| Two NHRA Winston champions were crowned
at the 15th annual O'Reilly Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec
at the Texas Motorplex. Gary Scelzi claimed his third Top Fuel NHRA Winston
championship while Bob Panella Jr. earned his second career NHRA Winston
Pro Stock Truck championship.
Cory McClenathan, John Force, Kurt Johnson and Steve Johns were the
winners at the $1.8 million race.
The O'Reilly Fall Nationals will go into the history books as only
the second in NHRA's 49 years to be completed in one day and the first
to be run without qualifying. Heavy rain on Friday - more than three
inches in Ennis - washed out qualifying and forced NHRA officials to
use the point standings to determine starting positions.
TOP FUEL
Gary Scelzi lost to eventual event runnr-up Melanie Troxel in the semi's,
but left with a 226 point lead over Larry Dixon to clinch the 2000 NHRA
Winston Top Fuel championship.
Scelzi needed only to complete the bye run in the first round to clinch
his third championship, but smoked the tires right off the starting
line.
"We were trying something since we had a free shot," Scelzi admitted.
"We were hoping it was going to make it down the track. We didn't plan
on smoking the tires."
Cory Mac didn't need the 4.659 at 314.02 mph to defeat Melanie Troxel
in the final, giving McCl;enathan his second win in a row.
"Two wins in barely less than a week is like a dream come true," McClenathan
said. "It always looks good if you can win, especially when you don't
have a job."
McClenathan's current team owner, Joe Gibbs, will leave drag racing
next year and McClenathan is looking for a ride. McClenathan will try
to keep MBNA as his primary sponsor next season no matter who he drives
for.
FUNNY CAR
John Force, who had clinched his 10th Winston Championship the week
before, won his third straight O'Reilly Nationals with a dominating
performance. He turned in the event's quickest time of 4.862 and the
fastest speed of 312.28 mph during the semi-finals.
In the final, Toliver let first, but Force was there at the end turning
in a 4.863/302.55 for the win.
"If we were ever going to make a difference in the points battle, today
was the day," said Toliver after edging ahead of Capps in the points.
"We're very happy about reaching the finals and just wish we could have
won. We'll now go on to Pomona with a positive WWF 'Attitude,' and it's
up to everyone on the team to step up and meet the challenge of holding
on to second place."
Ron Capps, who had been second in points going into the event, had engine
problems in the second round and lost to Scotty Cannon.
"Everything was great after the (first round) 4.887," said Capps. "Obviously
we felt confident, but we went to warm up for the second round and we
had a problem with the engine. They guys had about 20 minutes to pull
that engine out and replace it for the second round. We were the first
pair of Funny Cars, so we didn't have time to do our normal warm up
and set the clutch. That basically changed the clutch setup."
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