Departments - Missed Races

Curtain Up in SoCal

Story by Darr Hawthorne
Photos by Zak Hawthorne
3/19/04

t's being compared to the '50s. It's said to be in its infancy, but the reality is that when the curtain was raised on the 2004 NHRA Summit Sport Compact Series opener at California Dragway in Fontana, the actors were not ready for center stage.

Stout performances were never lacking with 2003 Hot Rod Champion Marty Ladwig setting a new national record in Saturday qualifying with a run of 8.34 at 170.62 mph in his new Pontiac Sunfire. Ladwig had a single run in Sunday's semi-final, however the transmission let go on the burnout.

The Circuit City/Street Glow-sponsored purple Toyotas out of New Jersey's Bullish Racing put both George Ioannou and Ara Arslanaian in the top two slots of Pro Rear Wheel Drive, marking the new dragway's first 200 mph runs. They would have met in the final had there been enough parts, so Ioannou went on to single in the Pro RWD final.

It looked to be a competitive race without many racecars, since less than 45 cars showed up for the 5-eliminator categories, making for very short fields. There were plenty of no-shows, but it looked as though building a one-off car for the professional categories in NHRA Sport Compact racing takes a lot more time than most of the teams had anticipated.

Example: MOPAR's Shaun Carlson had a busy off-season. Not only did he sub for injured Darryl Alderman at the Winternationals, he also built two Dodge Vipers for the new D1 Drifting series. So much of Shaun's new Dodge SRT-4 is purpose-built that he needed to cannibalize parts from last year's race car and had no back up to race.

Why this series needs to include Xtreme Bikini Shows and Lifestyle Expos is difficult for me to understand. It seems that sport compact drag racing is not as important as its lifestyle, but this venue appears to be a drag racing series. When the bikini contest began, many spectators left the stands to enjoy the other lifestyle shows and then left for the parking lot, long before the drag racing competition was finished. If all the activities were staged adjacent to the drag strip, the grandstands would become the focus of the show, whether it be drag racing, bikinis or music.

At this race I overheard that participation in sport compact racing may be sparse since today's youth has been raised in a politically correct, non-aggressive world where nobody looses and everyone gets a trophy in traditional youth sports. Drag racing creates a loser in every race and there are some potential contestants who just don't want to play.

NHRA VP of Marketing Gary Darcy said, "Across the board we are seeing growth, whether it's from the spectator count, or television programming and certainly the sponsorship, the midway, car counts. I think across the board we are seeing growth." Here at Fontana, seven Pro RWD cars, four Pro FWD cars and four Modified cars showed. In the 10-race 2003 season the average car counts for the top three championship eliminators were: Pro Rear Wheel Drive, 8.9 cars, Pro Front Wheel Drive, 5.9 cars, Modified, 5.5 cars. The ratings for the Sport Compact TV show are consistently low even with re-runs, and based upon my viewing of last year's shows, the crowds were consistent with this race.

Breakage was significant last season and the season before that there were a lot of single passes. There might have been 3,500 spectators over both days of this event, but I've got to question why this unique, innovative collection of high-tech vehicles needs its own show. Four or five generations of drag racers have somehow found a home in the NHRA Big Show, so it is still difficult for me to understand why making some official rule changes such as allowing four valve heads couldn't accommodate today's Generation-X or Y for a combined drag series.

North Carolina's Mike Crawford, in his Dodge SRT-4 Hot Rod entry, qualified second taking home the Wally uncontested whenn Marty Ladwig failed to show for the final.

Paul Efantis had the Modified field covered by almost a second with his 7.722. In the final, the Toyota driver found a red light, handing the win to Carlos Gonzalez Jr.

2003 Pro FWD series champ Nelson Hoyos debuted his newly designed Ecotec-powered Cavalier changing from last season's transverse mounted engine. Hoyos was runner-up to Saturn's Lisa Kubo for an all GM Racing finals.

Summit Racing's Matt Hartford brought his stout V-6 Cadillac-powered Cavalier having finished dyno work on the engine on the East coast the previous Thursday morning. Hartford's unique twin turbo-powered engine boasts over 1600 horsepower and as with any new combination, found the weak links in the drive train.

In qualifying Hartford bent a pinion gear and in the first round of finals against Adam Saruwatari, twisted the driveshaft in half.