NHRA Mello crowns will be decided in Pomona

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season has been one of the most exciting seasons in drag racing history, and it will come to a fitting end at historic Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Nov. 13-16, at the 50th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals.

The best in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle will once again battle for the coveted race victory and world championship titles at one of drag racing’s most tradition-rich events. Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel), Matt Hagan (Funny Car), Rickie Jones (Pro Stock), and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle) were last year’s winners of the season-ending race that will once again be televised nationally on ESPN2.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration, NHRA will feature many of the sport’s greatest legends, and those drivers will share some of their favorite memories from 50 years of the Auto Club NHRA Finals. “The King of Speed” Kenny Bernstein, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, “TV Tommy" Ivo, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen, Ed “the Ace” McCulloch, Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, and Don “the Snake” Prudhomme will participate in a series of special NHRA Legends Chats and an autograph session Saturday afternoon in the popular Hot Rod Junction.

The NHRA Legends Chats will run from 10 a.m. until noon Saturday, and the autograph session will take place between Saturday’s Pro qualifying sessions. Fans can attend the Legends Chats and autograph session by obtaining a special commemorative 50th Anniversary NHRA Legends Card, which will be available on a first-come, first -served basis at the Hot Rod Junction.

NHRA fans also will play an important role in the 50th anniversary celebration as they will help decide the most iconic moments in the history of the Auto Club NHRA Finals. Fans will vote for their favorite moments from the event via interactive pages set up on NHRA’s social media channels.

On the track, world championship titles and race victories will be up for grabs at the fabled drag racing facility that sits just east of downtown Los Angeles.

Tony Schumacher

Seven-time world champion Tony Schumacher is the points leader in Top Fuel. Schumacher has shined in past opportunities to earn world championship titles in Pomona, and if he’s successful this season, it will be a record eighth championship for the driver of the U.S. Army dragster. After a ho-hum regular season, Schumacher hit his stride in the Countdown to the Championship, posting victories in Charlotte, Dallas, and Reading. A four-time winner of the Auto Club NHRA Finals, Schumacher will try to close out his late-season surge in style with another victory.

Atlanta, Topeka, and recent Las Vegas winner Spencer Massey, Denver winner J.R. Todd, defending winner and world champ Langdon, Doug Kalitta, and Steve Torrence are all still in contention.
Other drivers to watch in Top Fuel include reigning Auto Club of Southern California Road the Future Award winner Brittany Force, Pomona and Sonoma winner Khalid alBalooshi, and Englishtown and Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals winner Richie Crampton.

Matt Hagan

In Funny Car, Hagan took home the Auto Club NHRA Finals victory last season but was disappointed his win didn’t include a world championship trophy as well. Hagan enters the final event with a slim lead over John Force, and the Virginia cattle rancher’s Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots Dodge Charger is primed to make a run for a second world championship crown and first since 2011.
Force earned his 16th world championship title last season, and this year, his Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang has been one of the quickest and fastest cars on the circuit. However, it’s going to take one of his best efforts to secure a record 17th world championship.

Force’s daughter Courtney is also a top contender for the championship, as she earned back-to-back playoff victories in Dallas and St. Louis and sits third in points at the controls of her Traxxas Mustang. She became the first woman to post four wins in a season in Funny Car and the first woman to win back-to-back races in Funny Car. A world championship would be the icing on the cake to wrap up a dream season for the 26-year-old racer, which also included earning the 100th win by a female driver in the Mello Yello Series and passing her sister Ashley as NHRA’s winningest female Funny Car driver.

In addition to the trio of championship challengers, the list of potential event winners in Funny Car is deep and includes three-time season winner Alexis DeJoria, recent Las Vegas winner Del Worsham, Bristol winner Tommy Johnson Jr., four-time season winner Robert Hight, Ron Capps, Tim Wilkerson, and Cruz Pedregon.

Erica Enders-Stevens

Andrew Hines

In Pro Stock, one of the most intense playoff battles will be settled in Pomona. Erica Enders-Stevens leads the pack as she seeks to become the first woman to win an NHRA world championship title in the category. Enders-Stevens, a five-time winner this season, is followed by Jason Line, Dave Connolly, Shane Gray, and Allen Johnson.

The 2014 world championship in Pro Stock Motorcycle is coming down to Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson teammates Andrew Hines and Krawiec, the winner of this event last season. Hines, winner in Las Vegas, holds the points lead over Krawiec, but the pair has gone back and forth during the season. Both riders are looking for their fourth world championship titles.

Special celebrations throughout the weekend are scheduled to highlight this significant milestone event. In addition to the NHRA Legends Chats and autograph session featuring the legends, several NHRA-exclusive Cacklefests will showcase the vintage dragsters of the sport’s early days, a special car corral in the Hot Rod Junction featuring a wide variety of vintage dragsters and classic race cars, and the SealMaster NHRA Track Walk, where fans can walk on the famed Auto Club Raceway at Pomona track prior to Sunday’s final eliminations. The SealMaster NHRA Track Walk also will feature several of the sports legends.

As always, fans will have the opportunity to interact with their favorite drivers as they’re granted an exclusive pit pass to the most powerful and sensory-filled motorsports attraction on the planet. This unique opportunity in motorsports gives fans direct access to the teams, allowing them to see firsthand the highly skilled mechanics service their hot rods between rounds and enjoy some cherished face time with and get autographs from their favorite NHRA drivers.

Fans also will want to visit NHRA’s popular Nitro Alley and Manufacturers Midway, where sponsors and race vendors create a carnival atmosphere with interactive displays, simulated competitions, merchandise, food, and fun for the entire family.
The event also will feature thrilling competition and world championship finishes in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

Mello Yello Drag Racing Series qualifying begins Friday, Nov. 14, with sessions at 11:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. The final two qualifying sessions will take place Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. Final eliminations are scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 16.

To purchase general-admission or reserved seats, call 800-884-NHRA (6472) or visit NHRATix.com.

NHRA stars relive, talk championships at SEMA Breakfast

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

by Phil Burgess, National DRAGSTER Editor

 

A packed house enjoyed NHRA's annual SEMA Breakfast, which was emceed by Bob Frey and included past and present champions in Antron Brown, Tony Schumacher, Gary Scelzi, and John Force. (Photos by Robert Grice)

Force made a grand entrance, with a cup of coffee and a briefcase.

Laughs were a big part of the show, with the drivers trading good-natured barbs and colorfully reminiscing about their racing careers.

After the breakfast, all four champions signed autographs at the NHRA booth inside the SEMA Show.

NHRA’s annual SEMA Breakfast, part of the celebration surrounding the upcoming 50th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals, brought together a quartet of NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series champs, past and present, for a lively discussion about what it takes and what it means to win an NHRA championship, as well as to reminisce about their exciting title runs that concluded at the World Finals.

     Sixteen-time NHRA Funny Car champ John Force and seven-time NHRA Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher, who will both go into this year’s Finals with the chance to add to their totals, were joined onstage by former world champs Antron Brown and Gary Scelzi before a crowd of SEMA Show attendees who packed Ballrooms A and B at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino.

     Emceed by Bob Frey, the panel discussion-themed event provided not just a glimpse back at event history through a series of introductory videos but also a look at the dynamics between rivals for recent championships.

     Schumacher, who can easily claim his eighth Top Fuel title in Pomona, naturally was asked to reflect on his famous 2006 championship, clinched with “The Run” — a national-record-setting final-round win over teammate Melanie Troxel — and fondly remembered as one of the greatest comebacks in the sport’s history.

     “Whenever you run a teammate in the final round, you hear people talking about giving away races, so for us it was a gift to [also] have to set the world record,” he reasoned. “I wouldn’t have to spend my whole life wondering if Melanie laid down for me because it didn’t end up mattering who was in the other lane. As much as they were a team car to us, Melanie was not a fan of ours and was trying to beat us. There’s much more to that whole story, how hard it was to win that championship; we were 330 points back halfway through the year and had to come back to win it with one of the great moments in NHRA history.

     "We don't have to win the Finals [to win the championship] this year,” he added. “That's kind of a letdown. The championships you win when you also win the race are way more gratifying than the ones you have to watch."

     Brown, who won his 2012 Top Fuel championship in dramatic fashion when teammate Schumacher was unable to defeat Brandon Bernstein in the final round, reflected, “When you think about all of those years you’ve been so close, on my motorcycles and in Top Fuel in 2009 and 2011, when you get that win, all of those emotions about all of the times you fell short and all of the hard work and time spent in the shop and traveling and racing, they come rushing out.

     "Lifting the [championship trophy] is better than not,” he added. “And it pays better, too.” Brown, who is too far back this season to win the 2014 championship, elicited laughter from the crowd as he acknowledged his poor start to this year’s playoffs. "Once we started the Countdown [to the Championship], it seemed like someone stabbed both of our tires."

     Scelzi, retired since the end of the 2008 season, was “pulled out of mothballs” for the show, according to Frey (“I guess the other guy didn’t show up; [NHRA] saw me out on the curb sleeping under a park bench,” countered Scelzi, one of drag racing’s liveliest characters during his heyday), and quickly and comfortably slid back into the good-natured bantering he enjoyed with longtime rival Force while also taking good-natured shots at his other former rivals in Ron Capps and Whit Bazemore. (Schumacher: "Watching Scelzi and Force, now this is a show.")

     Scelzi, whose 2005 championship broke up Force’s title runs in 2004 and 2006, good naturedly joked that he won the championship “by default” after both Capps and Force lost early but not before he himself had already been defeated.

     "Tony's right,” Scelzi said, jokingly referring to Schumacher’s earliest comment. “I didn't like winning the championship by default. [It was like] everyone went out early, so give it to Scelzi. That’s still a little bit of a void for me. It wasn’t the way I wanted to do it."

     Force, who also relived some of his great Finals moments, of course, stole the show with his stream of conscious thinking, gliding between references to the pit-row fight at a recent NASCAR event, his grandkids, Ebola, Chinese restaurants, meeting the stars of Duck Dynasty, and Schumacher’s adventures as a part of the U.S. Army team (“Schumacher's jumped out of airplanes. Highest thing I've ever jumped out of is a bar-room window") but was on point when addressing his upcoming battle with points leader Matt Hagan at the Finals in light of recent changes in his camp.

     "I race from the heart, and I've been beat up my whole life and kicked in the dirt; I was a loser for 15 years,” he said. “They can beat you on the racetrack — if they’re better or luckier, they’re gonna win — but if they don’t beat you mentally, then they never win. One of my crew guys asked me what 'What are you going to do if Hagan beats you at the Finals? How are going to show him you beat him mentally?’ I said, ‘I’ll grab him and kiss him on the lips.’ I may not win the championship, but I'll ruin him mentally.

     “[Listening to Schumacher talk], he sends chills up my spine: ‘I don’t want it easy.’ Let me tell you something; I hope Hagan has a heart attack.”In the end, when it came to this group of champions, as they discussed championships past and, hopefully, future, Schumacher summed it up best: "Coming in second means nothing."

The Force Rookie Dragster- Photo Credits Gary Natase

BRITTANY FORCE TO RACE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR DRAGSTER STARTING IN VEGAS

LAS VEGAS, NV(October 31, 2014) --- Brittany Force winner of the 2013 Auto Club Road to the Future Award will race a commemorative Auto Club Road to the Future Rookie Of The Year Castrol Edge Top Fuel dragster the final two races of the season. The Top Fuel dragster was designed by Force and the in-house JFR graphic design team.

Force won the 2013 award on the strength of her season long improvement capped by a semi-final finish at the Auto Club NHRA World Finals as well as winning the fan vote earlier in the season for the 2nd annual Traxxas Shootout.

“This rookie car is as much my crews as it is mine which is why I decided to dedicate it to the entire team. I wanted something completely different but something that has meaning to me and relates to my experience as a rookie driving a Top Fuel dragster. In the beginning of my season JFR put a canopy on my car and the first time I jumped in it I immediately felt like I was in a fighter jet. That feeling is exactly where my idea was inspired from. Working with JFR graphic designer Brandon Baker we created a military jet theme for my car. The car is silver with a weathered look to it and has the entire teams names listed on the car. It definitely is bad ass and I can't wait to race in Las Vegas!” said Force.

The dragster design incorporates the look of a jet fighter and Force wanted to go with a more vintage, worn looking plane.  The challenge was to tie those concepts together, while making a unique looking design as this sort of a thing has been done before.  The JFR design team made a template of the entire car and laid out a variety of rivets and “airbrushed” them in Photoshop. All the logos were “weathered” on the car to give it that worn and vintage feel.  To give it a metal effect the design team used a brushed metal film and printed directly onto the surface and a matte over laminate look was used to further enhance the airplane theme. 

The entire Top Fuel dragster is three pieces of material, the hood and two sides.  Each side took over nine hours to print.  The entire car, from concept, design, print, and installation, was done in house at John Force Racing in Brownsburg.  All rookie year crew members’ names are on the side of the car and the twelve stars on the hood represent each crew guy and the driver.

Paul Stoll from PPG was very helpful in critiquing concepts and adding ideas to the car.  He also painted Force a custom helmet that matches the theme of the car.

“Winning rookie of the year in 2013 is something I am very proud of. Driving a Top Fuel dragster has definitely been a challenge to adjust to not only for me but the entire team as well. I feel my rookie team had great success in our first year, going rounds and making it to a semi round ending our year strong. Earning Rookie of the Year was a team effort. I don't believe we would have taken that home without every single one of my crew guys and crew chiefs,” said Force.

In order to get the special matte vintage look with the rivets on the die-cast to match Force’s real race car, Lionel has opted to create the car in a special finish called RAW.  These RAW cars feature a rough, untouched body that makes for a tough-as-nails look with the barest hint of clear coating to prevent oxidation. These die cast are decaled with full-color sponsor and team logos that stand out on the cool metal background. Not for the faint of heart, RAW is a heavy metal finish that we anticipate will be one of the hottest special finishes of the year. 

The die-cast replica of this commemorative Top Fuel dragster will be available to fans from the John Force RaceStation (johnforceracestation.com) or Lionel Racing (lionelracing.com) for a suggested retail price starting at $94.95.