NHRA’s Long Day Is Drag at Pomona

If the National Hot Rod Assn. was using the Auto Club Finals as a showcase for live television, they picked a bad time.

The final event of the Winston Drag Racing series would be better named the Oil Down Finals. The first four runs of top-fuel dragsters--about 24 seconds of racing--took 1 hour 7 minutes to complete.

During that period, most of the action consisted of safety personnel and crews walking back and forth on the side-by-side quarter-mile lanes, searching for nuts, bolts and other miscellaneous pieces dropped by broken motors that could pierce tires.

It was not made for national TV.

Irrepressible John Force did what he could to entertain the fans, who numbered 45,000 by the time the races began. Most of them stayed until the finals were run in darkness.

In the second round, the nine-time funny-car champion from Yorba Linda set track records with a 4.836-second run at 318.09 mph to defeat Scotty Cannon. Then, in the semifinals, he appeared to be beaten as his Castrol Mustang funny car smoked its tires off the starting line and Jim Epler shot ahead. However, Epler careened across the center line--an automatic disqualification--and Force pedaled to victory in a snail-like 7.749-second pace.

Even in losing the finals to Jerry Toliver, driver of the World Wrestling Federation Corvette, Force was spectacular. As in the semifinals, he scorched his tires at the start, as did Toliver, but the Corvette driver recovered first and got to the finish line in 6.717 seconds with a remarkable 300.33 mph. It was Toliver’s first career victory.

Mike Dunn, in Darrell Gwynn’s top-fuel dragster, gave Mopar a going-away present by defeating Doug Kalitta in the finals. Mopar announced last June that it was not renewing Gwynn’s contract for 2000.

“I hope some potential sponsor saw this great run by Mike and will keep us going next year,” Gwynn said. “It was just a great effort by a great bunch of guys.”

Dunn ran 4.668 to edge Kalitta’s 4.692 in the day’s closest final.

Pro bike rider Angelle Seeling lost her bid to join Shirley Muldowney as the only women to win a pro-class championship when she hesitated at the start of her second-round race with Greg Underdahl and lost, even though she ran faster and quicker. Seeling’s 7.254 elapsed time and 177.35 mph bettered Underdahl’s 7.354 and 176.40, but her 0.563 reaction time was too much to overcome.

“I was pretty upset that I lost because it was absolutely all my fault,” said the 100-pound rider. “The clutch got caught up on my glove and I couldn’t let it go like I should have.”

When Matt Hines defeated Tony Mullen in his second-round race, it clinched the third consecutive championship for the Trinidad, Colo., rider. Hines collected $30,000 for the title, but in an anticlimactic semifinal run he lost to Craig Treble. Treble then lost the final to Antron Brown.

The eight-point differential between Hines and Seeling is the closest margin of victory in the 13-year history of pro bikes.

“When I saw that she lost that round I got a little worried because that’s happened to me a couple of times, where she goes out there and loses in front of me and then I lose. Fortunately, I was able to keep it all together.”

Warren Johnson’s hopes of gaining his 11th victory at Pomona were derailed by Jeg Coughlin Jr. in the final round. Coughlin’s Olds Cutlass ran 6.876 seconds to turn back Johnson, who clinched his fifth NHRA title in a Pontiac Firebird last month.

Joe Gibbs had a good day with his NASCAR team at Homestead, Fla., where rookie Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte finished one-two, but his fortunes were not so good at Pomona where both his drivers, top-fueler Cory McClenathan and funny-car pilot Tommy Johnson Jr. both lost in the first round.

Steve Johns upset Bob Panella to win the pro-stock truck final in a battle of Chevrolets.

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Tragedy befell the NHRA event before it began, when Lawrence Yohn, a 59-year-old professional skydiver, died when he crashed into a track guardrail during a pre-race opening ceremony. He was one of four skydivers parachuting onto the track as part of the ceremony.

Yohn was a skydiving instructor at the Perris (Calif.) Airport Sport Parachuting Center and an Aztec Skydiving Team member. He had jumped more than 2,500 times.