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Praying to the rain gods didn't help Chief
Starter Rick Stewart.
(Zak Hawthorne photo)
At the Fairplex on Thursday it looked as though the racing
would be tight as expected, but there was also a possibility of rain,
not just a little rain, but torrential rain. It began to fall during
the afternoon round of Pro Stock qualifying and after delays of about
90 minutes, Force had bumped Dean Skuza's 4.833 from the #1 spot, overpowering
the competition by running a stout 4.762 at 324.05 MPH.
The following two days brought nothing but downpour after
downpour raining out any progress by the assembled race teams. On Saturday
afternoon, with no break in sight, the options were laid out by Senior
VP of Racing Operations, Graham Light. First, the Budweiser Shootout
would move to the 2003 Winternationals. Since there had only been one
session of Pro qualifying, the Top 10 in 2002 NHRA POWERade points would
be guaranteed to be part of Sunday's show, with the quickest remaining
six filling out the field of 16.
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Darrell Russell, in Joe Amato's Billstein
Engine Flush dragster, claimed his first career #1 qualifying
position by running a solid 4.571/313.22. (Zak Hawthorne photo)
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One of the hardest hit by this ruling would be Clay Millican's
Werner Enterprises dragster, since Millican was way out of the Top 10
by virtue of his team's concentration on winning the IHRA Championship
this season. He was bumped out of the Sunday show by Andrew Cowin. Crew
chief Mike Kloeber commented on his removal from the Sunday show saying,
"It was a little demoralizing, but mostly because I was unaware that
this was a rule. In the past our record would indicate that we are a
very strategy-oriented team. Had we been aware of the possibility of
a one-shot qualifying, we wouldn't have allowed our car to be shut-off
when we smoked the tires, we would have pedaled it and gotten down the
racetrack."
The same bumping process would add Tommy Johnson and Scotty
Cannon back into the Funny Car action. Pro Stock would find Mark Whisnant,
Allan Johnson's Mopar, and George Marnell added to the racing on Sunday.
Sunday found a bright sunny day and no rubber on the track,
since the first 300 feet had been scraped clean by the Safety Safari
because of the heavy rains. Traction was at a premium as the first couple
pairs of dragsters made safe runs in the low 5-second range.
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