A Quarter-Mile to History : In Less Than Five Seconds, Amato or Bernstein Can Win a Top-Fuel Championship at Pomona and Become Part of Drag Racing Lore

If all goes as planned, drag racing, that swiftest of motorized sports, offers a confrontation today for the National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel championship--Joe Amato, the boxer and defending champion, against Kenny Bernstein, the knockout artist and challenger.

Their ring will be a 1,320-foot strip of concrete and asphalt--one-quarter mile--laid out on the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona.

The winner will receive $150,000, but that is not the prize most sought by Amato and Bernstein, two racing millionaires. They are running for a place in drag racing history.

Amato picked up an extra $50,000 Saturday by winning the Budweiser Top Fuel Classic for the sixth time in eight years. He defeated Cory McClenathan in the finals after McClenathan had received a gift from Bernstein in the semifinals. McClenathan’s car smoked its tires and was hopelessly beaten--except that Bernstein had left too early and was disqualified.

All concerned agreed that the big prize was the one today in the Winston Finals, last event of the NHRA season.

A victory by Amato, the conservative and consistent champion from Old Forge, Pa., would make him the first to win five top-fuel championships. Only two legends of the sport, Shirley Muldowney and Don Garlits, have won as many as three.

A victory by Bernstein, the 300-m.p.h. pioneer who recently moved to Mission Viejo from Newport Beach, would make him the first to win championships in both funny-car and top-fuel divisions. Bernstein won four funny-car titles before switching to top fuel two years ago.

Amato leads Bernstein by 52 points after Bernstein picked up two points Saturday by qualifying third, with Amato fourth in the 16-car field. With 200 points going to the winner of each of the four rounds of side-by-side racing today, 52 points is small. The driver who advances the furthest will be the champion, and if Amato and Bernstein win three elimination rounds and meet in the finals, it will be one thunderous dash of less than five seconds for the championship.

Bernstein qualified in 4.846 seconds and will meet Dannielle DePorter (5.022) in the first round. Amato ran 4.866 and draws Tony Pedregon (5.015), who is making his professional debut.

Amato has won three of four head-to-head meetings with Bernstein this season.

There will be a guessing game between drivers and crew chiefs, Jim Brissette for Amato and Dale Armstrong for Bernstein, as they try to push their cars to the fine line between breaking or winning.

Bernstein has four victories and Amato three in 17 national events, but Bernstein has lost six times in first-round matches, has smoked his tires seven times because he applied too much horsepower at the starting line and once broke the crankshaft.

“Actually, we’re lucky to be in the position to be looking at the championship,” Bernstein said. “Our Achilles’ heel has been our inconsistency. Luckily, everyone else has been inconsistent, too, but Sunday we need to put four good runs together.”

Amato also has lost seven times because of smoking tires, but a crew chief change after the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis has brought about the consistency needed to win a championship. Since then, he has not gone “over the edge” (in horsepower), as the drivers say.

When Tim Richards--Amato’s crew chief and close friend since he began racing in the 1970s--left the team, it was one of the biggest shocks to hit drag racing in years. It was as if the ideal couple in a group of friends suddenly announced they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.

“I was pretty shook up when it happened,” Amato said. “I had a terribly empty feeling, but we were fortunate that (fellow top fuel driver) Doug Herbert loaned us his crew chief. Jim Brissette brought new life and a new combination to our team, and we’re back in sync.”

Brissette, who was crew for Kelly Brown in his top-fuel championship year of 1978, is working not only with Amato and Herbert, but also handles the combinations for Tommy Johnson Jr. Brissette will be a busy man today. All three are in 16-car eliminations.

“The guy is amazing,” Amato said. “Having three cars to worry about doesn’t even faze him. He goes from one to the other like he’d been there all the time. I’m just very grateful to Herbert for sharing him with us at this time.”

Ed McCulloch, whose three victories in the last four NHRA events have made him the hottest top-fuel driver, believes the change to a relief crew chief has helped Amato.

“Joe had won three races and was ahead in the points, but he seemed to be sort of bogged down,” McCulloch said. “Brissette came in with a new combination that could have caused some problems in Joe’s crew, but he did a hell of a job holding the team together. I think he’s better off for it.”

Richards signed on last week to be crew chief for Pat Austin, last year’s Winston Finals champion. Austin failed to qualify for today’s eliminations, earning the 17th position as first alternate.

When Bernstein and Armstrong get their combination right and their 4,000-plus horsepower is hooked up with the racing surface, there has been no beating them. On several occasions this season, their punch has been devastating.

On March 22 at Gainesville, Fla., Bernstein became drag racing’s first 300-m.p.h. driver when he ran 301.70 during the second round of qualifying for the Gatornationals. Twice more, July 12 at Englishtown, N. J., and Sept. 7 at Indianapolis, he bettered 300.

No one else has done it.

Garlits likened Bernstein’s accomplishment to Babe Ruth hitting home runs.

“They know how to make it go fast when they want,” Garlits told National Dragster. “Bernstein reminds me of Babe Ruth. He would point to right field, and that’s where the home run went. Bernstein gives ‘em three fingers from the cockpit . . . and does it.”

More important in the points race, Bernstein twice has set national elapsed-time records, 4.946 seconds at Houston and 4.792 two weeks ago in Dallas. Each was worth 250 points--200 for the record and 50 for the low elapsed time of the event.

“If we hadn’t broken the record at Dallas, we’d be in real trouble here,” Bernstein said. “We’d probably have been too far back to think about catching Joe.”

Eddie Hill, at 56 the oldest top-fuel driver in the meet, bettered Bernstein’s record with a 4.779-second qualifying run Thursday, but is not the official record holder. Hill failed to back up his run within 1% Saturday, so will not get the record unless he runs 4.826 or better today.

Armstrong, who was chosen as crew chief of the year by Car Craft six years in a row, 1984-1989, after joining Bernstein, says the team’s success is because they never stop looking for new ideas.

“We’re never satisfied,” he said. “If the car smokes the tires, and we’ve tried all the different combinations available as far as gearing and so forth, then we do something else. If we break a part, we don’t just buy another part and put it back in there. We get a better part or build a better part.”

John Force, defending funny-car champion, gave the crowd and himself a thrill when his fishtailing Olds Cutlass got upside down and slid on its top through the finish lights in a morning run. Force, always the showman, climbed out after the car was put upright, jumped up on a retaining wall and threw his arms in the air. He came back later with a new fiberglass body on his funny car and qualified sixth at 5.208 seconds.