She Turns Race Into Blowout : Winternationals: ‘Did I win?’ Anderson asks after winning the top-fuel title in a car that had lost a tire down the strip.

Shelly Anderson finished on a rim and a prayer in her father’s top-fuel dragster, but it was enough for the former cheerleader from Royal Oak High in Covina to win the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals, opening event of the National Hot Rod Assn. season Sunday.

Anderson, 28-year-old daughter of former racer Brad Anderson, was past the halfway mark in the finals against Rance McDaniel when her left rear tire exploded, sending the wheel over a retaining wall at Pomona Raceway.

McDaniel’s car had already lost traction and was far behind, allowing Anderson to stagger to the finish line in a hail of sparks in 5.464 seconds at 178.74 m.p.h.

Not fast, compared to drag racing’s all-time record run of 4.751 seconds, set earlier in the day by four-time champion Joe Amato, but fast enough to earn her $40,000.

Amato, who made his record run in eliminating No. 1 qualifier Cory McClenathan, was eliminated in the semifinals by McDaniel.

“Did I win?” Anderson asked after climbing out of the broken car in the final. When an NHRA official informed her that she had, she said: “The car is junk, but we won and that’s what matters. We can fix the car.”

It was the second victory for the Cal State Fullerton graduate. Her first came in last year’s Keystone Nationals at Reading, Pa.

“After all the trouble we had all day, it was crazy to win this way,” she said. In two earlier rounds, Anderson had mechanical problems, but managed to keep her foot down and her dragster moving.

“It wasn’t any big deal,” she said of her dramatic rides, including one in which her long dragster almost got sideways. “That’s part of driving.”

K.C. Spurlock, who won the Winternationals in the first race he entered in 1990, came back to win the funny car final against Al Hofmann in a photo finish. Spurlock, in a Dodge Daytona, grabbed a narrow lead at the start, even though Hofmann’s Olds Cutlass had a quicker run.

Spurlock, despite not having been in a race car since 1990, took 5.128 seconds for the quarter-mile to Hofmann’s 5.123, winning the race with a quicker reaction time.

“I knew how good a driver Al is, and I knew he was going to give it his all, so I gave it my all and got away just ahead of him,” Spurlock said. “I think I appreciate this one a lot more than my win here in ‘90, because now I know how tough it is to win. Back then, I didn’t know what it took.”

Warren Johnson, who won pro stock championships in 1992 and 1993 in a Oldsmobile Cutlass while 1990 and 1991 champion Darrell Alderman was under suspension, faced Alderman’s Dodge Daytona in the pro stock final and won by half a car-length in 7.095 seconds.

Race officials announced a four-day attendance of 100,200, of whom about 45,000 were on hand Sunday. Upsets became the order of the day early in top fuel as defending champion Eddie Hill and the four fastest qualifiers--McClenathan, Jimmy Nix, Kenny Bernstein and Scott Kalitta--were all sent packing.

In funny cars, series champion John Force went out in the first round, followed by No. 1 qualifier Cruz Pedregon in the second.

Force, driving what he called a Chevrolet Lumina--although insiders insisted it was his old Olds chassis with a new paint job--lost to Kenji Okazaki’s Dodge Daytona by 0.013 seconds. The victory proved costly for Okazaki, who came from Japan two years ago to learn drag racing from Jim Dunn, because it cost the team an engine and clutch when a rod blew out of the block. Okazaki was unable to get to the starting line for his semifinal run against Spurlock.

“We just ran out of parts,” said Dunn, who operates the Mooneyes team with his wife, Diane, in Long Beach.