Championship Drag Racing

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals presented by Pontiac
Commerce, Ga.
(May 1-4)

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Scotty Cannon Oakley Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Saturday Pre-race

Atlanta, Sunday: After posting a No. 10 qualifying position after three sessions, his second-best starting spot in seven events this year, Scotty Cannon arrived at the line for the first round of eliminations to race against No. 7 qualifier Ron Capps as the seventh pair. With a crowd of local friends and customers from his Cannon's Restaurant cheering him on, the popular racer was ready.

Cannon launched just a tick later than Capps (.113 reaction time for Cannon; .080 for Capps) and was ahead at the 60-foot mark, until his Oakley Elite Special Forces Funny Car smoked the tires just past that point. He coasted to an 11.749-second elapsed time at 82.63 mph, while Capps took the win light with a 4.898/314.46.

The new team, led by new crew chief Phil Shuler, continues to make as many runs as possible to collect data in search of a happy combination. To that end, they will test here at Atlanta Dragway on Monday.

"We're just dumb in the clutch department, it looks like," said Cannon, of nearby Lyman, S.C. "We've got to get the clutch to where it's a little bit more forgiving. Other than that, I don't know; it just smoked the tires; it was real aggressive. It needs to be more forgiving. That's what I told my crew chief.

"We're going to test some clutch stuff tomorrow. We have to. We have to get it down the track. The only way we're going to get better is to test," he added.

"I said when we got here we had no runs to look at; we don't have the car we ran last year. We've got data from runs that I had with old crew chiefs and from runs that I ran three years ago. That doesn't apply anymore. Because everything we're running is different, the car's different, the tires we run are different, the clutch is different. So if you try to put it like everything was set up back then, it just won't work.

Cannon is 14th in the POWERade Funny Car point standings, with 241 points.

Atlanta, Saturday: Only three rounds of qualifying were run here at Atlanta Dragway after a rainstorm blew into Commerce, Ga., after only one round of two scheduled sessions was completed on Friday. Following the final qualifying round today, Scotty Cannon, driver of the Oakley Elite Special Forces Funny Car, will start from the No. 10 position and will face No. 7 qualifier Ron Capps in tomorrow's first round of eliminations.

Cannon, the popular Mohawk-wearing racer from nearby Lyman, S.C., posted a 4.911-second elapsed time in the final session at 288.46 mph, placing him 10th. His 5.157/223.62 in the second session today is what actually got him safely into the field, even though he had a supercharger belt blow the burst panel out at the top end, which negated what was looking to be a strong run to the finish. In yesterday's only round, he broke on the starting line when he over-revved the engine on the burnout.

"In the first run today the belt blew the burst panel at probably a little past the eighth of a mile. It was trying to run .87 or .86 on a bet," he said. "That last run there -- we saw that we couldn't get bumped out so we fed it a little more clutch right there in the staging lane. It was running real good. It was running a hundredth better than our .85, then the blower belt came off a little past the 1000-foot mark. The good thing we've got to look forward to tomorrow is there were only two cars quicker than us that last round, regardless. That was the John Force cars. We'll work on our tune-up a little bit, put a little more fuel in it and feed it some more clutch and try it again tomorrow."

When asked what happened on the starting line yesterday, he responded, "Actually, when I went to do my burnout it over-revved the motor like a lot and it actually popped and blew the burst panel out in the burnout. I've been driving one of these five years and I've never done that without a throttle stop. We found some tinwork that was bent over this morning that could have been hitting the pedal. So we just removed that with a pair of clippers, and we put a stop on it in case a cable was bending or any fluke thing, so it couldn't go wide open on me during the burnout, and when we back up we would take it off. It's just racing. What can I say? I'm human. I could have made a mistake. We're showing progress, but it's in spurts. We're still a new team. No excuses."

Cannon's team this season is still experiencing teething problems. "We need more testing and more running," he says. "Hopefully everybody will stick with us and next year we'll come out really strong and roaring rather than having to stumble and fall. Right now we have only one run to look at for tomorrow. What are we going to do? We're not going to back up. We're going to lean on it. If we get outrun, we just get outrun. At least that way we'll have something to look at the next race here."

Atlanta, pre-race: If you're passing through Greer, S.C., on your way to Atlanta Dragway for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals this weekend, and you find yourself on Trade Street, stop by Cannon's Restaurant for a bite. In fact, if you drive in and pull into a stall, you just may have a Mohawk-wearing, world-class Funny Car racer serving you at the curb, at one of the only remaining drive-in restaurants in South Carolina that still features curb service.

Scotty Cannon, the Oakley-clad scary dude who drives the Oakley Funny Car for Don Schumacher Racing in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series at over 320 mph in under five seconds, is really a cool, laid back family man and the unlikely owner of Cannon's Restaurant, which has been in his family for 34 years. Just 15 minutes from the restaurant and an hour from Atlanta Dragway, Cannon lives with his wife Amanda and three boys, Scott Jr., Brandon and Destin in Lyman, S.C.

Growing up in South Carolina, Cannon worked at the restaurant for his dad. "I've done it all. I did everything from washing the walls when I was 9 years old to curb-hopping," he said. "And then I moved up to bussing the tables, then I started to run the cash register and then I started cooking. There ain't nothing in there I can't do. I've done it all."

This is a work ethic he continues to maintain as a totally hands-on member of his racing team. Racing Funny Cars has taken priority over bussing tables these days, but Cannon's 23-year-old son, Scott Jr., runs the restaurant now, while Cannon's dad oversees the eatery, which seats 100 inside and can serve 40 to 50 cars curbside.

"I've served my time," said Cannon, the 1999 NHRA Rookie of the Year. "I used to work there all the time, doing double shifts."

He still drops in for lunch and visits with his patrons, who enjoy the photographs chronicling Cannon's 25-year racing career on the walls.

"I have a big following from my hometown," he said. "Like, if I go in there during lunch, everybody there always wants to talk about racing. I've got pictures on the wall dating back to when I first started all the way up until now. I'm probably in there a couple of times a week when I'm home."

He'll be hosting a group of customers and friends at the track this weekend, when the NHRA circus competes in the seventh round of the 23-event NHRA series.

"It's fun having my friends and customers come to the track," he said, "but it's more stress, beyond a shadow of a doubt. But it's good. I like to see everybody else enjoy my racing too, not just me. It gives everyone around me an opportunity to be able to enjoy and live a little bit of my life when we're racing at home. At the same time, it's stressful for me, but I still would rather be doing this than doing anything else."