If you get close enough to see Scott Kalitta's
hand and notice some scribbling on it, it probably
says "Powerade." When he won two titles, his
check came from R.J. Reynolds with the Winston
brand logo on it. "One of my biggest hurdles,"
he said, anticipating his return to competiton,
"is to remember to say Powerade instead of Winston.
I'm going to write that on the back of my hand."
Dixon forgot his line -- one of the best from
the archives -- about how it feels not to win
at Indianapolis.
Quizzed by Bob Frey, Dixon guessed. "Screw
the points?"
No.
"I want the win?"
Zero for two.
"It feels like somebody ran over my dog," prompted
Frey.
"Yeah," Dixon said. "I would take a win and
no points versus a runner-up and no points.
This is it. This is what it's all about. My
dad never raced a full tour, but this is the
one race we would tow back and race at. Everybody
who was somebody used to come to this race.
It's still got has that feeling to me."
He said he "knew better" than to think that
winning at IRP was a piece of cake, even though
the U.S. Nationals was one of his four rookie-season
victories in 1995. He saw as a crew member back
in the 1980s just how much trouble it could
be for boss Don Prudhomme, who won it six times
in both fuel categories.
As for the first of his two Indianapolis wins
-- the other was in 2001 -- Dixon recalled,
"I don't think we dazzled 'em with performance,
but we got four win lights. Nobody cares how
you win it."
By the numbers
NHRA media-relations mathematician Gabrielle
Stevenson came up with some little-known numbers
for U.S. Nationals fans. The five-day event
will feature the following:
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5,500
gallons of nitromethane used in four categories
1,000 competitors
745 event workers
2,500 boxes of supplies for NHRA and race teams
shipped to the track
6,000 runs made down the quarter-mile track
(1,500 miles)
18 cameras used by ESPN15,000 bottles of water
17,000 Coca-Cola soft drinks at concessions
5,000 Powerade's NHRA bottle4 transport trucks
used at the track to hold all the Coke product
for the weekend
3,000 gallons of oil used during the race
780,000 pages of Daily Dragster
25,000 number of hot dogs and hamburgers stocked
at IRP concessions (DRO: One pork tenderloin
will feed everyone for the entire event.)
30 number of NHRA support vehicles
13 hours of U.S. Nationals race coverage on
the ESPN family of networks
282 sets of tires used in the four pro categories
207,760 dollars spent on tires for the four
pro categories
100,000 number of T-shirts stocked in souvenir
stands (DRO: Al Hofmann still swears they're
all John Force's)
160 public address speakers
5 different announcers working the race
50 acres available for spectator parking (DRO:
Take note, Seattle)
150 acres used for race team parking
360 number of golf carts (DRO: This is not
good news. We will have a hard time finding
the one on which we left our camera equipment
overnight!)
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