It’s No Race, but What a Run : Drag racing: Amato sets track record at Pomona after Ormsby is disqualified.

What was expected to be one of the most dramatic final rounds in drag racing history--a $150,000, winner-take-all, top-fuel shoot-out between Gary Ormsby and Joe Amato--ended on a flat note Sunday when an overanxious Ormsby red-lighted with a false start and gave both the Winston Finals and the world championship to Amato.

After both had powered their way past three rivals, the season and the meet came down to one span of five seconds or less.

It took less. Amato blistered the track as if Ormsby were beside him, posting a track-record, 4.935-second run for the quarter-mile from a standing start. It gave him the only two runs in the fours during the four-day meeting that closed the National Hot Rod Assn.’s 19-race season.

“What a finish,” Amato shouted. “It was mind-boggling, coming down to the final run with the sun going down in the last race of the season to settle the whole thing and then to win with a track record. I don’t think it could be scripted better in Hollywood.

“All I was thinking about before the final run was to be smooth, keep the car steady and not smoke the tires. If he beat me, OK, but I was determined not to beat myself.”

Amato’s speed in the Valvoline top fueler was 282.39 m.p.h.

Ormsby said he jumped the start because “I felt I had to get out on Joe and run the low elapsed time to get the championship. We figured he’d run what he did Saturday, or better, so we had the car pumped up. Maybe we had it pumped up too much.”

Amato’s victory was his second over Ormsby in the final-round in two days. Saturday he won $50,000 in the Budweiser Top Fuel Classic when he ran 4.963. He also earned $35,000 for winning the meet, giving him a $235,000 weekend.

A crowd estimated at 50,000, which pushed the four-day total to a record 109,000, watched the showdown in semi-darkness. Going into the final round, each driver had won 46 races during the season.

For Amato, 46, of Old Forge, Pa., it was his sixth victory this season and his third world championship. He also won in 1984 and 1988.

Ed McCulloch, who has been known as Ace since he was an original funny car driver in 1969, won the funny car final in an Olds Cutlass over 1989 series champion Bruce Osborn. New champion John Force had lost in the first round with an uncharacteristic loss of concentration.

Force, a former truck driver from Yorba Linda, clinched the $150,000 funny car prize Saturday by qualifying for the 16-round final eliminations.

Lined up for his first run against Tim Grose of Saugus, Force’s Olds Cutlass began to roll slowly toward the starting line. Force grabbed the clutch instead of the brake and the car rolled through the starting lights, enabling Grose to wobble down the strip to win in a staggering 12.369 seconds.

“I guess I was too overwhelmed over being the champion,” Force said. “I’m sure glad Ed won the final because he’s been pushing me all season long. If I could do it, I’d saw the trophy in half and give half of it to Ed.”

McCulloch, 48, who lives in Hemet, finished second in the standings behind Force after winning his fifth final round of the season.

“It was a big win for me because I hadn’t won a race on this race track since 1972,” McCulloch said. “I’ve been trying hard to win on my home track.”

Darrell Alderman, driving a Dodge Daytona, ended Bob Glidden’s reign as pro stock champion by beating Jerry Eckman of Ventura--the only driver with a chance to beat him--in a head-to-head second-round race. It was close, but Alderman won with a quicker reaction time, .462 seconds to .488, a difference of .026 seconds. His winning margin was .018.

Alderman, 40, lives in Lexington, Ky., and drives for the Wayne Speed Shop of Fairfield, Ill. It was his first championship--and the first for anyone but Glidden and his Ford since the late Lee Shepherd in 1984.

“I was so nervous I could hardly talk or sit still before the race with Eckman,” Alderman said. “I knew if I won I had it, but I knew Jerry had won his share this season.”

In an anticlimactic semifinal, Alderman lost to Tony Christian of Orlando, Fla., but the $100,000 bonus was already his.

Glidden came back to win the pro stock final against Christian, enabling him to move from fifth to second in the season standings. It was the Whiteland, Ind., veteran’s 11th Winston Finals victory.

The first round of funny cars pitted father Jim Dunn against his son, Mike. Jim, a former Long Beach fireman, drove a battleship gray, unsponsored and unmarked car to a victory over son Mike’s highly polished car that looked like a candy bar. Jim, crew chief for his son’s car, ran 5.497 at 269.70 m.p.h. to Mike’s 5.497 and 264.23.

It was the first time the two had met in national competition although Jim has been racing since 1963 and Mike since 1980. They have met 14 times in match races, with Mike winning eight.

Darrell Gwynn, who won the Winston Finals three times here before his paralyzing injury in April in England, was disappointed that his top-fueler, driven by Frank Hawley, lost in the first round, but he stayed around until the finish to congratulate the winners. Gwynn, in a wheelchair, sat behind the starting line when Hawley made his runs, taking an active role in his team.

“My therapist was worried I wouldn’t get my exercise in out here, but I told her I’d probably shake hands a thousand times and that was therapy enough,” Gwynn said.