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Rethinking Brandon
Bernstein and the Competition
3/7/03
With 2/23rds of the season
in the books, we draw the following conclusions...
Due largely to the largesse of the large motorsports
editor in St. Louis, I was able to attend my
second straight NHRA national event. I made
it to Pomona for the Winternationals and, thanks
to the whopping outlay of $41.97 (give or take
a $100), I was able to make the follow-up event
at Firebird Int'l Raceway in Chandler, Ariz.
That marks the first time in roughly five or
six years that I've been able to pull off such
a parlay, and within that lies education for
the disconnected such as I.
It was nothing for me to attend Charlie Allen's
race in Arizona when I was at DRAGSTER. I had
been to every Super Bowl since the race began
in 1984, and had been to the lion's share of
Checker/Schucks/Kragen national events up until
that fateful year of 1998. If nothing else,
the performances and outcomes of those races
gave you a feel for the way the season might
develop. True, it was like viewing the first
two rounds of a 12-round championship fight
and predicting the winner, but nonetheless you
had a sense of who might do what.
First and foremost, I got a feel for that in
Phoenix. If the few half-dozen of you who read
this column might recall, I said that this season
was likely to be target practice for Larry Dixon
Jr. in Don Prudhomme's Dick LaHaie-tuned Miller
Lite Top Fuel Dragster. Doug Kalitta's Mac Tools
car made a lot of power, Tony Schumacher's Army
can ran hard, and occasionally a Doug Herbert
or Clay Millican might step up, but overall
economics dictated a waltz through the vaults
for the Miller team.
Brandon Bernstein in his dad's Tim Richards-tuned
Budweiser King dragster?! I originally thought
that he'd start slowly. He might go on to win
an event or two, but he was going to be hard-pressed
to deal with the few big-budgeted veterans who
rule the class. After all, if it was as easy
as hopping into a well-tuned, well-healed dragster
and just start winning, why, hell. . .theoretically
we could have a new POWERade champ every year.
Would that it were true.
However, I have changed my mind: Bernstein
will be a major factor in this deal ("deal"
meaning the 2003 NHRA point chase). Think about
it. He runner-ups at the Big Bud Shootout to
Dixon at the Winternationals and then gets bopped
in round one of regular Winters eliminations,
butttt...at Phoenix, he meets Dixon in the final,
pantses him at the line and takes a holeshot
4.57 to 4.53 win.
History seems to defend the fact that this
guy will make Dixon work. A 17-year-old Jeb
Allen NHRA-debuted a Top Fuel dragster with
a semi-final finish at the 1971 Supernationals,
and then won his first NHRA title the following
year at the Summernationals in Englishtown,
N.J. in July. By the way, NHRA only held eight
races then so winning in July was a fast turnaround.
More recently, Gary Scelzi, a standout Alcohol
racer, replaced the late Blaine Johnson in brother
Alan's Winston cigarettes digger and won his
first two races of 1997 and went on to grab
that year's Winston Top Fuel Championship.
The point is that it can be done. Will it happen?
No. I'm still betting Dixon and, given the way
Kalitta's running, plotting him for second or
better. Still, where I thought Brandon would
do well to finish fourth or fifth...well, I've
changed my mind. He's going to win three or
four more of these things at least. Call it
misinformed, uninformed, chloroformed--I spoke
too soon about Bernstein's chances.
Naturally, the success of a somewhat new face
has to help the class, but does it? Brandon,
a good guy and an obviously talented driver,
will make noise, but how big? After all, he
still wears the livery of the Budweiser King.
It's like being Prince Charles. When the ole
man kicks off, you step up, but what does that
mean for the sport? For me, not a whole hell
of a lot.
At Pomona and Phoenix, the announcers quite
correctly informed the fans that a 4.5-to-4.5
race represented good drag racing. When Bob
Frey, a guy I like and respect, intimated that
the Bernstein and Dixon finale at Phoenix was
drag racing at its finest, he was right. . .sorta.
. .but how long will that sentiment hold? What
if at the Gatornationals, it's Kalitta and Schumacher
in the final and it's a 4.5-to-4.5 duel? Well,
great, but how long will we watch side-by-side
4.5s between the same half-dozen racers before
we get the feeling that a Top Fuel final is
just like a Pro Stock final except with blower
and injectors and nitro-methane? Holeshot eliminator.
Side-by-side, but the same faces in the winner's
circle.
More than ever, I feel that we desperately
need new faces in the winners circle. I respect
for all the world the accomplishments of a Dixon,
Kalitta, or a Brandon Bernstein, but how long
will this go on uninterrupted? You wanna know
who the biggest hero in drag racing will be
in future years? It'll be the guy who lands
fat, sustainable sponsors for the David Bacas,
Cory McClenathans, Chris Karamesineses, Clay
Millicans, and Andrew Cowins of the world. The
guy whose business acumen brings us 16 truly
competitive race cars, budgets be damned.
We really need this. With the expectation of
a low e.t. or new top speed rendered almost
null and void by the governing technical bodies,
there has to be some way in which we can engender
crowd response from just another win by a Dixon
or a Bernstein.
I enjoyed myself at Pomona; I enjoyed myself
at Phoenix. No regrets. However, if I were to
win a year's worth of plane fare and admissions
to all the NHRA events, I don't know how happy
I'd be, given the current situation. I would
say this, though, that more than likely my friends
would benefit from my good hypothetical fortune
in some way. 
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