Winternationals Drag Racing : For Openers, Muldowney Must Go Against Garlits

Winternationals fans had better get to Pomona early today.

Shirley Muldowney, the comeback lady, meets Don Garlits, the legend, in the first top fuel round of the 26th annual Chief Auto Parts Winternationals on the faster-than-ever Los Angeles County Fairgrounds parking lot drag strip. The match that most thought might be for the championship will now be the first--at 11 a.m.

That was the luck of the draw after Muldowney’s dazzling 5.470 elapsed time for the quarter-mile dash was upstaged late Saturday by Dick Lahaie’s 5.400. Lahaie’s time in his Keith Black-powered dragster is the fourth fastest of all time and a track record.

“The 5.47 surprised me,” said a smiling Muldowney, whose’s time dispelled any ideas that her comeback 5.58-second run two weeks ago in Phoenix was a fluke. “I thought it felt soggy off the line and I was thinking 5.60, but in mid-course I wrung its neck. I buried my foot in it.”

The 54-year-old Garlits, who gave the Geritol crowd a scare in the first qualifying round when he failed to post a time after he over-revved his engine and smoked his tires, came back later with a safe run of 5.615 seconds, 10th fastest.

Joe Amato, the 1984 Winston World champion and winner of last year’s Winternationals, set a national record of 269.46 m.p.h., breaking the record of 268.01 set by Garlits in the World Finals last October at Pomona.

In a sport where quickness is more important than speed, Amato’s elapsed time of 5.472 seconds put him in third position.

“I love it where I am,” Amato said, “because it means either Garlits or Muldowney will be gone early and if I keep going I won’t meet the winner until the final. Little breaks like that can have a big bearing on the world championship.”

The top fuel field of 16 qualifiers is the second fastest in National Hot Rod Assn. history. Only the 1983 World Finals at Orange County Raceway were faster. Larry Minor was the slowest qualifier at 5.778.

Defending Winston World funny car champion Kenny Bernstein opened the 1986 season the way he finished 1985. Bernstein’s computerized Budweiser King Ford Tempo was quickest funny car qualifier at 5.627.

This will be the first Garlits-Muldowney meeting in nearly two years. They met twice in 1984, in the Winternationals where Garlits won a second-round match and in the Gatornationals where he won when Muldowney’s car broke.

Muldowney, top fuel’s only three-time NHRA world champion, was critically injured in September, 1984, near Montreal, and Saturday’s run was her first in national competition since her convalescence.

“Everything was just perfect, the track, the air, the way the car handled,” Muldowney enthused. Rahn Tobler, her crew chief, decided not to make a second run, prefering to take his time in preparing the car for today’s eliminations.

The crowd, estimated at 45,000, gave Muldowney a tremendous ovation as she rode back along pit row, sitting in the rear of her pickup truck as it towed her electric pink Performance Automotive Wholesale dragster back to the garage.

“I can’t believe what she’s done, with a new car right out of the box, and not having run for a year and a half,” Garlits said--not knowing at the time that he would be facing her today. “I’m really impressed with her car. That run fired her up like you can’t believe. She’s going to be a killer.”

Muldowney said she owed special thanks for her performance to Dr. Terry Trammel, the Indianapolis bone specialist who helped get her legs back in working order after her 247 m.p.h. crash, and to the Institute for Living in Northridge, where she underwent therapy after moving to Southern California.

“Last October, when I was out here watching the World Finals, I couldn’t lift up my right foot,” she said. “After working with the therapist at the institute, I can move it up and down and can get it down hard on the throttle when I have to.”

Former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini, with the sides of his black dragster still blank as his search for sponsorship continues, made the fastest run of his short career. Pastorini’s 5.522 clocking was seventh quickest.

Lahaie, a veteran from Lansing, Mich., who won the Winternationals in 1982, said his 5.40 ride was “as smooth as glass.” Today will be his last ride in the fueler as he sold it Friday. Lahaie plans to have a new mount ready for next month’s Gatornationals in Florida.

Another track record was set by Joe Lepone of Newton Square, Pa., in the pro stock class when he ran 7.528 in his Chevy Camaro. Lepone won the World Finals last year at Pomona.

Lepone bettered the 7.53 set last year by Bob Glidden, the defending Winston Western pro stock champion, who had his troubles Saturday. Glidden, who has won six Winternationals, barely made today’s field as the 16th and last qualifier at 7.710.

A spectacular two-car accident between Dave Uyehara’s Omni and Ron Correnti’s Thunderbird ended up with two badly damaged funny cars, but the only injuries were Uyehara’s singed eyebrows and Correnti’s sore neck.

Correnti had already deployed his parachute toward the end of the quarter-mile strip when the throttle stuck on Uyehara’s car. Uyehara veered across the center line, disqualifying himself, and rammed into the rear of Correnti at full speed.

The impact knocked the fiberglass bodywork off the Omni as the chassis spun crazily in the air, but Uyehara managed to get what was left of the car under control and roared past the stunned Correnti, who said later he never knew what hit him. The crash caused the T-Bird to swerve to the left in the run-out area where it rammed a three-wheeler.