Cool Day Makes for Hot Times at Pomona : Drag racing: Shelly Anderson sets top-fuel elapsed-time record, then wins $50,000 bonus. Force gets funny car marks.

Drag racers like to theorize about the optimum conditions for breaking speed barriers for a quarter-mile from a standing start.

Overcast skies and a windless day, temperatures in the 70s, the right barometric pressure and a cool, slightly tacky track are almost as important as a 5,000-horsepower engine and the proper mix of nitromethene.

They were all in place Saturday at the Pomona Fairplex strip for the final rounds of qualifying for the 30th Winston Select Finals. The result was one of the greatest displays of speed on a single day in National Hot Rod Assn. history.

--Shelly Anderson, who grew up in a racing family a few miles from Pomona in Covina, recorded the quickest top-fuel run ever, 4.718 seconds, and backed it up with a 4.741 later in the day to claim the official NHRA elapsed time record.

Anderson came back still later to run another 4.71 in the Budweiser Classic finals against Cory McClenathan, which earned her family-owned team a $50,000 bonus. If no one betters her elapsed-time record in today’s eliminations, she will collect another $50,000 from the Slick 50 World Record Club.

--John Force, a four-time NHRA funny car champion from Yorba Linda, ran 302.82 m.p.h. in his Chevrolet Lumina funny car for another national record. Force, already winner of the $150,000 Winston bonus as the 1994 champion, also set a track elapsed-time record of 4.973 seconds.

--The 16-car top-fuel field, from Anderson’s 4.718 to No. 16 Scott Kalitta’s 4.887, is the fastest in NHRA history.

--Along the way, Kenny Bernstein ran 307.06 m.p.h., the fastest top-fuel speed ever at Pomona; Warren Johnson continued his hot streak at Pomona, setting pro stock track records of 7.041 seconds and 196.54 m.p.h. in his Oldsmobile Cutlass; and David Schultz rode his Suzuki motorcycle to a track-record 7.589 seconds.

“It wasn’t me, it was the car,” Anderson said after accepting congratulations from her father, Brad, a former NHRA top-alcohol champion. “Now, I’ve got to go out Sunday and do my job.”

Anderson is No. 1 qualifier for today’s final eliminations, which start at 10:30 a.m. She will meet Kalitta, the newly crowned NHRA champion, in the first round.

Anderson had it easy in the Budweiser Classic finals when McClenathan did not get off the starting line, but she earned her victory in the second round when she needed her 4.741 to catch and pass Eddie Hill. Hill ran 4.821 after beating her off the starting line.

“The race was so close I didn’t know who won,” Hill said, “but when I saw the television cameras head to Shelly’s car, I knew it was over for me.”

Anderson’s margin was five-thousandths of a second. At the 1,000-foot mark, Hill was ahead by .028 when two cylinders misfired on his Pennzoil dragster.

The final was anticlimactic as McClenathan’s car had a supercharger malfunction at the start.

“It was an odd feeling to hit the throttle and just sit there with the car not moving,” he said.

Anderson said she did not know that McClenathan did not start.

“I was busy watching the lights and I couldn’t see him,” she said. “I was just hoping he wouldn’t drive around me.

It was the first time Anderson, who won the Winternationals at Pomona last February, had ever been No. 1 qualifier. She also became the first female winner of the Budweiser Classic, accomplishing in her first outing what Shirley Muldowney and Lori Johns had failed to do.

Anderson’s first-round victory over Don Prudhomme gave her special satisfaction, as Prudhomme had beaten her three times this year in first-round matches. Prudhomme did a mini-wheelie coming off the starting line and was no match for Anderson’s perfect start.

“I saw his front end come up and it made me feel good,” she said. “Anytime I beat him it’s really something special. He’s so fantastic.”

Prudhomme, who will make the final runs of a 31-year career today, qualified fourth at 4.774, behind Anderson, Blaine Johnson (4.751) and Bernstein (4.754).

It was not a good day for Kalitta. In the first round of the Budweiser Classic, he broke the throttle linkage during a pre-race burnout and did not start. In his second qualifying attempt, he smoked his tires off the line and had to sweat out making the field.

Kalitta’s time of 4.887, made Thursday, was vulnerable when Arley Langlo of Goleta made the final top-fuel run of the day, but Kalitta survived when Langlo’s dragster erupted in flames from an oil fire.

Johnson, who has won the last four pro stock events at Pomona, said his record time surprised him.

“The car ran some good numbers in third gear, but there are some bumps on the top end of the track that get the car really bouncing around in fourth and fifth gears,” the 50-year-old driver said. “Everyone else who ran fast times was in the same lane. We were just a little luckier than the rest.”

In the battle for the pro stock championship and its $100,000 bonus, former champion Darrell Alderman needs to finish no more than two rounds behind teammate Scott Geoffrion to win. Alderman qualified second and Geoffrion fourth in their Wayne County Dodge Avengers.

The day’s most spectacular incident occurred when pro stock driver Ed Hack’s Trans Am became airborne and did a half-gainer before coming down on its roof. The car clipped the left wall and slid on its roof across the finish line with sparks flying from the roll cage. Heck climbed out uninjured.