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By the time you read this, we should have already run the Checker Schuck's Kragen Nationals in Phoenix, and I want to thank the NHRA schedule makers for adding an extra week this year between the AutoZone Winternationals and the Phoenix race. It gave all of us at Darrell Gwynn's Team Mopar Racing a chance to really enjoy our win and accomplishments.

The Winternationals win was my first at Pomona. I grew up in Southern California and have raced there a lot, probably twice as much as at any other track, but I haven't had much luck there. We had a lot of success there in just one weekend.

Winning the race and setting the national e.t. record is a great way to start the year, but it's a long season. One race win doesn't determine the championship now. I will say that win felt much, much better than losing in the first round.

The car's performance was just a continuation of the way it was running at the end of 1998. The car ran well, and we should've won some races, but we didn't get any breaks. We ran into Gary Scelzi at the time he and Alan Johnson began making their championship run, and we couldn't keep our motor together for four runs. We did get to four final rounds and six semifinals and still managed a fifth-place finish, but we just didn't get the win.

Excuse me, but I need to suck up to Darrell here a little bit. This is our seventh year together, and I want you to know Darrell made the commitment to bring in Larry Meyer as a consultant to [crew chief] Ken Veney. He did it because he felt that would just make the team better. Look at other teams, and the most obvious would be John Force when he hired Bernie Fedderly to work with Austin Coil, and how it has worked. Larry has come in with the same duties as Fedderly, overseeing the crew and giving input in the tune-up, but Ken has the final say.

Mopar has given us a commitment. We have the budget to go out and run as hard as anybody. It could've been just as easy for Darrell to say, "Hey, I'm not going to spend that money, and we'll go out there and have a top five car and I can keep that money in the bank." Instead, he said we were going to make this thing better and try to get this team up there with the Gary Scelzis, Cory McClenathans, Kenny Bernsteins, and Joe Amatos. Hopefully, now we'll be up there.

I always thought that during a record run, everything would be perfect. What a surprise! Ours wasn't.

Darrell wants to put all our sponsors — Mopar, Winnebago, Prolong, Mac Tools, and Gates Belts — in the winner's circle a lot. It's Mopar power to win.

We made a lot of changes to the car during the winter, and we really didn't have as good a preseason test session in Phoenix as we wanted. We had some trouble with some parts and pieces and made only eight runs instead of 12 to 15, but we did have a 4.69 at 309 mph with the car set up really soft. We looked at that as a sign the car could go down the racetrack.

Once we got to Pomona, the car responded to everything we did.

I always thought that during a run like our 4.503, which is the quickest in history, everything would be perfect. What a surprise! Ours wasn't. It shook the tires early, then put a cylinder out at about 1,000 feet. I knew it was on a good run, but in my mind, I didn't expect it to be that good because it wasn't perfect. But it did run 272 mph at half-track, and the G-meter reading was pretty stout.

We backed up the national record with a 4.513 run in the first round against Bruce Sarver and broke the motor like we did on the 4.503. So Veney backed down the motor for the second round and the semi's. We ran 4.561 and 4.544 and didn't hurt anything. Imagine that; we ran 4.54 and 4.56 with the motor backed down.

In the Monday final against Larry Dixon, we ran a 4.522 and broke the motor again, but we were able to enjoy our first victory in 54 races. I've never started a season this good and never set the e.t. record. I did set the speed record once when I was driving a Funny Car.

Ken and Larry have been working on the fuel system to try to solve the engine problems in time for Phoenix. They deserve a lot of credit for our winning performance, and so does our crew — Brett Anderson, Mark Wilkinson, Larry Lush, Anthony Kastens, and Wayne Ulmer.

As far as the championship chase goes, a lot of good racers are out there this year, including Dixon, Tony Schumacher, Eddie Hill, Bob Vandergriff Jr., and those I've already mentioned. It should take four or five races to weed things out to see who are the contenders and who are the also-rans. We hope to stay with the title contenders.