Baker staged quickly and left first in the final with a .430 light against Morton's .473, by far his worst of the day. "Elijah tries to get you into his mode and it tends to just screw you up," Baker said afterwards, referring to Morton's tendency to engage in long staging duels. "I just race my own lane and don't worry about what the other guy does."

TWO RACES, TWO WINS, TWO CARS

Canadian driver Rob Atchison won his career-first IHRA Funny Car event just a week earlier, but showed up in Richmond with a different car. In the final round at Grand Bend the blower belt frayed and tangled on the pulley, which would have required taking the engine completely apart to repair it. Not a difficult job, Atchison explained, but it would have been time consuming, so he brought his back-up car from last season to VMP and promptly put it on the pole, then marched through Bunny Burkett, Melinda Green-King, and Ronnie Midyette to reach Von Smith in the final.

"We owed Von that one," Atchison said after going 5.885 at 240.21 mph while Smith's car blew up about half-track and coasted through in 6.26 seconds. "In our first year (1998) we raced him nine times at 11 races and he beat us every time. We were really up for this one."

Atchison said the winning car in Virginia weighed about 70 pounds more than his new ride. "I weighed every nut, every bolt, and every washer we put into that new car and then this one goes just as fast. I guess it just goes to show that horsepower wins every time."

THOMAS DNQs

Five-time IHRA Funny Car champion Mark Thomas failed to qualify in Richmond after uncharacteristically blowing up two engines. He later said the failures were due to someone "messing with our hot rod." (See DRO's News & Analysis for additional details.)

Thomas insisted no one on his crew installed an incorrect spool in his engine's barrel valve and said someone must have broken into his trailer at the track and sabotaged his ride. "It's no surprise that almost all the trailer keys in these things will work to open each other's trailers up," he said. "I know for a fact, a hundred percent, that somebody got in here and changed the spool in that barrel valve."

STOTT BOYS FACE OFF IN FINAL

The hot, humid weather on Friday clearly favored the nitrous combinations in Pro Mod qualifying, as for the first time in a long time nitrous runners outnumbered the blower guys on raceday. There were 10 nitrous cars in the 16-car field and each of the semis featured a nitrous vs. blower showdown, although it was the supercharged '63 Corvettes of the Stott brothers that faced off for the event title.

Quain eliminated Fred Hahn, Kent Ferrell, and the nitrous-assisted '68 Camaro of Shannon Jenkins to reach the final, while brother Mitch had a bye in the opening round, then took care of Harold Martin's nitrous-injection '93 Grand Am and Pat Moore's 1957 Chevy. "I'll tell you, ACDelco got their money's worth on the side of Harold's car with me," Mitch said after beating Martin by about a hundredth of a second. "I saw his door for about 6.5 seconds this afternoon."

Standing between Mitch's Radiac Abrasives 'Vette and Quain's Lee Boy Paving-backed ride before the final were Bob and Marvetta Stott, the drivers' parents, who will celebrate their 50th anniversary this year. At the green, Quain left first, but it was Mitch who reached the far end first with a 6.211 effort at 226.51 mph that set low E.T. of the meet. Quain was right there, though, with a 6.246 at 229.20, just short of his 229.63 mph top speed of the meet.

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