in Pro Mod after the first session but had his run DQ’d for technical reasons, then came right back to qualify No. 1 in the second session with a 5.856, 245.72. |
[6:55 p.m.] After crossing the centerline and taking out some timing blocks on his first pass, Hector Arana Sr. rebounded in session two with a 6.836 aboard his Lucas Oil Buell to take the No. 2 spot behind first-session leader Eddie Krawiec, who improved on his 6.794 with a 6.782, the seventh quickest pass in class history. |
[7:30 p.m.] Allen Johnson didn’t take the No. 1 Pro Stock spot away from Jason Line, who improved on his opening 6.524 with a 6.518, but he did close the gap, powering his Mopar Avenger to a 6.528 that improved on his earlier 6.537. |
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Ron Capps (above) made the quickest pass in Funny Car history and recorded only the second three-second elapsed time when he powered his Rahn Tobler-tuned NAPA Auto Parts Charger to a stunning 3.964 at 320.89 mph. The run was more than three-hundredths of a second quicker than teammate Matt Hagan’s barrier-breaking 3.995 recorded last fall. Capps’ speed was the second fastest ever, behind Hagan’s 322.27. “Wow,” enthused Tobler. “We’ve been waiting to unleash our car in conditions like this.”
Capps run bettered the sizzling 4.013 recorded a pair earlier by Robert Hight (below) on a pass that broke his own incoming 4.025 track record. Capps’ speed also bettered the 318.84 track record established earlier in the session by Johnny Gray on his No. 3-qualifying 4.022. In all, there were nine 4.0-second passes in the session and, of course, Capps’ lone three-second run.
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Spencer Massey (above) made the quickest pass in Top Fuel history to close a super day of qualifying at the SuperNationals, racing his Todd Okuhara- and Phil Shuler-tuned Prestone dragster to a 3.728 at 329.91 mph.
Massey's pass bettered the 3.735 recorded in Reading last fall by Del Worsham, and his speed was the fourth fastest in class history.
In that same session, Morgan Lucas ran 3.739, the third-quickest pass in class history, and Shawn Langdon posted a 3.742 alongside him, the fourth-quickest pass ever. |
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