He said Schumacher and the Kalittas "have raised the bar. We're going to have to go out there and really try hard to run with these guys this year. You're going to see a lot more 4.40s and higher speeds, but for the most part, you're going to have to consistently be able to run in the 4.40 range, like Schumacher and Kalitta were doing."

Russell, who lost seven pounds during the winter in a personal fitter-equals-faster campaign, said his goal is consistency and improving on his eighth-best reaction-time average of .067 seconds. "You see a lot more Top Fuel races won on hole shots now than you ever had, so you really have to be on your game on the Christmas tree."

That could help Clay Millican and Doug Herbert, who are the class' top two returning drivers in starting-line strength with .055 and .064 averages, respectively. The two were among the top four in Saturday's session, and Herbert's 4.724-second pass Sunday was third only to Russell's 4.525 and Brandon Bernstein's 4.698.

Connie Kalitta downplayed his dragsters' performance. "I'm not really that much farther ahead of everybody else," the three-car owner said. "Schumacher's car over there, he's

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more consistent and a little bit quicker than what I am. But we're staying right there with him."

As for the addition of a third car with driver David Grubnic this season, Kalitta smiled and said, "Oh, Davey? It'll be a cool deal. He's a good driver. We want to try to be on top of it a little bit more. All three cars are identical. Davey's car is the one we had with the MGM Grand (sponsorship). We did some more work to it."

Schumacher was the Top Fuel leader in practice Saturday (4.610/293.03) and hinted to expect much more from the U.S. Army Dragster. "We have some new technology going into the car already. We didn't change it much for the initial test, because we went out and ran seven consecutive 4.40s. At that point, what do you do? But Alan (crew chief Alan Johnson) already has new products ready to go on for the next generation of this car," he said.

"But the Kalittas, they're doing unique things, too, and they're going to be hard to beat. I shouldn't say just the Kalittas -- there are a lot of great cars out here. We're still going to have to get into the hot season, and whoever's tune-up at that point takes over is probably going to be the leader. It's going to an incredible year. I lost to the Kalittas by 5-thousandths, 8-thousandths -- that's what the people are paying money to see. That's what excites us: Two cars, 8,000-horsepower machines, two inches apart at the end of the quarter-mile."

Schumacher said Dixon is going to continue as a driver to beat, adding that what might have appeared last fall to be a slump was nothing more than taking time to make adjustments that will give his rivals an even harder time. Dixon said fine-tuning is all his Don Prudhomme-owned Miller Lite Dragtser needs.