Go2Geiger Drag Racing News

Just a quick note. I came across a great video about the remaining drag strips that exist in Southern California.

Try to pick a clearcut favorite for any of the four championships up for grabs. I tried; it's really tough.

I'm really proud of the NHRA for doing the right thing in these trying economic times and letting kids in free at this year's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil. It's easy to bash on a sanctioning body that has more than 80,000 members to please, and I've certainly taken my shots over the years, but it's important to recognize the good things that happen as well.

I ran into Top Fuel driver Dave Grubnic this weekend at the Supercross race in Anaheim and we had a chance to chat about drag racing. It was a short conversation.

"There's just nothing happening," he said. "Absolutely stagnant. In fact, I was just talking to (NHRA Senior Vice President of Racing Operations) Graham Light the other day and he was saying the same thing. It's been very quiet."

If you're a glass half-full kind of guy, then it's easy to say that no news is good news. The sport hasn't lost any significant sponsors or teams so at the very least it isn't going backwards or down-sizing in any way.

On the other hand, with economic indicators getting better across the country, it's a bit of a shame there hasn't been some announcements of note.

Well, we still have a month or so until Pomona so maybe something will break.

Here's what has happened.

Coil leaves Force: To me this was the biggest news story of the year. Nineteen-time champion Austin Coil, who has been with John Force for all of his 132 wins and 15 world titles, quietly resigned the day after the awards banquet, leaving a letter of resignation on Force's desk before the boss got to work.

I talked to Force last week for a story in the next issue of AutoWeek. He seemed really confused by the whole thing and more than a little despondent that he hasn't talked to Coil since that fateful day. Coil asked him for some space and Force is giving it to him.

Coil built such a braintrust in that camp that the performance of the team probably won't suffer much. I'm a little more concerned about the mental challenges Force will face moving forward. Coil is/was Force's best friend, a mentor, a claiming influence, and a sounding board for everything Force has done. As the champ said, "I'm closer to Austin than my wife." Now he's gone.

Massey replaces Cory Mac: Past Rookie of the Year winner and IHRA champion Spencer Massey was named as the replacement driver for veteran Cory McClenathan in the Fram dragster. The conventional wisdom among the uninformed out there is that big, bad, heartless team owner Don Schumacher gave McClenathan the pink slip because Massey brought some money into the equation. Not true.

I've been around Don Schumacher for 14-plus years now and although he's done some things that have made me wince, I have to defend Papa Shoe on this one. According to Cory Mac, Schumacher has been nothing but supportive of him since the call came down from corporate for a younger representative in that dragster. In fact, Schumacher has kept McClenathan on the payroll while he looks for another gig. Pretty classy deal.

I know Schumacher can appear cutthroat in some of his business dealings but I can tell you for a fact the guy does a lot of really nice things for people that most never hear about because he doesn't talk about that stuff. This is just one example.

Enders loses ride to Buddy Perkinson: Popular Pro Stock pro Erica Enders found out she lost her ride with Jim Cunningham Motorsports to 19-year-old Buddy Perkinson when she received her firesuit, helmet, and personal items in a FedEx box. She tried reaching out to Cunningham that same day but never got through. Then she saw the press release that Perkinson had been hired and connected the pieces that she'd been dumped.

Like Jeg Coughlin Jr. bowing out of the class at the end of the season, we'll probably never know the real reasons why some things happen within a team. The only thing we do know is that Perkinson and Cunningham have a lot of work to do to get that Ford Mustang up to standards.

As for Erica, well, she's gonna be just fine. Trust me.

That's about it for the big stories of the off-season. Aside from those items, we did learn that Hector Arana Jr. will join the Pro Stock Motorcycle ranks on his father's Lucas Oil Buell, while dad unveils a new Buell he thinks will be better than the one with which he won the 2009 championship. I expect Hector Jr. to be a real contender.

I also recently had a conversation with the always understated Larry Dixon. I asked him if he draws any motivation from the incredible stat his friendly rival Tony Schumacher has posted over the last decade and if he's driven to surpass Schumacher's number of career wins and championships.

"Are you kidding me?" he said. "I've already surpassed every dream I could have ever had. I'm just loving every day and I'm going enjoy this for as long as it lasts."

I guess it's true that it's been a quiet off-season, but with a champion like Dixon leading us into 2011, I think the NHRA is going to be just fine.

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Formula 1 cars represent the very limits of modern motorsports technology and are, without question, the sexiest rides on the planet. It's too bad the 2010 Formula 1 championship could end up being a total fraud. I pray I won't be able to say that about drag racing come Sunday night.

We're not very sophisticated in our sport. Our teams pretty much work around the same basic engine and chassis designs that have been in service for three-plus decades. F1 could easily be compared to black ops, while NHRA is basically the Freedom of Information Act. Every NHRA team knows exactly what every other team has under the hood. Seriously, and I mean this with no disrespect to the talented tuners and crewmen in the pits who do incredible things with what they have to work with, we're Neanderthals compared to our Formula 1 brethren. More nitro Org!

Fortunately, NHRA has a chance this weekend to rise above those lab-coat-wearing F1 snobs and decide our champions the old fashioned way -- on the racetrack. The choice is in the hands of the competitors and team owners. Let's hope they all make the right decisions on race day.

For all their incredible gizmos and massive amounts of money they spend -- an average single-car F1 team has a budget larger than NHRA's total gross revenue -- it appears their championship could be decided by team orders.

It was during Lap 49 of the F1 event in Hockenheim, Germany, when runaway race leader Felipe Massa was told over the radio by his race engineer, "Fernando (Alonso, who was in second place) is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand the message?" Let me translate that for you in case you don't follow F1. "Felipe, pull your shiny Ferrari over so your teammate can win the race and earn more points."

Scuderia Ferrari was fined $100,000 for violating Article 39.1 of the Sporting Regulations -- "Team orders which interfere with a race result" and Article 151(c) of the FIA's International Sporting Code, which forbids "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motorsports generally" -- but I don't know anyone who thinks a $100,000 fine for a team with a rumored budget of $400 million is much of a deterrent.

Now here we are at the end of the F1 season and Alonso, who gladly took that trophy in Germany, finds himself eight points in the lead with only this weekend's race left on the schedule. The difference between finishing first and second at an F1 race is seven points, so Ferrari can now proudly say they purchased Alonso's current cushion at a fairly good price.

By the way, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are second and third in the points, respectively, and they both race for the rival Red Bull team, which publically said orders will not be issued no matter the circumstances. That's not just hyperbole; they've proven it on the track this year.

Now I ask you, knowing you probably don't care much about F1, who would you like to see win the championship? How would you feel if Alonso wins by less than seven points knowing he got the free pass in Germany?

Yeah, I thought so. Me too.

So here we are at the 46th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals, thrilled at the prospect of a double, throw-down cage match between Matt Hagan and John Force for the coveted Funny Car title. Either man would make for a great champion. Hagan is a second-year, up-and-comer who tends cattle during the week. Force is NHRA's biggest star and most prolific racer ever, trying at age 61 to win his 15th championship. Both are likeable. Both are great racers.

And let's not forget, both have teammates.

I hereby call out to the racing gods to give us an elimination ladder where the three drivers of John Force Racing have to race the three men from Don Schumacher Racing heads-up, rendering my darker thoughts moot. It would be a tragedy of epic proportions if Force or Hagan face their teammates Sunday and we witness "mysterious" engine malfunctions, drivers jumping the start, or the ever-dreaded ventures "out of the groove" that end up in tire smoke.

Laying down for a teammate in drag racing is hard to prove. Engines do malfunction, drivers do red light, tires lose traction. It's not as obvious as "Felipe, pull over." Still, we all kind of know what happened. Even cavemen figured out fire.

We have to rely on the participants to do the right thing, which is race the person in the other lane to the very best of your abilities, regardless of who that opponent may be.

You cannot tell me any scenario where letting a teammate win is the right thing to do. It cheats the fans, it belittles the other racers, and it severely taints the championship to the point where the driver who wins it all should be ashamed to take the hardware and call themselves the ultimate winner.

And don't give me that jibber-jabber about the sponsors deserving it either. If your relationship with your sponsor is that tenuous, they probably aren't going to be around long anyway.

We have a chance to show the world how we do things over here. I implore John Force and Don Schumacher to show how advanced we really are in this sport and let the championship be decided as it should be. Please don't let us down now.

And while I have the ear of the racing gods, can you arrange for Alonso's car to blow a motor with one lap to go.

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I've traveled to Santa Pod Raceway in England for the FIA Finals. Everything's different here, yet everything's the same.

They have Top Fuel, but no nitro Funny Car. Instead, the kings of the sport are complimented by Pro Mod, Pro Stock, Top Methanol Dragster, and Top Methanol Funny Car. (The methanol classes are very similar to our Alcohol categories.)

Of course we drove on the wrong side of the road to get to the track in a "hire" car that features a steering wheel on the right rather than the left. They have odd words for things -- race rigs are lorries, you remove the bonnet, not the hood, to get to the engine compartment, and work on the motor with spanners instead of wrenches -- but that's all semantics.

The overriding theme is the same -- this is drag racing. It's all about horsepower and passion, lifelong friendships and rivalries born on the quarter-mile, line-'em-up boys and let's see who has the baddest hot rod. Maybe it's a Vauxhall against a Rover instead of a Chevy versus a Dodge, but the concept is unchanged.

It's great fun to walk the pits and see flags from all over Europe and the world. Teams seem to take as much pride in representing their native lands as they do their own racing efforts.

Having come straight from the USA's biggest race, the U.S. Nationals, to Europe's premier event, it's easy to see that the level of excitement among the fans is the same. Just as we walk around the hallowed ground of Indianapolis and think, "this is the U.S. Nationals, man, this is big," our counterparts on this side of the pod make the pilgrimage to Santa Pod and say, "this is the FIA Finals, mate, this is massive."

Races here are much more of a carnival. The campers, pop-ups, and tents are spread across the grounds, despite the perpetual rain, and a traveling circus full of amusement rides has been erected by the main gate.

Crewmen gather in the pits and talk crap about the other teams, tuners walk the track and scuff at the ground, bitching about the surface, and the safety personnel catch naps in their emergency vehicles. The grounds buzz with a head-spinning amount of different languages, and the media center fills with journos from across the continent.

With only five races on the FIA tour, and the prerequisite number of rounds lost to weather, all the points races are tight. Switzerland's Urs Erbacher, a frequent competitor on the NHRA tour, leads Top Fuel by half a round over Risto Poutiainen of Finland. A pair of Swedes, Michael Gullqvist and Johan Lindberg, are tied atop Pro Mod. American fans might remember that Gullqvist won Atlanta this year filling in on Roger Burgess' team.

Pro Stock leader Michael Malmgren of Sweden is the most comfortable of the lot with a nearly insurmountable 76-point advantage, while Top Methanol Dragster leader Timo Haberman of Germany (up 37 points) and Top Methanol Funny Car frontrunner of Dan Larsen of Denmark (up just two points) have some work to do before they can celebrate anything.

American star Melanie Troxel is here to compete in Pro Mod. The car she's driving, owned by Burgess, owns both ends of the FIA record for the class and she raced to the final round of the last FIA stop in Germany before it was washed out by rain so she's a heavy favorite here.

We're already behind with the schedule, so as I mentioned, things here are very similar to what we're used to in the states.

The bottom line is anticipation is high. We'll see the 2010 FIA champions crowned before we leave, come hell or high water, the second of which is a real possibility. Dreams will be realized, hopes will be shattered, and memories will be made.

It's drag racing, mate.

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The NHRA continues to tinker with ways to slow down the nitro cars, presumably so Top Fuel and Funny Car can return to quarter-mile competition. (I say presumably because they won't tell us why they're testing things so we are left to guess).

In actuality, it doesn't matter because after the sport suffered yet another unfortunate fatality at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J., when Top Alcohol Funny Car pilot Neil Parker went off the top end of the way-too-short racetrack and was killed, I think it's time to pull the plug on all quarter-mile racing for any class of cars that routinely goes more than 200 mph.

Parker's crash, which looked a lot like an instant replay of Scott Kalitta's fatal accident at the same facility two years ago, came after a 249-mph run, ironically a career-best pass for the New Jersey favorite. Like Kalitta's wreck, Parker's 'chutes didn't deploy and he was still moving pretty darn fast when he entered the gravel trap and netting. We won't have official word of exactly what happened until the New Jersey State Police complete their investigation. Even then, the ultimate result will be the same -- we lost another driver.

Everyone at the track was pretty rattled after the accident. Rumors swirled that the state troopers would close the track for the weekend and, even though the costs would have been astronomical to come back at a later date, no one seemed upset about that prospect.

I spoke with lots of drivers in many different categories that day and many of them indicated that 1,000-foot racing, something no one particularly cared for when it was first introduced, is probably something NHRA should immediately look into for Pro Mod, Top Alcohol Dragster, Top Alcohol Funny Car, and even Pro Stock, especially at these older tracks that were built when top speeds were just a touch more than 200 mph.

I'm not an expert, but instantly gaining 320 feet of shutdown area and throwing the parachutes at terminal speeds lower than the ones they're reaching now has to equal a safer playing field.

Sure it bucks tradition and I know there aren't any songs about "burning up the 1,000 foot," but if it saves lives isn't it worthwhile?

In a perfect world we'd have the money and space to make every track on the circuit two miles long. Heck, while we're at it, let's put roofs on these things and make rain delays a thing of the past. Unfortunately, we're not racing in a perfect world.

Whenever we go to E-town or Pomona or any of the other short tracks we visit, it's a virtual lock that someone is going in the sand traps. We all talk about it in the pressroom because we know it's going to happen. And don't think for a moment that I want to scratch Old Bridge off the schedule. Trust me, the NHRA needs the Napp family in this sport. They are good people and they care a great deal about drag racing.

No matter where they race, drivers know the sport is dangerous and that they can lose their lives on any given run, but NHRA should always strive to make things as safe as humanly possible.

I could spend hours bashing NHRA, in fact it's a popular pastime in the pits, but I will say the organization, which was founded on safety, always does the right thing in regards to taking care of its participants. NHRA needs to realize, as do the fans, that pulling back to 1,000 feet is the right thing to do. Admit it; you're used to it by now any way.

All information published on go2geiger.com is protected by all applicable copyright laws of the United States of America and is the sole property of go2geiger.com unless mentioned otherwise. It is intended solely for the private use of the individual reader and may not be retransmitted or reposted in any form without the prior written permission of go2geiger.com.

In a colossal flip-flop that would make a 40-year politician blush, the Professional Racers Owners Organization (PRO) gave in to the slightest bit of pressure from NHRA president Tom Compton and racetrack owner Bruton Smith and decided its members would now participate in four-wide drag racing.

After the problem-plagued inaugural NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in late March at Smith's zMax Dragway in Charlotte, PRO members voted 60-3 against any further four-wide races when championship points were on the line. Smith replied that he was only trying to help the sport grow and that perhaps he should just pull back altogether. This sent a wave of panic through the NHRA pits and an emergency meeting between PRO and NHRA was called this past weekend in Las Vegas.

The result was a total reversal of its earlier statement by PRO with the NHRA smugly announcing that four-wide racing would resume next year at the same event.

Apparently, PRO's three biggest concerns -- safety, a high level of confusion among drivers, teams and fans, and the fact sponsorship identification was virtually non-existent on TV -- was quickly replaced by a "keep Bruton happy" sentiment.

Opinions are definitely varied on the subject, so I asked editor Craig Wack to take an opposing stance on the topic.

Wack's take:
Four-wide racing might not be the cureall for what ails the NHRA, but at least credit Bruton Smith for trying to open drag racing to a wider audience.

Smith saw one of the strengths of pro drag racing -- pure, thundering horsepower -- and spent millions of dollars to crank the ground-shaking, teeth rattling dial to "11" in an attempt to make this event unique and fill his massive grandstands.

However, the first incarnation of the 4-Wide Nationals seemed to be doomed from the start because teams and hardcore fans were dead set against the notion right from the beginning, apparently just because it was different. What the two groups didn't realize is that this race wasn't for them. Four wide racing is Bruton Smith's way to make drag racing irresistible to the casual motorsports observer.

Is it a gimmick? Sure. But entertainers from P.T. Barnum to Harry Houdini to KISS to Carrot Top have proven time and time again Americans love a good gimmick and will pay good money to experience one.

More butts in the seats and eyes on the TV mean more opportunity to make the sport grow. A bigger audience makes drag racing more prized by corporate America. Expanding the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series' fan base should be the top priority of the sanctioning body, every track and every team -- especially since corporate giants like Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing, and U.S. Tobacco have recently decided drag racing was no longer worth their attention.

So stop calling Bruton Smith everything from a crazy old man to the spawn of the devil. He thought he saw a way to help the sport of drag racing evolve and he acted on it.

I'm glad Smith stuck to his guns. In fact, I encourage him to add two lanes to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and make any new drag racing projects four-wide. The more four-wide races are run, the more comfortable drivers will become with the staging procedure, and ESPN2 will find more effective ways to televise it.

Tradition is nice, but "the way we've always done it" isn't exactly enflaming the passions of the casual sports fan. Bottom line, the sport needs more risk takers like Bruton Smith. It would have been crazy to give up on this idea after just one race.

Geiger's take:
My opinion of four-wide drag racing is…

Wait, my opinion doesn't matter. Neither does Bruton Smith's or Tom Compton's for that matter. The only opinion that matters is that of the fans. True, you're not going to please everyone, but this is America so we need to go with the majority. In this case, the majority has spoken and they gave four-wide racing a resounding "NO."

Even the members of PRO, who usually can't agree on anything (besides safety issues), voted 60-3 against ever racing under the confusing format again with championship points on the line, at least before they caved in to Smith's pressure.

Personally, I was happy to see the PRO vote, although the group back-pedaled like the spineless organization they've always been in Las Vegas because Smith had told ESPN2 that he may as well take a big step back from the NHRA if nobody likes his ideas. Everyone out there dreams of the day Smith will buy NHRA outright. They sure don't want to scare him away.

Here's the deal: the drivers didn't like it. Not many of them said it out loud because they don't want to be blackballed by the NHRA (yes, it happens all the time), but almost every one I talked to didn't like it. The three original votes that were in favor of more four-wide racing in the PRO poll came from Jeg Coughlin Jr., his team owner Victor Cagnazzi, and longtime contrarian Warren Johnson.

What was interesting to me is that the fans hated it even more. After prompting from several racers, I wrote a column before the event saying the four-wide idea needed to be explained a lot better because the drivers had no clue how it was going to work, which was apparent throughout a bumbling weekend of racing in Charlotte.

After I wrote that piece, I got a couple of words of thanks from the drivers but a heap of e-mails from fans saying they didn't like it at all. I wasn't expecting that kind of feedback so I spent some time up in the stands in Charlotte randomly chatting with the ticket-buying populace. They resoundingly echoed the e-mails -- no one liked it or understood the racing. About the best endorsement it got was "it's cool when all four go down at the same time." Unfortunately, that didn't happen much.

I ran into Bruton's son Marcus in the pressroom that weekend. He was very excited about how the racing had gone, which puzzled me a bit because I thought it was a pretty obvious flop. Blinded by the light, I suppose. I gently relayed to Marcus my interaction with the fans and the negative feedback I'd received. As polite as he was, I felt like he didn't want to hear it. I suggested he poll the fans himself and he just kind of smiled, said maybe they would, and wandered off.

Everyone laid over in that second PRO meeting in Vegas but in their rush to keep Bruton happy they overlooked the wishes of the fans. Now the only thing ticket buyers can do to let their voice be heard is actually do what PRO initially said it would do and refuse to participate.

Bruton and Marcus Smith should be commended for naming the zMax television broadcast facility after drag racing announcer Steve Evans.

Two fan favorites -- Erica Enders and Peggy Llewellyn -- called to tell me they'll be back on tour in the very near future.

Enders and her Dragstar Apparel Pro Stock team, which is owned by Jim Cunningham, has been working non-stop on getting its two Ford Mustangs up to speed. They will make their season debut next weekend in Florida at the 41st annual Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.

Llewellyn has teamed with Junior Pippen and crew chief Rick Maney and will begin racing a Buell V-Twin on April 9-11 at the 23rd annual O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park. She has a sponsorship deal in place but isn't ready to announce the details just yet.

Both girls are from Texas so they're particularly excited about the Houston race. Enders hails from Houston, while Llewellyn calls San Antonio home. They also both race as teammates to their bosses, Enders with Cunningham and Llewellyn with Pippen.

In a time when car counts are dwindling, getting these two stars back seems like  big step in the right direction. Good luck, girls.

All information published on go2geiger.com is protected by all applicable copyright laws of the United States of America and is the sole property of go2geiger.com unless mentioned otherwise. It is intended solely for the private use of the individual reader and may not be retransmitted or reposted in any form without the prior written permission of go2geiger.com.