NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals
Las Vegas, Nevada
(April 1-4)
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5th annual |
| Sunday |
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A jubilant Phil Burkart Jr. scored his first Funny Car win in five years to join Top Fuel points leader Tony Schumacher and Pro Stock dominator Greg Anderson at the cash window of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Burkart's surprise victory kept teammate and boss Del Worsham comfortably ahead in the Funny Car title chase, while Schumacher and Anderson each bolstered their championship dreams with their third win of the year.
Burkart entered the final as an underdog to Whit Bazemore, but a massive powerplant failure in Bazemore's machine halfway down the track gave Burkart the win. Schumacher dispatched Larry Dixon with his best pass of the weekend, a 4.52, while Anderson put a car-length on good buddy and chief rival Kurt Johnson in the Pro Stock finale.
When he needed it the most, Schumacher finally put a decent light together with stout tune-up to score his 14th career victory. The final against reigning series champion Dixon felt a bit like a changing of the guard with Schumacher and crew chief Alan Johnson slightly outpowering Dixon and his talented tuner Dick LaHaie.
 Tony Schumacher
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The final numbers showed Schumacher recovering from a .082- to .098-second starting line deficit to win with a 4.525 at 331.53 mph to Dixon's 4.571 at 323.97 mph. He has stretched his points lead to 110 over Brandon Bernstein.
"This is fun," Schumacher said. "You can see it in my face and Alan's face. Today was fun. But it was also pretty hard. We have never had good luck here before. We made it to the finals against [Kenny] Bernstein last year and then my reverser broke. I told Alan before the race I had never won here before and he delivered. Same thing in Gainesville and we won there, too. I better go remind him I haven't won in Houston or Bristol either.
"All I know is [Dixon] has the No. 1 on his car, and it's there for a reason – those guys kicked butt last year. We were chasing them and making mistakes. Now we've kind of leap-frogged them a little bit and maybe the roles are reversed but they're the champs. Those guys are stout and I'm sure today has motivated them. They're not going away and I'm sure we'll duke it out all year. Dixon is a great driver; I've said that many times before."
Schumacher and his U.S. Army troops survived a minefield of pitfalls to reach their third final of the season and the 34th of Schumacher's career. Starting from the bottom half of the field for the first time since last August, Schumacher survived a gigantic .046 to .128-second starting line deficit in Round 1 when opponent Scott Weis lost traction. He was then noticeably behind low qualifier Scott Kalitta after losing traction himself in the quarterfinals, but Kalitta threw his blower belt and slowed just enough for Schumacher to pass him for the win.
In the semi's, Schumacher's motor lost at least one cylinder and he oiled the top end of track and was docked 10 points for the infraction, but he still outlasted a tire-hazing Doug Herbert and won with a beatable 4.666.
Dixon also needed a little luck to reach his 61st money round, just not as much as Schumacher. The Miller Lite car posted solid 4.5-second passes in wins over David Baca and Doug Kalitta but then survived a pedaling contest with beer rival Bernstein to win by a second. Dixon's last win came in early August in Sonoma, Calif. Top Fuel results
The day started on a shaky note for the Checker Schuck's Kragen Funny Car group when points leader and team owner Del Worsham lost in the opening round to Whit Bazemore. But Burkart masterfully took the CSK torch and ran with it, powering from the bottom half of the field for an emotional victory over Bazemore.
 Phil Burkart Jr.
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Burkart and Bazemore left with nearly identical reaction times and stayed together past half-track where Bazemore's motor expired in a big flash of fire. Burkart managed to hold his tire-hazing machine together in the other lane to win his second national event with a 5.029 at 264.03 mph to Bazemore's laboring 5.452 at 189.50 mph. The victory is also the first for the Monte Carlo marquee.
The victory, the third in a row for Team CSK, helped lift Burkart from 11th to fifth place in the POWERade points.
"Winning three of the first four races is awesome for this team," Burkart said. "I hope the other guys out here don't start hating us. Hey, we're just racing our hearts out and doing everything we can to win every round. I saw Del go out early and we just took it on ourselves to step up and do what we could to win.
"I always seem to race better when I start from the bottom half of the field. When I won Columbus I started 14th. Today we started 12th. I guess we dig down a little deeper when we're underdogs. We had to today because we didn't have an easy round. We faced all the big dogs.
"One of the main reasons I came to this team was because Del promised me we'd race as hard as we could every weekend, even if we raced each other. We're a total team. If you had come by the pits between rounds you would have seen just as many red guys on my car as blue guys. That's why we're winning, in my opinion."
Proving his worth, Burkart continues to impress each race weekend in his new fulltime ride, driving his brand-new Monte Carlo past heavyweights Tim Wilkerson, Gary Scelzi, 12-time champion John Force, who lost traction a few hundred feet into his run, and Bazemore. This was Burkart's third final-round appearance. He won the 1999 Columbus event as an independent racer and had a runner-up finish at the second Chicago race in 2003 working part-time for Worsham's team.
Bazemore's 37th chance at a trophy came at the expense of Worsham, veteran Gary Densham, and Eric Medlen. The victory against Medlen was the result of a big .065 to .127-second holeshot, with Bazemore's Matco Tools Dodge Stratus R/T posting a winning 4.882 to Medlen's quicker but losing 4.864. Funny Car results
It appears the only way Anderson will lose a race any time in the near future is if he beats himself. In a class where races are usually decided by thousandths of a second, Anderson has figured out a way to build a consistent three or four hundredths of a second cushion on his nearest rivals.
 Greg Anderson
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Just as he did twice last season, Anderson turned Las Vegas into party central for his biased legion of Nevada-based backers and their friends. This time he was able to avenge his Phoenix loss to Kurt Johnson – his only blemish of the season – with a convincing 6.849- to 6.908-second, 15-foot victory, the 19th of his career.
"The car worked better this weekend then it ever has before," Anderson said. "It really loves this track, too. I don't know what to say. We can't seem to do anything wrong. To me it's absolutely unreal that the car is as strong as it is. The gap we have on the field is getting bigger, which just blows me away. I never thought that would happen.
"I think what we're seeing now is that teams are taking chances against us. We've pushed some people outside their comfort zone and they're making mistakes. You hope for this to happen because you see how it's played out for other top teams in the past. But for it to actually happen here in Las Vegas again is fantastic. It's certainly good for job security."
Anderson once again had little trouble reaching his 30th final round. His Vegas General Construction Pontiac Grand Am was the quickest car of every round by at least four hundredths of a second with Anderson notching easy victories over V. Gaines, Dave Connolly, Larry Morgan, and Johnson.
Johnson tried to keep pace, carding the second-quickest E.T. of the first two sessions in wins over a severely out-of-shape Bruce Allen and two-time champ Jeg Coughlin. He even eliminated Anderson teammate Jason Line on a holeshot in the semi's to reach his 52nd trophy round, but he simply didn't have the steam to match-up with Anderson in the final. Pro Stock results
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