Finally Pomona or Welcome to Sunny Southern California

by Darr Hawthorne
Photos by Zak Hawthorne, Tim Marshall, and Ron Lewis

(Ron Lewis photo)

At the pre-race luncheon for the Auto Club of SoCal NHRA Finals held at a posh Pasadena eatery, John Force characterized his week so far as a "nightmare." He'd arrived back home in SoCal that morning sometime after 1:00 AM from the Las Vegas SEMA Show banquet put on by his longtime sponsor Castrol. Sure he'd had a "couple of beers" and his stories of Vegas limo rides and his trials of attempting to catch the plane home were hilarious, but Force looked exhausted.

This was one of the first times in his long Championship career that he'd not clinched the Funny Car crown going into the World Finals and it was his own doing. His teammate Tony Pedregon was still within two rounds striking distance of grabbing the season-ending bonus, and characterized this as the year of "spooky parallels". The last time this happened was in '92 when Tony's brother Cruz managed to break the Force dominance. John joked that he was "countin' on Gary Densham, go Densham, go Densham" to take out his hired foe, but in reality it was his sponsors who would ultimately win the Championship whether it was himself or Tony. The goal for Team Force was now to finish 1-2-3, as John put it, "to defend the title...it's Ford against GM, 3 Mustangs and 14 GM's."

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The layout of this small luncheon was rather intimate, a few tables with five NHRA Championship drivers and maybe a dozen media types. Kenny Bernstein sat with his publicist and everybody said hello to KB, but it was over for him when Larry Dixon clinched the Top Fuel Championship at the Las Vegas race. When Shirley ran a career best and Bernstein smoked the tires, it was over. While all the reporters paid their respects, he was left alone, retiring, in what had been a fierce battle of the beer wagons all season long. Son Brandon would take over the seat next season, but he sure wished he'd been able to go out on top with one last Championship. Bernstein does leave the seat as the only driver to win NHRA Championships in both Top Fuel and Funny Car.

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