DRAG RACING : Ormsby Is No. 1, Meaning Little

Being the No. 1 qualifier is good for stature in drag racing, but is it worth anything else? It all depends on who’s talking.

Gary Ormsby, whose 5.012-second run Saturday earned him the top position for top fuel dragsters in today’s Winston Finals at the Pomona Fairplex, says it’s of no value at all.

“It doesn’t mean a thing,” said the defending top fuel champion from Auburn, Calif. “Qualifying is one show, tomorrow is another.”

Ormsby might be forgiven for giving it such short shrift.

He had just lost a controversial $50,000 shootout to Joe Amato of Old Forge, Pa., in the championship race of the Budweiser Top Fuel Classic that left a crowd estimated at 45,000 puzzled.

Amato, who ran a 4.963-second elapsed time at 283.73 m.p.h., rolled through the staging lights before the start, then backed up and staged again. Normally, when a driver crosses the starting line prematurely, it sets off a red light and the driver is disqualified.

“When Amato crossed the starting line, Ormsby was not yet staged and ready to race,” a National Hot Rod Assn. official explained. “If Ormsby had been staged, it would have been a disqualification, but when it happened it was legal.”

Amato said his car was lined up crooked, and he wanted to realign it before the start.

“When I was getting it straightened out, I realized that I was in the lights so I rolled through,” Amato said. “Then I backed up and got set. It was no big deal.”

The victory was Amato’s fifth in six Budweiser Classics.

Ormsby was more concerned over the performance of his car than with any possible illegality. He ran 5.091 at 281.16 m.p.h.

“Usually, when you over-stage you’re out, but no matter how you look at it, we still got beat,” Ormsby said. “I’m disappointed the car fell off like it did, but we’ll go to work tonight and try and have it ready tomorrow.”

After 19 races and nearly 30,000 points, the lucrative top fuel championship with its $150,000 bonus could come down to today’s final round. If Ormsby wins the final and retains his low elapsed time record, he and Amato would be deadlocked with 15,808 points. The tiebreaker is head-to-head meetings and they are 2-2, so victory by Ormsby in the finals would give him the title.

“It was nice to win the 50 grand today, but tomorrow is what we came for,” Amato said. “Winning would mean a whole lot more to me, money or not.”

The 4.963-second elapsed time that Amato ran in the Budweiser final was not considered a part of the Winston Finals, so Ormsby is still No. 1 with his 5.012 time.

Darrell Alderman, low qualifier in pro stock and heir apparent to Bob Glidden as the class champion, covets the No. 1 position because it puts him closer to the 50-point bonus for low elapsed time of the meet.

“It doesn’t guarantee it, because low E.T. can always come on the final day, but it puts you in a strong position,” said the Dodge Daytona driver from Fairfield, Ill. “And over a stretch of 19 races, those 50 points can add up.

“Then, if you’re fortunate enough to set a national record, you get another 200 points. We did it twice, and when the points are as close as they are in pro stock, every little point helps.”

Alderman set an NHRA record of 7.20 seconds in the Heartland Nationals at Topeka, Kan., and came back two weeks later at the Texas Motorplex to break his record with a run of 7.18.

To illustrate the importance of bonus points, Alderman leads runner-up Jerry Eckman of Ventura by 520 points, 12,702-12,182. Alderman has 700 bonus points--400 for setting the national record twice and 300 for having low E.T. six times. Eckman, driving the Pennzoil Pontiac, has only 100 for setting low elapsed time twice.

Alderman set a Pomona Fairplex track and meet record with a run of 7.285 seconds Saturday morning.

Most observers feel that national records are out of the question today because of the muggy, smoggy weather.

“Cars don’t like smog any better than people do,” Oldsmobile spokesman Rick Voegelin said.

An Oldsmobile driver, Warren Johnson of Duluth, Ga., set a pro stock track and event speed record of 190.19 m.p.h. in his Cutlass Supreme. According to Johnson’s calculations, his 500-cubic-inch V8 engine produced more than 1,180 horsepower on his record run.

The big surprise in pro stock is having Glidden in fifth place, all but mathematically out of sight of another championship. The veteran Ford driver from Whiteland, Ind., has won the series championship 10 times--including the last five in a row--and the Winston Finals 10 times, dating to 1974 at Ontario Motor Speedway.

“I’ve said it many times, to win in this sport, you have to be both perfect and lucky,” Glidden said, “and obviously, we haven’t been close to perfect this year.”

John Force of Yorba Linda clinched the funny car championship when he qualified second with a 5.339-second E.T. behind K.C. Spurlock’s 5.291.