5/24/06

I’m a little late with this edition of “In the Groove” since I was in Monterrey, Mexico this past weekend covering the Champ Car World Series race for SPEED Channel. Even though my pit reporting duties kept me busy, I was still in touch with my contacts in Columbus who always keep me in the loop (or In the Groove) on whatever is happening at the NHRA national events I’m not able to attend.

If you work backwards from the final round of Funny Car, you see a tremendously curious string of events which emerged last Sunday.

* Tony Pedregon suddenly the hottest driver in the class?
* Whit Bazemore just as suddenly finding some honest-to-goodness consistency and advancing to a final round?
* Eric running a 4.90 elapsed time in a losing effort to Bazemore in the semi-finals after beating Robert with a 4.80 in the second round?
* Gary Scelzi still unable to reprise his title-winning show of power from one year ago?
* And another inexplicable early-round loss for John (and Ron Capps) after all three Team Castrol Fords thundered in qualifying?

The seemingly unending parade of the unexpected that has characterized the NHRA this season just doesn’t want to quit. With the O’Reilly Summer Nationals coming up this weekend in Topeka, the feeling I’m getting is that not much could surprise me anymore. I will say this however: With the hot summer months now cranking up to temperature, whoever can put together the most steady string of consistency in eliminations will have the most to gain between now and Indy on Labor Day weekend.

It’s not going to be so much a case of who wins the races as opposed to who gets good qualifying position (to ensure lane choice in the first round), who doesn’t beat themselves on Sunday, and who can advance to at least the semi-finals at the most races and—although it’s not imperative—who can win the national events which are winnable.

Right now, John is still looking for his first 2006 victory. Ron Capps has a 91-point lead and when you stop and think of how consistent his car has been and how hot-and-cold John has been, that’s not an overwhelming margin. Eric and Robert are twice as many points further back than John is while Tony Pedregon’s recent charge has given him the potential to make things even more snug in the points chase. In my opinion, this year’s champion will come from among one of those five drivers.

Granted, there are still 15 national events left to go in 2006, but it’s hard for me to imagine all five of the aforementioned racers going stone cold for the next 5-plus months and another driver from outside the top five rambling all the way to No. 1. Impossible? Well, I’m not going to declare anything impossible after seeing so many startling points’ races end totally opposite to what anyone might have expected at the end of the previous May. But Capps, John, Eric, Robert, and Pedregon seem to be distancing themselves from the rest of their pursuers race by race; in fact, Tony Pedregon’s recent red hot streak will need to remain red hot for him to seriously close the 232-point gap that still separates him from Capps. In like manner, John, Eric, and Robert have got to start putting some real pressure on Capps and give the Brut driver something to think about if they hope to play a decisive role in this year’s championship proceedings.

In all honesty, there’s very little that needs to be done to increase the performance of JFR’s three Mustangs. Their qualifying numbers this year bear that out. But what’s been happening in eliminations has been their Achilles Heel with all three drivers running into nasty racing luck in critical matchups with drivers they need to beat. (Remember Tony’s 3-0 record vs. Team Castrol in Atlanta?)

I will say that despite Ron Capp’s quick start to 2006 and having placed everyone else in the class on notice that he has his sights squarely set on his first POWERade championship, parity has been one of the distinguishing characteristics of this year’s Funny Car report card. Every pair in every round at every race has been a real mystery right up until the win light comes on, and the fact that Gary Scelzi, who ended John’s incredible championship run last year, remains outside the top ten this far into the season says a lot about how evenly matched the competition has been since February. And I for one think that parity is always very cool.

Not too much down-time this week as everyone is already on their way to Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas for this weekend’s Summer Nationals. I’ll have more from “In the Groove” right after the race and I invite you to catch me on “Inside Drag Racing” on ESPN2 every Sunday at 11:00AM EDT and on upcoming telecasts of the Champ Car World Series on SPEED. Oh, and you can also see what I have to say regularly on ESPN.com’s NHRA page.

See you at the races!

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