Pedregon had won his previous eight finals and 12 of his previous 13. But a broken oil line caused him problems before he rolled to the starting line for the final run. Pedregon took it in stride. "We're still a new team," he said. "To make the finals is a major step for us."

Worsham, alluding to CSK landing two cars in the semifinals in the sponsors' hometown, said of his own better fortune, "You couldn't script it any better." He said he took special pride in the fact "we won four rounds, making solid laps and not having anything handed to us. We just flat won. In Phoenix. At the CSK Nationals."

He tried to keep the No. 1 ranking in perspective but couldn't entirely. "It's really too early to worry about, but it's nice," he said. "We just need to keep running strong, and these rounds and races we're winning now are all part of what we want to do by November. Tons of other great teams are out here to do it to, and we'll do our best to

ADVERTISEMENT

fight them all every week. But what the heck, right now we're No. 1 and I can't deny that. It feels pretty good."

He has a 186-151 edge over second-place Densham. Scelzi is third with 129 points, and Tony Pedregon is fourth at 125.

Jerry Toliver, the previous week's winner at Pomona, had all day Sunday to think about the cliches: hero to zero, penthouse to outhouse, Schick happens. He and his Schick Quattro Toyota Celica failed to qualify, bumping him from the points lead into a three-way tie for fifth place as the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series heads into in Gainesville, Fla.

"This is a very humbling sport," Toliver said. "We learned why it's so important to get the car qualified in the show on our first run." Toliver and crew chief Keith Adams planned to remain in Phoenix and make several test runs Monday at Firebird Raceway.

All the testing finally paid off for Kurt Johnson, although Connolly gave him a scare in the final. The winning ACDelco Chevy Cavalier, Johnson said, has had just 32 passes. However, it knew what to do Sunday, recording a 6.835-second clocking at 203.49 mph against Connolly's 6.860/202.39 -- enough for a 0.0008-second victory margin, or about three inches. He had advanced on a 0.0062-second advantage, or approximately 22 inches, over Anderson.