Victory Comes Quickly : Drag racing: Amato becomes top-fuel champion by winning first-round race after Bernstein loses.

Joe Amato all but won his fifth National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel championship Sunday before he even warmed up the tires on his 297-inch-long dragster.

He was standing in the staging lane at the Pomona Fairplex strip, preparing for his first round-run in the Winston Finals, when Kenny Bernstein lost in a stunning upset to Dannielle DePorter, 20, who calls herself the “world’s youngest top-fuel driver.”

Amato jumped and waved his arms in victory before climbing into his car to race rookie Tony Pedregon of Gardena in his first-round match.

He still needed the victory to assure his championship, in case Cory McClenathan won the event and set a national record--a remote possibility considering the warm weather. McClenathan got half of what he needed. He won the finals in his unsponsored dragster, but when he failed to set a national record, he fell 92 points shy of Amato, 12,232-12,140.

Bernstein, who started the day only 52 points behind Amato, dropped to third with 11,980.

Amato easily eliminated Pedregon but failed to make it through the second round, during which he was sidelined by Ed McCulloch, Pedregon’s partner on the Hemet-based Larry Minor team.

“It was the definitely the hardest and most satisfying of my five wins,” Amato said. “It was more pressure, more tension and more close racing.

“All year long, because we were the defending champions, we were the target on the bull’s eye. They were all after us, and I struggled to get the speeds up early in the year. It wasn’t until we changed crew chiefs that I found the speed I needed and got up to 299 (m.p.h.) here. In the end, it was consistency that paid off.”

Cruz Pedregon, Tony’s brother and Minor’s rookie driver from Moorpark, clinched the funny-car season title when defending champion John Force of Yorba Linda was eliminated during the first round by Gary Bolger of Genoa, Ill. Force lost when a blower belt came off its pulley midway down the quarter-mile strip and his Olds Cutlass lost power.

Amato and Pedregon will receive $150,000 at the NHRA banquet tonight in Ontario. Warren Johnson, of Duluth, Ga., who had clinched the pro-stock title before coming to Pomona, will collect $100,000.

In final rounds run in almost total darkness, other Winston Finals victories went to Chuck Etchells, 38, of Putnam, Conn., in funny cars; and Johnson, 49, in pro stock.

McClenathan won in top fuel when Eddie Hill, 56, the fast qualifier from Wichita Falls, Tex., was off the line too quickly and red-lighted in the finals to be disqualified. Etchells was an easy winner over Freddie Neely, 39, of Covington, Ga., when Neely, the fast qualifier, smoked his tires off of the starting line.

Bernstein’s loss ended the hopes of the veteran driver from Mission Viejo to become the first to win championships in both a funny car and top-fuel dragster. It was one of the most disappointing weekends of Bernstein’s career.

On Saturday, as defending champion in the Budweiser Top Fuel Classic, he jumped the start and lost to McClenathan in the semifinals. Sunday, against DePorter, he got off the line in front and maintained his margin to the 1,000-foot mark, where his car suddenly lost power. The problem was diagnosed as backfire that blew out the burst plate, a device used to save an engine from destruction when it is under too much pressure.

“The records are nice and all that, but the bottom line is winning the championship, and we came up empty,” a dejected Bernstein said after climbing out of his car. “Being the first to break 300 (m.p.h.) and then losing is like an NFL team winning 17 straight and then losing the Super Bowl. It’s disappointing, any way you look at it.”

Bernstein broke the 300 barrier with a 301.70 m.p.h. run last March in Gainesville, Fla., but he also lost seven first-round matches in 18 national events this season.

Cruz Pedregon, after knowing the funny-car championship was his, was eliminated by Neely during the semifinals when a fuel system malfunctioned.

“When I first raced a ‘fuel’ funny car here in February, I thought there was no way I could win the championship,” Pedregon said. “The competition is so tough. There’s so much luck involved and so many pivotal rounds.

“I can’t believe the pressure in a finish like this. (When) I looked at Amato and realized he’d been through so many of them, I just marveled at him. When you’re in the midst of it, it’s no fun at all--at least not until it’s over. I had a lot of sleepless nights.”

Pedregon came from more than 1,600 points behind with six races remaining to pass Force, the two-time champion. Pedregon’s loss to Neely ended a streak of 22 consecutive victories over six events.

“The Minor team ran good, and we ran good,” Force said. “Luck’s a major part of winning a championship, and luck wasn’t with us. But when I look back, I realize what we’ve accomplished this season. My car ran a 5.07(-second elapsed time), right on the national record. And it ran 291 m.p.h. for the first time. I’ve finally got a race car that can run as fast as anyone’s. I’m already excited about next year.”

Johnson won his eighth event in an Olds Cutlass when Jerry Eckman, 50, of Newark, Ohio, red-lighted his Pontiac during the final round. Johnson posted the top speed at 17 of 18 events to win his first pro-stock championship.

The long day was made longer by a series of accidents.

The most spectacular occurred when the fiberglass body was blown off of Dale Pulde’s funny car and flew into the crowd. The car body, which weighs between 150 and 200 pounds, was caught by the spectators and thrown back over the fence. Only one person was injured by the flying parts, but seven others were treated for injuries that occurred during the jostling to escape the debris. Five were taken to San Dimas Community Hospital for treatment, but all were released.

In a super-gas race, a 1973 Datsun powered by a 427-cubic-inch Chevrolet engine drifted off the track, went over a guardrail and flipped. The driver, James Brown, 22, was taken to Pomona Valley Hospital where he was kept overnight with a concussion.