PATON COMES TO PLAY

Former IHRA Alcohol Funny Car champion Todd Paton qualified his new Top Fuel ride seventh in Richmond, then suffered a serious engine fire at the top end of his opening round win over Roger Dean. That prompted a major thrash in the pits as the Paton team not only had to rebuild the engine, but most of the car's pneumatic tubing had to be replumbed and the parachutes replaced.

To the sound of applause from a sizable crowd watching, the team pushed the car out of its pit stall just seconds before IHRA officials appeared ready to pull the plug on them. They made it in time to the staging lanes, but didn't even have enough time for a test run prior to starting the car for its semi-final match against the Prestone dragster driven by John Smith.

Fortunately, the rebuilt engine started without incident and Paton said he modified his burnout slightly in order to build up sufficient heat in the clutch. He then left on Smith by nearly a full tenth, but lost a cylinder early in the run, then had another much smaller fire erupt at about the 1,00-foot mark as Smith went by to post a winning 5.21 at just 258.76 mph.

"Including this race, we've got six full passes on the car now," said Paton, who most recently has been campaigning part-time on the NHRA nitro Funny Car trail. "This is the engine and clutch from our Funny Car, but we're learning this car wants a whole different tune-up. We'll get better."

MONTECALVO'S NEW MOTOR

John Montecalvo showed up in Richmond with a new Sonny Leonard-built next-generation Chevy "hemi" strapped between the rails of his 2003 Pro Stock Cavalier. In the engine's debut, it carried Montecalvo to third on the qualifying list (6.597 at 211.66 mph). On Sunday, Montecalvo went 6.587/211.73 in beating Jeff Dobbins and 6.590 at 211.49 over Rick Jones, but lost in the semis to Carl Baker's 6.55 when he went 6.582 at 211.86 mph. Overall, Montecalvo appeared thrilled with his new power and said he feels like the field has been equalized.

BAKER BAGS POINTS LEAD

Despite not qualifying at the season opener in San Antonio, Carl Baker took over the IHRA Pro Stock points lead with his win at VMP over Elijah Morton in the final. Driving the Summit Racing 2002 Cougar, Baker started seventh in Richmond after the rain-shortened qualifying and defeated Jason Collins, Frank "The Flying Meatball" Gugliotta, and John Montecalvo in the preliminaries, while Morton took out defending class champ Brian Gahm, Mike Bell, and number-one qualifier Charlie Peppers.