We had a pretty exciting and fun week during the 50th NHRA Winternationals so I will get you up to speed on that. We started off last Wednesday night by having a BBQ at our place for the DHL Funny Car crew. It started a little later than normal as we had a lot of little things left to do on the car before Thursday. It was fun nonetheless, and I BBQ'd up about 12 lbs of tri-tip to go along with all the appetizers that Windy had laid out. The guys must have been pretty hungry from the 14-plus hour day, and by the end of it all, there wasn't too much left! We all had a good time and had a few drinks and cigars.
We were all looking forward to our first lap on Thursday because of how well we had tested. Our DHL Funny Car left the line hard and was well on the way to a 4.10 run when all of a sudden it smoked the tires for no reason just before half-track. Further inspection found a mechanical malfunction that caused this to happen. One of those 5 cent parts that costs you the run stories (although there aren't really any 5 cent parts found on our race car anymore these days). Thursday night we were invited to a private 40th birthday party for Del Worsham. The party was hosted at a great Mexican restaurant that they had rented just for the party, and what a party it was. There were a lot of the old CSK guys that had worked for Del as well as a mix of drivers, crew chiefs, and crew members that are out there today. The food, music, and atmosphere were great and Windy and I had a fantastic time.
Usually on Friday morning before qualifying AJ and I go and play a round of golf over at my club. I had seen AJ the night before at Del's party and because we are a little spoiled with the weather living in California and he had played a lot of golf recently, he decided to pass on the 40 degree morning temps as well as a pretty drenched as of late golf course. My other golf buddy Aaron Brooks wanted to play though and because he is from Indy, the fact that you could even play golf in February was enough reason for him to want to play. We met at 7.30 a.m., and to tell you the truth it wasn't that cold. It took AB a few holes to knock the rust off, and by the end of the round, we both were playing better and the temp was well up into the 60s. After having a couple of bad holes, my luck turned around and I ended up shooting a 75. I was hoping that luck was going to transfer into the race car, but it wasn't meant to be as we ended up overpowering the track on Friday night. We ended up going out for dinner with a good friend of mine from Texas, Fred Spell. Fred worked on one of the first cars I drove back in the Paul Smith days. His dad, Fred Sr., was heavily involved in the sport of drag racing back in the day and specialized in superchargers among many other things. Any ways, Fred decided to surprise his dad by bringing him out for the Winternationals and Sr. had a great time reminiscing with all the guys he used to race with.
Saturday was now upon us and things were starting to look too familiar to what happened to our DHL team at the Finals last year. It really looked like that as well as when we just tried to slide it down there to run a 4-teen anything and it smoked the tires just before half-track, just like it did last year on Q3. This time I just stayed in it for awhile smoking the tires to try and at least get a better e.t. It ran a 4.44, which when all the dust settled after Q4 would have kept us in the 16th spot and probably would have worked out better for us on race day. Wish that crystal ball would have been working! Now we are going into our last qualifier with a time that we really think won't hold. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for a few of the other teams, a few cars got shut off and some just idled down the track, so before we even had to run, we knew we were in. Our DHL car was on the way to a nice 4.17 when just at about 800 feet, it dropped 5 cylinders all at one time. Let me tell you from a driver's perspective that the engine sounds really BAD when it does this! The car ended up running a 4.20 at only 280 mph, putting us in the number 15 spot and earning us a first-round match-up with my buddy Del. Not the way we wanted to start the season!
Race day was finally here and we were pumped up for first round. Our DHL Funny Car and Del's Al-Anabi car treated the fans to the closest race of the day with Del getting the win by two-thousandths of a second or about a foot. The good thing was that when Jon O. and Nicky looked at the computer after the run, it looked more normal. We had a few glitches come up over the weekend and I think they are all fixed now.
Grubby's car ran strong all weekend as well, and the car looks spectacular. Candy red with the Kalitta and Bounty Hunter logos on there in gold leaf. His car also had a glitch come up in the first round and the shutoff system got activated. Doug's Technicoat-sponsored dragster on the other hand was flat out hauling the mail. After getting his "lucky" round-win out of the way in round 1, Jim O. stepped up the performance of the car to make it right to the final. That earned him a date with Larry Dixon and his Al-Anabi dragster. It was a great final round with Larry just edging out Doug for the win.
I think that you are going to see a lot of Kalitta/Al-Anabi finals this year, and next race we are going try and meet Del in the final instead of the first round!
Talk to you after Phoenix!