|
 Millican
gained a slight holeshot on Litton, but it turned out he didn’t need
it as Litton’s championship hopes literally went up in smoke when he
boiled the hides almost immediately on his Wix Filters ride. Meanwhile,
Millican stormed to a 4.706 at 322.81 mph pass to set a new IHRA world
speed record and back up his qualifying mark for the ET record — something
he had to do just to stay in the championship hunt. Not to be outdone,
however, Romine got the jump on Head and laid down a winning 4.720 at
318.32 to back up his own qualifying pass and steal back the elapsed
time record.
That set up a final round pairing to decide the championship, although
Millican not only had to beat Romine, he also had to reset both speed
and ET records to prevail. After a tension-filled build up to the final
round, Romine managed a slight .007-secs advantage on the starting line,
but both cars went up in smoke almost immediately. Both drivers pedaled
the throttle to regain traction, with Millican hooking up first and
posting a 7.475 at 222.03 to take his third win of the season, while
Romine shut down early and coasted through the lights at 91 mph.
"Of course we wanted to win the championship, but we can’t be
disappointed with the season we’ve had," an excited Millican said
afterwards. "For a first-year team, I think these guys did an awesome
job. I’ve heard it said before that you have to lose a championship
before you win one, so I’m glad we got that out of the way already.
Watch out for us in 2001!"
When the final points were tallied, Romine picked up his third IHRA
Summit Top Fuel championship of the last four years thanks to scoring
1,110 points to Millican’s 1,103. Litton finished third with 1,084,
Head was fourth at 947, and Jim Bailey rounded out Top Fuel’s top five
with 766 points.
"This just shows what (crew chief) Clayton (Harris) can do with
these guys. None of this is because of me; it’s all because of them,"
Romine stressed as he accepted the winner’s accolades. "Clayton
is just so consistent."
CONFUSION REIGNS
Paul Romine’s reaction time may need a little work. Sure, the Indianapolis-based
Top Fuel racer is as quick as anyone off the starting line, but he was
slow to catch on to the finish of this year’s title hunt. After losing
a tire-smoking battle in the final round at Rockingham to Clay Millican
(his closest championship contender), Romine still had just enough points
to eke out his third IHRA Top Fuel title -- but he didn’t initially
realize it.
Romine arrived in the shutdown area several seconds after Millican
glided to a stop, and slid his CARQUEST dragster to an abrupt halt just
a few feet from the excited rookie. Although Millican immediately approached
Romine to offer congratulations, Romine wandered off to the darkness
beside the track to console himself. When rightly told he was the champion
because Millican failed to set new performance records, Romine insisted
otherwise. Only when Millican again offered congratulations to "the
champ," did Romine begin to believe.
|
