10/14/06

As the old saying goes, “Half a loaf is better than none”.

That pretty much sums up what happened last weekend in Richmond. Ron Capps swung the door wide open for John (again) by losing in the first round but thanks to Cruz Pedregon, John was unable to rack up more than 45 points to add to his points lead. It could have been twice that had John gone the distance, but now with two races remaining in the season, his lead is just over two rounds.

Eric finally put a win on the board after a long run of misfortune this year. He beat Cruz in the final which I think qualifies for adequate payback for Cruz’s semi-final win over John, but for Eric, there have been just too few weekends like that one this season to keep him in the championship race.

A quick look at the points reveals that Capps finds himself in a real squeeze as the schedule heads for Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. Ron has to concern himself with both catching John and staying ahead of Robert, who is now only 8 points behind him. And if Eric somehow remains hot over the next two events, mathematically, we could see a 1-2-3 finish for JFR, and THAT would be the first time in NHRA history that any pro team had swept the first three positions in the final standings.

It almost happened a couple of times in recent years. In 2002, John and Tony Pedregon finished first and second in the points with Del Worsham third and John’s former teammate Gary Densham ending up fourth. Then in 2003, Tony won the championship, John was third behind Whit Bazemore and Gary was fifth, just a few rounds behind Worsham in fourth.

Elsewhere in the POWERade picture, Top Fuel appears to becoming down to the same kind of finale we saw in Funny Car last year. Doug Kalitta has been defying gravity by remaining in the points lead despite a scarcity of national event wins since this past summer. He’s been winning enough rounds to stay ahead of Brandon Bernstein and Tony Schumacher, but the spread between all three racers is approximately four rounds with eight rounds of racing to go.

Schumacher has truly been an enigma. He broke his own record for the most No. 1 qualifying starts in a season last weekend in Richmond with his 12th pole of ’06, he has consistently scored low elapsed time and/or top speed of the event throughout the year¸ and has had numerous opportunities to overhaul Kalitta and Bernstein for the points lead since July when he won his first race of the year.  But almost inexplicably, he has suffered a string of stunning early-round losses down the stretch and with just two races left in the year; he’ll have to put on some kind of season-ending display to pull out his fourth career title.

Of course, Jason Line’s Richmond experience was the ultimate national event performance for any drag racer—clearly the most impressive exhibition of horsepower we’ve seen in P/S in a long time. Usually, when we see a performance milestone broken, it’s accomplished in small increments, but for Jason to end the weekend a dizzying HALF-SECOND into the 6.50’s, there are few words to adequately describe it. And this from a driver who three years ago totaled his racecar in his very first round of professional competition!

Next stop: Las Vegas and the AC Delco Nationals in a couple of weeks. Other than Jason being in position to clinch the Pro Stock championship, don’t expect to see any other categories wrapped up at the Strip. Those will very likely be buttoned down at Pomona two weeks later—the last time that the POWERade titles will be determined under the current points system.

I’ll have more from “In the Groove” after the race in Vegas, so we’ll catch you then!