Gary Densham's AAA sponsored Funny Car

cratching your head, trying to figure out what to get NHRA executives for their birthdays, are you?

How about copies of the Farmer's Almanac?

It might have helped the sanctioning body avoid a 20th rain-interrupted event in the last 24 races. Then again, an outdoor sport has no guarantees of ideal or even acceptable weather conditions, and the schedule-planners can't be paralyzed by fear that a particular date at a particular venue might not work out.

So Kenny Bernstein didn't buy 100 percent into the argument that the NHRA should have taken advantage of the balmy Santa Ana winds that occur earlier in the winter and not delayed the starting date of the 2004 season.

"We can get rain anytime at the Winternationals, whether it's the first of February or it's later," the Lake Forest, Calif., car owner said. "We get it both ways, and we've been rained out plenty of times at the Winternationals. We've lost a lot there. You're not going to get around it. This is our rainy season. But this year we've had no rain." He said Southern California had "a pretty good gully-washer" Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then one short rainfall the Monday before he and son Brandon left for the Phoenix test session.

At Phoenix, Bernstein said he "wouldn't be surprised if we get blitzed" at the Winternationals. "You just have to look at the best thing you can look at, and that's all you can do."

He said for example that Billy Meyer, Texas Motorplex owner and former Funny Car driver, consults all the meteorological records. "He looks at that stuff, and he can tell you the best weekend there is," Bernstein said, "That's why he wanted that weekend in September (23rd-26th), because it probably hasn't rained, he said, in about 40 years on that weekend. It'll probably rain when we get there. But that's the smartest way to do it."

Bernstein was right about the blitzing. The Feb. 19-22 K&N Filters Winternationals became a two-part series, continuing NHRA's hard-luck pattern with Mother Nature.

However, excitable Eric Medlen sure didn't mind that anyone might have miscalculated. When the rain started spitting then drizzling steadily at Pomona Raceway, forcing a one-week postponement of the season-opener, the 30-year-old Funny Car rookie was thrilled.

"Frustrated? I'm not frustrated," the Castrol Syntec Ford Mustang driver said. "I love it! I've been leading the points for two days!"

With his 4.840-second pass at 319.07 miles an hour in Thursday's qualifying -- the only full pro sessions of the weekend -- Medlen grabbed the early No. 1 qualifying position, joining Top Fuel counterpart Tony Schumacher and Pro Stock's Greg Anderson.