DRAG RACING WORLD FINALS : Ormsby Gets a Head Start to Victory

Gary Ormsby won the National Hot Rod Assn.’s world top fuel championship in the most improbable manner Sunday.

Ormsby, who overcame two car-destroying accidents during the long season on his way to a first series championship, was spinning his tires in a cloud of smoke just off the starting line in the second round of the Winston Finals at the Pomona Fairplex strip.

At that moment, it appeared that the 47-year-old automobile dealer from Auburn, Calif., might lose the title and its $150,000 bonus to defending champion Joe Amato of Old Forge, Pa., after having been the points leader all year.

The driver in the other lane, Darrell Gwynn of Miami, was speeding down the quarter-mile strip in 5.003 seconds at 283.10 m.p.h.

But Gwynn had jumped the gun. Red-lighting, they call it in drag racing. It automatically eliminated Gwynn, so Ormsby, crawling along at 72.35 m.p.h. in 11.562 seconds, was the winner.

By reaching the semifinals, Ormsby had enough points to clinch the coveted championship.

Ormsby and his crew came back to beat Lori Johns in the semifinals and then take on the defending world champion, Amato, in the final round as darkness began to fall over the Pomona strip. Ormsby, with a solid 5.050-second run, was the winner as Amato had too much power and did a wheelstand.

“I saw it (the red-light) immediately,” Ormsby said of his second-round run against Gwynn. “It took a lot of pressure off, getting past Gwynn that way, but I definitely didn’t feel a let down. I wanted to win, especially against Joe. It was a sweet victory, and a long time coming.

Ormsby has been racing dragsters for 23 years and this was the first year he had come close to a championship.

He will pick up checks for $185,000 tonight at the NHRA banquet in Ontario, $150,000 for the season and $35,000 for Sunday’s victory.

It was the first time Gwynn had red-lighted in 66 rounds of NHRA competition, dating to the first round of the 1988 California Nationals.

“I was really pumped up when I got to the line,” Gwynn explained. “Gary has been tough on me at the starting line all year, and I wanted to get a good light. I’ve lost the last two finals because Gary and Shirley (Muldowney) beat me at the line. The car has been great all week and I thought we had a great chance to win today.”

Bruce Larson and Bob Glidden, who had clinched the funny car and pro stock championships, respectively, before the Pomona event, also won their final round. In an unusual coincidence, Ormsby, Larson and Glidden all won the season-opening event at Pomona in the Winternationals last February and all led the entire season without losing their points lead.

Larson, 51, was the biggest winner. In addition to the $150,000 points fund money and the $35,000 Winston Finals first prize, he received a $100,000 bonus from Oldsmobile for driving an ’89 Cutlass to the championship. Larson, of Daupin, Pa., defeated John Force of Yorba Linda in a competitive final run, 5.354 seconds to 5.428.

It was a record 11th final round appearance for Larson, who has won six and was runnerup in five.

Mark Oswald, of Cincinnati, set a national funny car record of 283.28 m.p.h. in his Ford Probe in the first round, but was eliminated by veteran Ed (Ace) McCulloch of Hemet in the second round when he spun his wheels and coasted across the final line. McCulloch lost to Force in the day’s closest race, 5.403 seconds to 5.407.

The final runs of four-time funny car champions Don (Snake) Prudhomme of Granada Hills and Kenny Bernstein of Newport Beach, who are switching to top fuel next season, ended on a sour note in front of their hometown fans. Both were sidelined in first-round races in stunning upsets.

Prudhomme, 48, who has won 35 national funny car races, including this year’s U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, lost to R.C. Sherman of Frederick, Md., when his Pontiac Trans-Am seemed to sputter halfway down the quarter-mile strip.

“It was not the way I wanted to go out,” Prudhomme said. “I got out ahead of him and thought I had it easy when I lost traction, and the race.

“I’m looking forward to meeting those top fuel guys here next year. I had a great career in funny cars but it’s time to branch out and try something new.”

Bernstein, 45, winner of 30 funny car races and the last four world championships, saw his Buick Reatta suffer almost an identical fate as he lost to Jerry Caminito of Brooklyn, N.Y., who also smoked his tires coming off the line but recovered in time to pass Bernstein and win in 7.019 seconds.

Glidden’s final-round victory over Warren Johnson of Duluth, Ga., came when Johnson red-lighted. It was Glidden’s ninth this season, an NHRA record for a single season, and his 76th victory--his 16th at the L.A. County Fairgrounds in 32 events.

If there was a hard luck award, it would go to Muldowney, the three-time world top fuel champion from Northridge who won her first race in six years two weeks ago in Phoenix to cap a remarkable comeback from a crippling accident in 1984.

As she was sitting in her car, waiting to move into position for a first-round run against Gene Snow, the top fueler ahead of her, driven by Jack Ostrander, blew its engine on the starting pad and streamed a path of oil the length of the racing strip. NHRA officials took 25 minutes preparing the course.

But when Muldowney hit the throttle, it was apparent they didn’t get the job done. The car slithered and smoked its way down the strip as Snow raced down a clean path to victory.

“She never had a chance,” said Rahn Tobler, Muldowney’s husband and crew chief. “It was a shame but there’s not much you can do when the guy right ahead of you oils the track. It was especially bad because he dropped it right on the launching pad, where you need the maximum traction.”

NHRA officials announced a crowd of 105,000 for the four days, of which about 50,000 were on hand Sunday.