This Streak Isn’t a Drag for McClenathan

Only one other NHRA Top Fuel driver in history has stood where Cory McClenathan now stands in NHRA competition.

McClenathan, whose Mac Attack Motorsports shop is in Anaheim, has won four consecutive titles in Top Fuel competition, matching the run put together by Scott Kalitta in 1994.

That’s 16 rounds of competition without a loss since McClenathan debuted a new dragster for Joe Gibbs Racing at the Mile-High Nationals in Denver.

McClenathan, 34, a 1981 graduate of Sonora High, turned in one of the season’s amazing performances Sunday at the Champion Auto Stores Nationals at Brainerd (Minn.) International Speedway. His car went into a wheelstand off the starting line, but he successfully--and luckily, he said--brought the front end down without breaking it to beat Bob Vandergriff with an elapsed time of 4.795 and 315.01 mph.

“I’m speechless,” McClenathan said. “We’ve always been slow starters, but the season wasn’t going as planned--we had been in only one finals round. We started to build a new car right before Denver and I thought, ‘Oh no.’

“It performed so flawlessly. It was nice just to win one race--that’s all I wanted.”

McClenathan (644 points) was fifth overall before becoming the second driver to win the Western swing through Denver, Sonoma and Seattle.

He enters the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Aug. 27-Sept. 1 four points out of second place, having cut his deficit to first-place Gary Scelzi from 413 points to 192 points.

“Winning 16 rounds in a row is starting to weigh on me a bit,” McClenathan said this week. “We’ve already proven we can win races again, but nobody’s won five races in a row. I am completely overwhelmed, but at the same time, I’m very excited.

“It has been quite a ride and a lot of fun.”

McClenathan, who has twice finished second in the season points standings, has 14 career victories. He goes into the U.S. Nationals, the biggest event of the season, as its defending champion. Last year, he gave his trophy to the family of Blaine Johnson, who was killed in a qualifying crash with McClenathan in the other lane.

“I felt he would have been in the winner’s circle last year because they were running so well,” McClenathan said. “I just felt that’s where the trophy belonged. I’m hoping this year I can get one for myself.”

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The Funny Car victory at Brainerd by Yorba Linda’s John Force was his first since Feb. 23, ending his longest winless streak (13 races) since 1989.

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Costa Mesa’s Tom Bonacci, riding for Team Westcoast Sea-Doo, was in great position to win the Jet Jam’s season-ending Race of Champions last weekend at the Pond. Bonacci led the points standings after second-place finishes in the oval and slalom races, but was undercut by a ninth-place finish in the closed-course race.

He scored 133 of a possible 180 points and finished behind Dustin Farthing (Sea-Doo) of Stuart, Fla., who had 146 points, and Chris Fischetti (Sea-Doo) of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., who had 135.

Dana Point’s Frank Romero (Polaris) was 11th (73 points) and Laguna Niguel’s Bill Pointer (Yamaha) was 13th (56).

More than 42,000 people attended Jet Jam.

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Newport Beach’s Max Papis finished 15th at Elkhart Lake, Wis., over the weekend, his fourth consecutive CART World Series top 15 finish for the Arciero-Wells Racing team but the first time in three races he wasn’t Toyota’s top finisher. Among those races was Papis’ eighth-place finish at the U.S. 500 at Michigan International Speedway. It was his first 500-mile race and his best finish in 15 career starts.

Though the RV8B engine employed by both All American Racers and Rancho Santa Margarita-based Arciero-Wells lacks the top-end speed of its competitors, the engine’s durability at Michigan was especially notable given next month’s Marlboro 500 at the California Speedway in Fontana. That race is Sept. 28.

Not only did Papis finish eighth in the U.S. 500, but the other Arciero-Wells driver, San Clemente’s Hiro Matsushita, finished ninth. It was his second-best finish in 108 career starts. He took sixth in the 1994 Marlboro 500 (also at Michigan).

Matsushita has improved his position from start to finish in nine consecutive events.

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Santa Ana-based All American Racers chairman Dan Gurney missed the Miller 200 race at Mid-Ohio because of his father’s death Aug. 6.

John R. Gurney, a bass baritone with the New York Metropolitan Opera in the 1920s and 1930s, sang the national anthem at the first Long Beach Grand Prix.

Gurney was back in the pits at Elkhart Lake. The driver of his Castrol-Jockey Toyota, Juan Fangio II, finished 10th. It was Fangio’s second top-10 finish of the season, and the second time in three races (including the U.S. 500) he has been in the top 11. Fangio has equaled or improved upon his start in 12 of 14 races. Perhaps most impressive, though, was the fact that Fangio had the 10th-quickest time in the rainy morning warmup before the race.

Gurney’s other driver, P.J. Jones, was 14th.

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One week after the most disappointing race of his KOOL/Toyota Atlantic Championship series season--a nine-lap, 27th-place performance that ended with his crash at Grand Prix Player’s de Trois-Rivieres, Cananda--Jeret Schroeder recorded MCI Racing’s best finish in a race other than an off-road event. He finished third at Mid-Ohio after starting from the pole.