7/31/06

The Western Swing is over and had it not been for Eric’s impressive win in Sonoma on Sunday, the Denver-Seattle-Sonoma tripleheader would have been a disappointing road trip. Team Schumacher won the first two stops on the Swing—Gary Scelzi in Denver and Whit Bazemore in Seattle-- while John and Ron Capps went winless. The points situation hasn’t changed dramatically with John now 70 points out of first.

John had his chances to overhaul Ron. In raw numbers, Capps won three rounds of racing on the Swing and John won two. Ron’s first round losses in Denver and Sonoma opened the door for John to slip past Capps in the points, but in both instances, John’s day ended in Round 2. Despite what Whit Bazemore has said both on television and in print, EVERY MULTI-CAR TEAM EMPLOYS TEAM ORDERS WHEN THE CHAMPIONSHIP IS ON THE LINE, BUT RARELY DO THOSE ORDERS BECOME AN ISSUE BEFORE INDY. PERIOD, END OF DEBATE.

I’m not going to use this space to elaborate on the above because the bigger item on the table right now is the two-car battle for the POWERade championship between John and Ron. Right now, there’s a 226-point gap between Capps and Robert, who holds down fifth place. With only 8 races left in the season, it would take some miraculous turns of fortune for anyone other than John and Ron to be described as serious contenders. Even Tony Pedregon, who was runner-up to Eric on Sunday, is in third, nearly ten rounds of racing out of first at 191 points. Do the math. Tony would have to put together the kind of scintillating hot streak that every racer dreams about to make up that many points and even the 2003 Funny Car champion would have to admit he hasn’t had the kind of consistency in 2006 that would make such a scenario likely.

Meanwhile, Eric and Robert are hoping they can get past Tony and give JFR a shot at a 1-2-3 points finish. That’s never happened for Team Castrol since John added the third car five years ago and if it were to happen, one can only imagine what kind of celebration would erupt out in Yorba Linda. It would certainly erase the sting of last year’s title chase in which teammates Scelzi and Capps finished 1-2.

Elsewhere, the ratings and reviews of “Driving Force’ have been extremely flattering and almost unanimously favorable since the show premiered on A&E several weeks ago. The mainstream media have also been complementary in its reactions to “Driving Force” and I really believe it’s going to draw some new fans to the POWERade series. I also think that, despite how demanding, intractable, and uncompromising John sometimes comes across in the shows, people will be fascinated by his honesty and passion—two important aspects of his personality that have never completely been revealed throughout the many top ends interviews and sound bites he’s become famous for.

And it’s with sadness that we mourn the loss of two of the NHRA’s most colorful pioneers who recently passed away within a week of each other. “Big John” Mazmanian, whose bright Kandy Apple Red ’41 Willys was such a stunning racecar throughout the 1960’s competing in the wild and ornery A/Gas Supercharged class, lost his battle with leukemia on July 21 at age 80. “Big John” owned the Willys which was driven by his friend Bones Balough and I can remember seeing many, many features and photos of that car in numerous hot rodding magazines when I was a kid. I even built a model of that car—as so many other young motor heads did back then, I’m sure.

Another great from drag racing’s past, Sush Matsubara died on July 27 of a heart attack after doctors had placed him into a therapeutic coma. Sush was 70 and he was a familiar name to a legion of Fuel Altered and Funny Car fans, particularly on the West Coast, in the 1970’s when he drove a string of notorious machines for such owners as Joe Mondello and the late Joe Pisano. Both of these legendary racers will be missed and many of us will treasure the infinitely vivid memories we savor of their drag racing exploits. God bless you, guys.

Things will quiet down for a couple of weeks before the next race in Brainerd, MN—the final tune-up before Indy ’06. Following the race in Brainerd, I’ll have more thoughts to share with you right here “In the Groove”.

Hope you’ll check back in then!