Big Doings in Big 'D'

By Susan Wade
Photos by Ron Lewis
10/14/03

enny Bernstein couldn't stop Larry Dixon from winning his second NHRA POWERade Top Fuel championship Oct. 12 at the Texas Motorplex. But in knocking off the tough but tire-smoking Scott Kalitta in the final round, he reminded National Hot Rod Association fans that son Brandon had made a strong case to do it before his season-ending crash in May in the Budweiser King/Lucas Oil Dragster.

No one could stop Pro Stock dominator Greg Anderson from doing whatever he wanted at the O'Reilly Fall Nationals. Anderson clinched his first NHRA series championship, won the race as the No. 1 qualifier, and put himself in a position at the upcoming return to Las Vegas to tie Darrell Alderman's 1991 record for most victories in a season with 11. He and his Vegas General Construction Pontiac Grand Am took advantage of Jeg Coughlin Jr.'s final-round red light.

And John Force, who had stopped winning since scoring back-to-back victories at Denver and Seattle in July, beat surprising and unsponsored Dean Skuza in the Funny Car class that has yet to crown a champion. And he stopped the tsk-tsking about the end of his reign by calling himself "still the champ -- 12 of 'em."

Third-place Force and teammate Tony Pedregon, the points leader for most of the season, put No. 2 Whit Bazemore in a vise. Bazemore is 114 points behind Pedregon and 177 ahead of Force with only the Oct. 24-26 Las Vegas race and the Nov. 7-9 NHRA Finals remaining on the schedule.

Pedregon reached the semifinals but lost to Skuza (photo) when the supercharger on his Castrol Syntec Ford Mustang failed. Pedregon missed the chance to become only the second driver in Funny Car history to win eight races in a season and only the second in 11 years to win the championship. "I always try to look on the brighter side of things," Pedregon said, "and we were able to extend our lead by one round. We just need to find out why it blew up. We were on our best run of the weekend."