DRAG RACING / WINTERNATIONALS AT POMONA : Cars Return With as Much Fun as Ever

A few years ago, when Kenny Bernstein, Don Prudhomme and Ed McCulloch deserted funny cars to drive top fuel dragsters, it was widely predicted that interest in the funnies was waning.

Bernstein and Prudhomme had each won four National Hot Rod Assn. championships. McCulloch had won the prestigious U.S. Nationals six times.

The end seemed at hand when 1989 champion Bruce Larson disbanded his team and Roland Leong parked the first 290-m.p.h. funny car for lack of sponsorship. The perception was that maybe interest in funny cars--short-wheelbased, nitro-burning dragsters camouflaged with fiberglass bodies to make them appear, sort of, like the family car--was a passing fad.

Left to prop up the ailing class were John Force of Yorba Linda, who has 32 national-event victories; and young Cruz Pedregon of Moorpark, who switched from top fuel to win the 1992 championship.

Funny cars had started in Southern California, and it seemed they might end here in a regional shootout.

Then a funny thing happened.

Drivers who had been racing on the fringe of the sport, carefully choosing their spots without contesting for the points championship, began showing up on a regular basis.

Chuck Etchells, 39, an engraver from Putnam, Conn., became the first to run the quarter-mile in less than five seconds when he was clocked in 4.987 seconds last Oct. 1 at Topeka, Kan.

Jim Epler, 36, a computer company owner from Wilsonville, Ore., became the first funny car driver to break the 300-m.p.h. barrier with a 300.40 effort two days later in the first round at Topeka.

Al Hofmann, 46, a former building contractor from Umatilla, Fla., won the Winston Invitational at Rockingham, N.C., drag racing’s version of an all-star game, for the second time. And this year, he has something he never had--financial support to do the testing and development necessary to challenge for the championship.

“I’ve been going up and down the road to drag strips every year since 1979, driving the truck, changing the engines, buying the parts, doing all the mechanical work and then driving,” Hofmann said while watching his crew prepare the red-and-white Dodge Daytona for Sunday’s Chief Auto Parts Winternationals at the Pomona Raceway.

“I take that back. Until 1987, I did it all. Then it was Helen and I, until Tom Anderson joined us last year as crew chief. Now, with sponsorship from Western Auto and Slick 50, we have Anderson and a crew to do all the work, although Helen still does the clutch system.”

Al met the woman who is now Helen Hofmann in January 1987 in Australia, where he was barnstorming with a funny car.

“When we got back to the States, Helen was my crew--she had been a mechanic and could do anything a race car needed,” Hofmann said. “We were going to pick up the season in Phoenix.”

The honeymoon and Hofmann’s life almost ended there.

Hofmann was racing Force when a block exploded at the finish line and the fiberglass body on Hofmann’s car caught fire.

“The fire was so intense it burned the chute off, cooked the brake fluid and scorched the tires,” Hofmann said. “I had about a car length on Force, and the fire singed his chute. I went all the way through the runoff area and out into the desert before I could stop.

“When I saw the tumbleweeds coming at me. They looked like redwood trees.

“The car was on fire a minute and 30 seconds before I could get out. I was so disoriented, I couldn’t find the harness belts, and once I did and tried to lift myself out, the sides of the car collapsed.

“The only thing that saved me was (my) nine-layer fire suit,” Hofmann said. “That, and the safety crew that seemed like it was right beside me the instant I stopped, kept me alive. I went to the hospital with burned lungs, and every time I coughed, my throat felt like a chimney. The car was an $80,000 wipeout.”

That was Helen Hofmann’s introduction to NHRA racing.

“It put us in a big hole in a heartbeat,” she said. “We had no sponsor back then. That was a pretty rugged way to start.”

As the 1994 season starts at Pomona, the Hofmanns have a new lifestyle. They arrived in the family van--Al, Helen and Deoge (pronounced D-O-G) Shar-Pei, whom Hofmann calls without reservation, “the most important thing in our life.”

The two 1994 Dodge Daytonas, a McKinney chassis and a 500-cubic inch Keith Black aluminum Hemi engine were in the garage when they arrived, trucked in by a 53-foot truck-trailer.

“The Daytona is the slipperiest car out here,” Hofmann said as the cars were unloaded. “I’m looking for a 5-flat run or better here. I can’t tell you in words how much better it feels to arrive knowing we’ve tested the car to make it right before the season starts. . . .

“Pomona owes me one, and I hope to get even this week.”

Hofmann reached the championship round of the Winston Finals last Oct. 31 at Pomona, but lost to Epler when the clutch locked and Hofmann could not make it to the starting line.

“I thought we were ready to run a 5.05 in the finals, but we never got the chance to find out,” Hofmann said. Epler won with an uncontested elapsed time of 5.105 seconds.

Pomona is Epler’s favorite track, but he said he doesn’t expect to challenge 300 m.p.h. again soon, adding: “That first 300 was tremendously satisfying, but now that it’s in the record books, we plan to concentrate on our elapsed times because that’s what wins races.”

After Epler’s 300-m.p.h. run eliminated Gordon Mineo in the first round at Topeka, the engine in his Olds Cutlass blew up in the second round, causing a fire that destroyed the car.

“It’s amazing what the 300 did for us,” Epler said. “It opened a lot of doors. It’s made a big difference. We’ve been able to market it with apparel and souvenirs. And Rug Doctor has substantially increased its support so that we can make a run for the championship.”

Etchells followed his historic “first in the fours” run during qualifying for the Craftsman Nationals into his second victory of the season--his first running the full 18-event schedule.

“It was the greatest weekend of my life,” said Etchells, who maintains a full-time position as president of Union Engravers in Connecticut along with his racing schedule.

“After the ’91 season, I was really ready to pack it in because we had no sponsor and I couldn’t continue,” Etchells said. “But then Superwinch and Kendall Oil came to the program.”

Etchells responded with three NHRA victories and a fifth place in the 1992 standings, despite missing three of 18 races.

Hofmann’s preseason analysis: “I don’t see Force or anyone else having a year like he had last year. He won 11 races, but he was beatable. Now that some of us have enough backing to race John and Cruz (Pedregon), I don’t think any driver will win more than three races, and the championship will go down to the Winston Finals.

“Funny cars are back, big time.”

Winternationals Notes

Scott Kalitta, driving his family’s top fuel dragster, reached 302.10 m.p.h. Friday, but his elapsed time of 4.802 seconds did not knock Jimmy Nix out of the No. 1 qualifying position. Nix ran 4.781 Thursday. . . . Intermittent showers washed most of the rubber off the racing surface, causing times and speeds for the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals to be generally slower than on Thursday. Qualifying for Sunday’s eliminations will continue today.