NHRA at Atlanta By Susan Wade Photos by Ron Lewis and Tracy Waters 5/18/04

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op qualifier David Grubnic and No. 3 Cory McClenathan chatted before Sunday's final eliminations of the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals. The topic was how they were going to steer their Top Fuel dragsters down the hot, gummy Atlanta Dragway quarter-mile.

Grubnic had his theories and his third No. 1 qualifying advantage in the first seven races of the season. Cory Mac had only doubts.

"There comes a time you start to doubt yourself after awhile. And today was not the day I woke up and said, 'We've got one of the better cars today and we can win.' Let's be real honest about it," McClenathan would say after beating Millican to earn his first $40,000 victory in 30 races, the first since the November 2002 NHRA Finals at Pomona.

But standing there talking to Grubnic, Cory Mac had his hunch, too. Just get the car from start to finish. Don't worry about numbers. Just do what works and hope the driver in the other lane commits an error.

McClenathan didn't telegraph his concern. He simply said, "We just have to learn to go down those hot, tricky tracks now. That's all there is to it."

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He was right. And he did. But his Carrier Boyz/Berryman Products Dragster didn't put up anything close to Grubnic's (photo above) track-record 4.469-second qualifying elapsed time or Schumacher's qualifying speed that raised the track mark to 329.02. He had to wonder how long he'd last when Millican and quick Kalitta cousins Doug and Scott (photo below) were ripping off 4.5-second runs.

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The Anaheim, Calif., veteran got a first-round gift when improving Scott Weis red lit. Then, running a decent but unspectacular 4.7 and a 4.66, he eliminated Bernstein and Scott Kalitta. Finally, he overcame Millican, the three-time and reigning IHRA champion, who had been through the grinder himself in knocking off NHRA counterpart Larry Dixon, Grubnic, and Doug Kalitta and his quickest-and-fastest-on-earth Mac Tools Dragster. Millican had to be content with his runner-up for the third consecutive race.

McClenathan worked hard and smart to give brothers Mark and Andy Carrier their first win since investing in an NHRA program and driver Andrew Cowin more than a year ago.

"The track was very tricky, and it was hot out there," McClenathan said. "We were about the only car getting down the track. I knew we could reel it in and run in the mid-(4.)60s. I did not think we could run in the .50s. We didn't even try to. We let the other car make mistakes."

The strategy helped lift McClenathan from seventh to fourth in the POWERade points chase. And it made him the only Top Fuel driver other than Brandon and Kenny Bernstein or Tony Schumacher to win since August 17. The Budweiser/Lucas Oil Dragster and the U.S. Army Dragster had dominated the class for the previous 13 races.

The feat was even more remarkable, considering crew chief Todd Smith has been on board for only four races. "All along, he was the guy I thought could do the job. He proved today he can do the job," McClenathan said. "We do better every single race we go to, and this is the payoff. It's just an awesome payoff." "Cory Mac and those guys did a great job," Millican said. "I thought we had a good chance at winning in the finals, and we put down a good run. . . . I was disappointed to see the win light come on in the wrong lane. I really thought today was going to be our day."

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Still, the Tennessean moved up in the standings from ninth to sixth, particularly impressive because he has raced in just five of the seven events this year. He plans to compete in at least eight NHRA races, while running a full IHRA schedule.

Meanwhile, Cory Mac wasn't the only one nagged by doubts. So was three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Savoie. "I really started to believe that black Army bike was not going to make it to the winner's circle," she said following her $7,500 victory, her first under the Don Schumacher Racing banner.

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Like McClenathan, she had come to expect upheaval in racing relationships. But she had defied all the odds before and, at least in public, hardly seemed to miss a beat through it all. Savoie, like McClenathan, had soldiered on through disappointment. She went through too many changes of command befitting a three-time champion. But she always seemed to win a battle or two right away for her new sponsors.

She had recaptured her championship-days form, leading the Pro Stock Bike field and getting consistent 7.1-second passes from her U.S. Army-sponsored Suzuki GSXR, setting low e.t. and winning. Still, she couldn't shake her uncertainty until she had eliminated Josh Helvie, teammate Antron Brown, Harley-Davidson semifinalist G.T. Tonglet and finalist Shawn Gann. When qualifying closed Saturday, she wasn't convinced she was back on top of her game. "Personally, I really needed this performance for my confidence. I was beginning to wonder if I had lost my edge," the New Orleans-area native said.

But Sunday's victory over Gann (with a 7.119-second pass at 191.59 miles an hour to Gann's 7.248/186.15 on his Suzuki) was a huge victory for her. She had waited almost a full year since winning last spring at Joliet before Don Schumacher signed her to a contract.

"The curse has been broken," Savoie said. "We don't have any excuses anymore not to do well. We have the U.S. Army behind us; we have Don Schumacher Racing, which is an unbelievable program. There are no excuses for us not to do this every single weekend."

Savoie seemed comfortable with her role as the second woman to win a Pro Stock Motorcycle race this season. With Karen Stoffer's victory at Houston, women have won two of the three bike events so far this season.

"May the best woman win," Savoie declared before final eliminations. Then she recorded her 32nd NHRA victory, nearly bettering her own two-year-old track e.t. record.

Whit Bazemore, her Schumacher Racing comrade, wasn't into girlpower, but he did shed his bridesmaid image in the Funny Car class. Bazemore, victim of upset-minded Phil Burkart at Las Vegas and runner-up to hungry veteran John Force at Bristol, earned his first victory of 2004 on this third final-round appearance in four events.

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Bazemore defeated tire-smoking teammate Gary Scelzi in the final round, joining with Savoie to award team owner Don Schumacher a daily double.

It was the second Southern Nationals victory in three years for Bazemore, who lived in Atlanta as a youngster and became fascinated with drag racing at this facility.

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"To win here twice is just unbelievable," the Indianapolis-based driver said after his winning 5.025-second run at 299.80 mph in the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus. (Scelzi had 10.847/90.59 in the Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge.) "This place is emotional, because the points are the same, the money is the same, but there are some places that just mean more than other places. For me this is one of those places, because it's where I first saw drag racing as a young kid. So this is a place where dreams start to foment."

This year the car had been behaving badly, and crew chief Lee Beard and his team had worked to make sure they didn't hamper or beat themselves race after race. Beard, one victory away from his 50th, said he and the crew found the problem that had bugged them since preseason testing. "The wins were eluding us. We put our finger on the problem. To be able to come here and win is going to give our entire team a big boost of confidence. And hopefully we can continue on and have our noses in there for the championship."

Current Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon shattered his two-year-old track speed record in qualifying, recording the fastest pass in NHRA Funny Car history at 329.83 mph with his brand-new Chevrolet Monte Carlo body. But his engine dropped a cylinder and he spun the tires in his first-round loss to Bob Gilbertson in the "Jungle Jim" Liberman tribute car. (Ron Lewis photos)

Bazemore had bounced all over the POWERade points map, from seventh to fifth to eighth, then fourth and sixth, before coming home literally and figuratively. In pocketing the $40,000 paycheck, he improved four spots, to second place, a mere 51 points behind Del Worsham. (The leader didn't help himself, as his blown engine in Round 2 against Bazemore sent shrapnel from his new Chevrolet Monte Carlo flying.)

Bazemore had hoped for a tighter victory margin over Scelzi. However, he seemed relieved not to have to address rumors of team orders that surfaced when the teammates raced each other in the Seattle quarterfinals.

"It's a shame we both couldn't win," Bazemore said. "It's tough. That Oakley team, they're stout. It's not ego, and it's not bragging rights; it's staking your claim. He is very, very competitive," Bazemore added of Scelzi. "The guys on both of our teams are close. We work together every day, and when it comes down to it, one of the biggest wins is whenever we can beat that team. It means a lot, not only because it's Gary and the fact he's won three (Top Fuel) championships and he's a friend, but just because they're good and you want to walk into the shop as No. 1."

Greg Anderson didn't really doubt himself. But his Pro Stock rivals had uncommonly good reason to doubt he was going to preserve his winning streak in the Vegas General Construction Pontiac Grand Am.

Top-five surprise Larry Morgan of Team Mopar swiped the No. 1 qualifying spot, after threatening to at the recent Gatornationals. He did it by setting both ends of the track record at 6.796 seconds/203.80 mph and broke Anderson's 11-race streak as No. 1 qualifier. It was Morgan's first top-qualifying spot since 1991 at Sonoma, Calif. Anderson raced from the No. 3 spot. (Ron Lewis photo)

Anderson was scrambling, trying to recover from the engine mess that marked his opening day of qualifying. "We hurt that motor on the first run," he said.

Three of his employees, who were on their way down to Atlanta for one of the few races they get to attend each year, went back to the shop in Charlotte, N.C., to fix the engine. They repaired it all night Friday and half of Saturday. Teammate Jason Line, second-fastest in the field, drove back to Charlotte after Saturday qualifying and tested it on the shop dyno and arrived back in Commerce at 3 a.m. Sunday.

"That's the kind of team I have here," Anderson said. "It's not just me. I have a complete surrounding cast that just can't do enough for me and for Ken Black. We want to win so doggone bad that everybody on this team, that's what they do. We put the motor back in the car, and the car ran low e.t." That 6.776-second Round 1 effort in beating Mike Edwards eclipsed Morgan's track record.

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Anderson had contended with freak occurrences in early qualifying sessions at Gainesville and Las Vegas but had rebounded both times to dominate qualifying, set track records, and win.

"If you get off on the wrong foot, it's tough to regroup, tough to get your bearings back," Anderson said. "Luckily we've done it by the end of the race each time it happened, but that's not the way to race."

So while on the surface Anderson's 13th victory in the last 17 events might have appeared to be a given, it wasn't. Anderson called it "probably, at least in the last six months, my toughest win, without a doubt. I was kind of looking forward to doing it (Sunday), because I wasn't really the underdog, but I wasn't the dominant car. I wanted to see if the driver could step up. That's why it feels special."

It felt like the same old frustrating story for the other Pro Stock drivers, who regarded Anderson's early struggles as a sign his stranglehold on the class was slipping. It wasn't. He advanced to beat Dave Connolly and Line before dashing Morgan's dream of his first win since August 2002 at Sonoma. Morgan lost to Anderson at Seattle last year in his previous final-round effort. This time, ironically, the legendary Glidden was tuning Morgan's car.

Anderson defeated Larry Morgan this time by .007 of a second (with a 6.812-second e.t. at 203.00 mph to Morgan's 6.850/202.58) to match Bob Glidden's record of five consecutive victories in a single season.

"Maybe this weekend was even more deflating to them," Anderson said of the Pro Stock field, "because I was able to win, not having the dominant car. I can remember when Jeg (Coughlin Jr.) was kicking everybody's butt. He never had the dominant car. He'd just kick their butt on race day. He found a way to win.

"That's what you're going to have to do to win championships. You have to win ugly. You have to win the ones you're not supposed to win. I wasn't supposed to win this one, but I won it," he said.

And with a nod to the upcoming NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Joliet, Ill., Anderson added, "Hopefully we won't race like this, that it won't be so gut-wrenching. Hopefully we'll be back to a couple-hundredths (of a second) advantage. If we're not, I'm fine with it -- I kind of like racing like we did today."

The victory was the first in four consecutive final rounds for Anderson at the Southern Nationals. It also was the 22nd of his career in 33 final-round appearances. He leads closest competitor Kurt Johnson in the class standings by 243 points.

The Route 66 Nationals is the second of back-to-back-to-back races and the second of six races in a seven-week stretch.