DRAG RACING / WINTERNATIONALS AT POMONA : Youth Pays Minor Dividends

When Larry Minor, the potato baron from Hemet, put together his drag racing team this season, he reversed the trend toward experience and went for youth.

Minor dropped his popular veteran top fuel driver, Ed McCulloch, 52, in favor of Cory McClenathan, 31. For his funny car, Minor kept Cruz Pedregon, 30, who won the National Hot Rod Assn. championship in 1992, his rookie funny car season.

The trend had been the other way. Eddie Hill, the defending top fuel champion, will be 58 next month. John Force, the defending funny car champion, is 44.

Minor’s youth movement paid dividends Saturday when his two McDonald’s drivers won the No. 1 qualifying positions for today’s 34th annual Chief Auto Parts Winternationals at the Pomona Raceway. Eliminations start at 10:30 a.m., with $1,290,200 at stake.

McClenathan, who left his Yorba Linda-based, family-owned team to drive for Minor, set a track record of 4.774 seconds to wrest the top spot from Jimmy Nix, 55. The 16-car top fuel field is the fastest in NHRA history. The slowest qualified car is former four-time champion Joe Amato’s, at 4.920.

The fastest previous field was the one that qualified last year at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan., where the slowest time was 4.931. McClenathan was quickest there, too, running 4.762, the fastest official quarter-mile in drag racing.

Scott Kalitta powered his family’s American International Airlines car to a track-record 303.03 m.p.h., but his elapsed time of 4.802 was only fourth fastest, behind McClenathan, Nix and Shelly Anderson.

Anderson, a Cal State Fullerton graduate, became only the eighth driver to better 4.80 seconds with her run of 4.789 in a car prepared by her father, Brad Anderson, a former three-time top alcohol funny car champion.

Although he was in a different car, with a different uniform, it was more of the same for McClenathan. This was the third time in a row that he had been fastest qualifier at Pomona. His 4.784 was tops in last year’s Winternationals, and so was his 4.795 last October in the Winston Finals.

“I’m very pleased the way our new team has jelled,” McClenathan said. “I think one reason was that we made a (TV) commercial for McDonald’s and got to work with each other before we started testing. Then we went to Firebird (near Phoenix) and ran 4.750, so we came here with a positive high.”

The run at Firebird is the unofficial all-time quickest top fuel run.

“Having owned a race team, as I did with my family for three years, helped me make the adjustment to a new team,” McClenathan said. “I’ve been coming to the track with the same enthusiasm.

“There is one big difference and that’s not seeing all the bills and invoices coming to my house. I feel extremely relaxed. Maybe that’s the reason.”

McClenathan will meet Amato in the first round, setting up a curious circumstance. Jimmy Prock, who was McClenathan’s crew chief during his three years as driver of the family’s Mac Attack top fueler, now has the same job with Amato.

“It’s going to be strange, running against Prock, but it’s definitely going to be a rivalry all season long,” McClenathan said.

Pedregon’s time of 5.010, set in the first round Thursday, stood up through three days of time trials for the funny cars. His quickest run Saturday was 5.028.

“We didn’t go any faster, but we were very consistent,” Pedregon said. “Consistency is what wins rounds, and winning rounds wins races. That’s what we’re looking for this year, and the team is pleased with the start we’ve made.”

This is the fourth time Minor’s cars have been No. 1 in both top fuel and funny car qualifying. It is also the second consecutive Winternationals in which Pedregon has been quickest.

His speed of 297.06 m.p.h. was a personal best and the fastest in the field.

Gordie Bonin, driving the Smokin’ Joe Mustang that was introduced in the off-season with such flair, failed to qualify. His best was 5.522, in 18th place.

Warren Johnson, two-time pro stock champion from Sugar Hill, Ga., in an Oldsmobile Cutlass, continued to dominate his class with a track-record 7.060-second run at 195.69 m.p.h. It was Johnson’s third consecutive No. 1 qualifying position at Pomona.