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Sections News
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T Bone Feasts on the Alcohol Dragster Field, Gordon goes all the way in Funny Car, Jones grabs Comp and Pierce takes Super Gas at the season opening NHRA Winternationals 2/25/03 This may be the Chinese Year of the Goat, but in NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster, it may be the Year of the A/FD. It’s only the first race but by the look of things it could be a long year for the blown alcohol dragsters. In what was a complete mastery of the class, 2003 Winternationals Alcohol Dragster winner Tony Bartone set a new NHRA World ET of 5.227 seconds in route to his 27th National event win driving his nitro powered A/FD. Bartone, from Manhasset NY, survived a semi final round scare when the motor in the A/FD dragster refused to fire. Crew chief Steve Boggs wore out one set of batteries attempting to get the car started then went to a backup set. After a little tinkering with the injector priming system, the team got the NY dragster lit. Tony’s competition, the blown dragster of John Haley was aware of Bartone’s trouble and tried to get his car staged and grab the easy single. But NHRA starter Rick Stewart was having none of that and gave the Bartone team time to get the car fired. Once the A/FD was up and running Tony only had time for a short chirp to get the tires warm. All of the fuss must have rattled Haley as he lit the big red bulb as Bartone blasted down the track to a 5.259 backing up his earlier 5.227 for the record.
Tony Bartone’s 5.227 ET record makes it the first time in NHRA history that one driver holds the elapsed time records in both Alcohol Funny Car and Dragster. Bartone set the Alcohol Funny Car record at a 5.549 at the Keystones in 2000. In Alcohol Funny Car Californian Doug Gordon driving a 2001 Camaro beat the low ET car of Cy Chesterman in the finals 5.628 to Cy’s troubled 6.687. Doug got off the line first and although the M&B Cabinet sponsored car was chattering the tires, held on for his third National event win. Chesterman’s 2003 Pontiac Firebird appeared to bang the blower and was never really a factor. Chesterman, from Sioux City IA. had qualified #1 with a quick 5.581. Division Six heavy Bucky Austin qualified second with a stout 5.591 and held top speed at 259.71 but fouled out in the second round to Mert Littlefield’s Camaro. Littlefield lit the big red one in the next round giving Gordon a free ride to the finals. On the other side of the ladder, Chesterman defeated the 2002 Valvoline Camaro of former World Champ Jay Payne in the semis 5.646 255.53 to Payne’s close, 5.687 250.00
Competition Eliminator went to the 2003 D/SMA Cavalier of Randy Jones when his competition Brandon Huhtala red lighted in his C/A Cutlass. Randy’s Cavalier had to overcome a 0.09 second CIC adjustment after his quarter final round win over the similar D/SMA Achieva of Ross Wilson. No problem with Jones chopping down the tree with unbelievable reaction times in the 0.03 range. The #1 qualifier was the 2002 Cavalier B/SM of Scott Hedlund with a 0.691 under 8.159 to take the top spot. Unfortunately for Scott, the little Chevy broke on the line in the first round against former NED racer Phil Cocuzza’s C/SM. Phil’s sharp purple and yellow 2002 Cavalier was also judged best engineered by the NHRA. Former NHRA champ and multiple event winner David Rampy fouled out in the first round racing his A/EA against Tom Huggins’ 2002 Grand AM B/A. There were quite a lot of red lights in the earlier rounds of competition at Pomona. Talking with some of the racers, I got the impression that the new LED lights were not as popular as NHRA would have liked and it will take some time for the racers to get used to the change. In Super Stock three time Division 6 Champ Jeff Lane from North Bend WA took the win over Fred Moreno. Jeff’s SS/CM Grand Am left first with a 0.030 light and the SS/GA Mustang of Moreno could not make up the difference. Earlier Moreno’s 1969 Mustang defeated class heavyweights Tony DeFrank and the high flying Monte Carlo SS/FA of Bryan Broaddus. On the other side of the ladder Jeff defeated the SS/G Mustang of John Calvert, the beautiful SS/IA GTO of Art Peterson, and low qualifier Jerry Jenkins to get to the finals.
Stock Eliminator went to Mike Loge driving his '78 Volare I/SA. Mike had it easy in the final when his competition Curtis Coulter redlighted in his D/S 1969 Merc Cyclone. Mike’s trip to the winner’s circle included wins over his son Scott in the quarterfinals and a first round upset of David Rampy. Coulter earlier defeated Mary Ann Method, Darin Grossi’s beautiful B/SA Cuda, and Ken Etter’s H/SA Volare. Low qualifier went to the FT/SA D-150 Pickup of Gary Harper -1.358 under his 13.6 second index. Eighty three cars made the first round bell. By the time the Super Gas finals got underway the sun was setting in the sky and the air at Pomona had gotten better along with the track. The winner was decided by which racer broke out the least. In this case that being Brad Pierce in his sharp 50’s style Corvette. Brad ran an index busting 9.874 beating the roadster of Ed Olpin who ran a quicker 9.863. Brad earlier took out former World Champ Mike Ferderer and last year’s winner Dave Coapstick. Olpin earlier defeated last year’s runner-up Todd Stewart in the semifinals to meet Brad in the finals. Super Comp champ “Fast” Jack Beckman driving his crowd favorite streamliner dragster won for the first time since the 1998 Winternationals. Jack defeated the dragster of Geoff Hughes after Hughes broke out with a too quick 8.895. |
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