Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals presented by Pontiac
Commerce, Ga.
(May 1-4)
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23rd Annual |
| Sunday |
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Pedregon, W.J., Scali also winners |
Reigning Top Fuel champion Larry Dixon regained the points lead he lost to Brandon Bernstein one week ago with a convincing victory over Darrell Russell at the 23rd annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals presented by Pontiac.
Joining Dixon in the victory circle was Funny Car leader Tony Pedregon, Pro Stock legend Warren Johnson, who bagged his record 90th victory here, and new Pro Stock Bike challenger Geno Scali, who snatched the points lead from three-time champion Angelle Savoie with a win over Savoie's teammate Antron Brown.
Judging by Dixon's performance here, it's hard to imagine that he wrecked his primary car a week ago, but the Miller Lite crew seemingly never missed a beat and found a tune-up that agreed with their new racecar. After suffering a slight bout of tire spin in the first round, Dixon's crew chief, Dick LaHaie, turned up the wick and gave his driver the quickest car of the final three rounds.
 Larry Dixon
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The final was academic as Russell's car was lost in tire smoke at the hit of the throttle. Still, Dixon powered through an impressive victory pass of 4.569 seconds at 323.89 mph. The win moved Dixon back into the lead in the POWERade standings by 35 points.
"I work with a talented bunch of individuals on this team," Dixon said. "Everyone just does their thing in a professional manner and there is never any sense of panic, even last week. To me, turning around a new car Saturday night in Bristol to the point where I could go out and run a solid lap Sunday morning and win the opening round, even though the guys had like three hours of sleep, made me more proud of them than this win. This win was back to business as usual.
"After everything that happens, it turns out this car works just like the last one. I could've run in Super Comp today the car was so consistent.
"I don't think about the points or being back in the points lead. It doesn't pay to be in the points lead until the end of the year. I just try to work on eliminating the things that took us out of the points lead. If we do that then we don't need to worry about that stuff."
Snake Racing pro Dixon reached his 51st career final round with a cautious 4.65-second victory over Mike Smith and a pair of mid-4.5-second strikes against John Smith and Clay Millican. He stayed strong in the final against Russell with yet another 4.5-second lap, moving into first place on the Top Fuel wins list among active drivers with 28 victories.
Amato Racing pilot Russell emerged from the bottom half of the field and raced his Bilstein Engine Flush dragster to his 13th career final. The 2001 Rookie of the Year opened with a 4.59-second win against Doug Herbert before taking down Tony Schumacher and David Baca with mid 4.6-second runs. Top Fuel results
Pedregon has now won four of the first seven races of the 2003 campaign as his dominating run of the last 10 months continues. This one was never in doubt as he simply powered away from final-round opponent Johnny Gray. Both men left at the same time but Pedregon quickly gained the lead and took the 4.874 to 5.009-second decision.
 Tony Pedregon
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Pedregon recorded the first of his 23 national event wins at this track in 1996. He is now 23-21 in final-round showdowns.
"My brother, Cruz, just came down to congratulate me and someone told us that I had just passed his number of victories," Pedregon said. "But he's still my big brother and he's proud of me. He said we don't have 23 and 22 wins each, we have 45 wins together. That's a pretty cool way to look at it.
"I hope the boss [John Force] is happy and has a good birthday. I'm sure he would've like to have won himself but one of his cars is in the winner's circle so he should be happy about that.
"To have this car win four out of the first seven races and to keep repeating every pass and week in and week out is impressive even to me. I know the car is so good and I always feel a certain level of fear about screwing up, but I think that keeps me focused."
POWERade points leader Pedregon padded his lead with easy round wins over Dale Creasy Jr., Ron Capps, and Whit Bazemore, who is closest to him in the standings. Pedregon and his Castrol Syntec Ford Mustang are now 108 points ahead of Bazemore and his Matco Tools cohorts.
Gray raced the blue Checker Schuck's Kragen Pontiac to his second career final with Lady Luck riding along as co-pilot. After a strong start where he dismissed Gary Scelzi with a 4.86, Gray managed to out-last two-thirds of the team Force triumvirate -- Gary Densham and John Force --despite a pair of laboring five-second passes. Funny Car results
Using the knowledge of countless passes down Atlanta Dragway and decades of experience in the cockpit, Pro Stock's all-time winner pushed his record number of victories to 90 Sunday with a crafty holeshot win over former crew chief Greg Anderson.
 Warren Johnson
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Johnson, who bagged win No. 89 at the season opener in Pomona, collected this one by a mere .0044-second, or about 14 inches. Johnson left the starting line with a .018-second reaction to Anderson's .036-second start and then held on for the narrow win, crossing in 6.853 seconds at 201.46 mph to Anderson' quicker 6.839 at 202.94 mph.
"I'll take good lights when I can get them because it doesn't always work out that way," said Johnson, who averaged a .020-second reaction time Sunday. "I think the years of experience dealing with and adjusting to the varying temperatures and atmospheric conditions at this track certainly helped us today. But other than that, there isn't much that being a local does to help you. The track is prepared totally different when the NHRA is here and fuel cars are running. Not that the local track officials don't do a good job, they do, but it's different when the NHRA is in town.
"I won't tease K.J. about beating him on a holeshot. We'll let that sleeping dog lie. There is a lot of communication between the two teams and I used his carburetors in the final because he had run 203 earlier in the day with them and I knew we were giving up four-hundredths of a second [to Anderson] so every little bit would help. It worked so now I need to go back and build a pair like that for me. Or I'll just steal his."
In a class known for its parity, Anderson and his Vegas General Construction Pontiac Grand Am still managed to separate from the pack. He posted the lowest elapsed time of each round en route to his 15th final-round appearance, trailering Mark Whisnant, Mark "Cowboy" Pawuk, and Ben Watson with successive low 6.8-second passes. His opening salvo of 6.815 marked the quickest pass of the event.
Local legend Johnson, of nearby Buford, Ga., emerged from the sixth slot to race his GM Performance Parts Pontiac Grand Am to his 140th career final. Along the way he beat Terry Adams, his son and current POWERade points leader Kurt Johnson with a .012- to .035-second holeshot, and reigning series champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. Pro Stock results
If people weren't taking Scali seriously as a title contender before this race, they have to now as he dominated the Pro Stock Bike field from start to finish. After securing the No. 1 starting slot in qualifying for the second race in a row, Scali's recent performance spooked all four of Sunday's opponents into recording red-light starts. His extraordinary effort moves him into the POWERade points lead for the first time in his career.
 Geno Scali
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Entering the final with a decided advantage over Brown - Scali had a 7.17 in the semifinals against Brown's 7.25 - Scali forced Brown to push the Christmas Tree, which resulted in a double-red-light start that disqualified Brown first. Brown jumped the light in -.023 and Scali followed with a -.014-second start. At the other end, Scali proved he deserved the victory, posting a 7.197 at 186.82 mph to Brown's 7.248 at 172.82 mph.
"I hope people can now see that this team is a serious contender," Scali said. "To be in the points lead, well, that's something I can't even comprehend yet. I hope it sinks in at some point. But I do know we got together before this season when we first put this Trim-Tex team together and we talked about being a top-five team or a top-three team. Finally, we decided we should be a championship team. We have all the pieces here and we definitely have the experience, so why not?
"When you have a fast, fast bike and then add in the fact I won that deal as the best leaver in 2002, then you get to a point real quick where people have to try anything they can to beat you. I think most people roll up there knowing they probably won't leave on me by much, at least most of the time, and now that we have the horsepower to run up front it just makes it that much tougher on them."
Atop his Trim-Tex Suzuki, Scali had the quickest bike of every round, posting a 7.167 next to Chris Reuter, a 7.180 against GT Tonglet, a 7.172 versus Shawn Gann, and a 7.19 opposite Brown. His opening pass of 7.167 was low e.t. of the race.
Brown's unsponsored Suzuki looked steady in wins over Fred Camarena, Reggie Showers, and Matthew Smith. This was Brown's first final of the 2003 season and the 18th of his five-year career. Pro Stock Bike results
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