Dunn Now Wears Gwynn-Stripes

The New York Yankees are the champions of baseball. Now they are setting their sights on being the champions of drag racing.

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and his son, Hank, have resurrected the top-fuel dragster team of Darrell Gwynn, which had been sidelined for nearly a year after its primary sponsor withdrew its support.

The Yankee Top Fuel Dragster, complete with pinstripes and the familiar interwoven NY logo, will compete in all National Hot Rod Assn. events next year--and today in the season-ending Auto Club Finals at Pomona Raceway.

“This is our spring training right now,” said Gwynn, who stubbornly refused to field a noncompetitive team before getting proper financial backing. “This will be our third race and getting back into racing again has all the guys fired up.”

Driver Mike Dunn, crew chief Ken Veney and most of the crew remained loyal to Gwynn, refusing to join other teams while awaiting his call. It came Aug. 29 when the Steinbrenners and the Gwynns, Darrell and his father, Jerry, signed a multiyear contract.

If their spring training is any indication, the Yankees should get off to a fast start when the 2001 season starts back at Pomona in February.

Dunn will have the No. 1 qualifying position today when eliminations begin at 11 a.m. Rain forced cancellation of Saturday’s final qualifying round, leaving Dunn’s run of 4.522 seconds at 325.69 mph on Friday the best of the meet. The 4.522 mark is the quickest time of the year under the NHRA’s new 90% nitromethane rule.

Even though Gwynn’s car has been in only three of 24 national meets and made only eight runs down the quarter-mile strip, Dunn has posted the three quickest times of the year, running 4.530 at Houston in the team’s debut and 4.529 last week at Dallas.

“It’s 300-mph pinstripes,” said Gwynn, whose return to racing has been one of the most popular developments of the 2000 drag racing season. “Pinstripes on a dragster are one thing, but when you’ve got ‘New York Yankees--World Champions’ on the side of your car, that’s pressure. They just won their 26th world championship and all eyes are on us to compete at their level.”

Gwynn, 38, was one of drag racing’s most promising drivers until he became partially paralyzed and lost his left arm below the elbow in an Easter Sunday 1990 exhibition run in England.

After the accident, instead of turning his back on the sport that crippled him, Gwynn took to his mechanized wheelchair and became a car owner, with his father as team manager.

“I’ve got 99% good memories from the sport of drag racing,” Gwynn said. “I’m not going to let one bad day in England destroy any goals we have for this race team. Sure, I miss driving, but I think what eases the frustration of not driving is that we have the best driver for the job in Mike Dunn. I never get the feeling after a run with Mike behind the wheel that I could have done a better job.”

A familiar sight at NHRA events is Gwynn quietly rolling into his favorite spot just left of the starting line shortly before Dunn appears as his top-fuel dragster is towed to the line for another quarter-mile pass.

“After the guys I’ve had as crew chiefs--Frank Bradley, Joe Pisano, Roland Leong and my dad--I figure I’m the only guy qualified to drive for George Steinbrenner,” Dunn said.

“My father [Jim Dunn] has always been a tough act to follow. I got the chance to get my license in his car, but when it came time to drive, he told me to find my own ride.”

The Steinbrenner partnership was in the talking stages for more than a year before it was formalized three months ago.

“In my opinion, NHRA drag racing is the premier form of motorsports in the world,” Hank Steinbrenner said. “Much like baseball, drag racing is an incredible test of endurance, speed and acceleration encompassed by a team concept.

“My father and I were in complete agreement that we would get into the sport only if we could join with an organization consistent with the tradition and standards of the Yankees’ baseball franchise. I’m confident that we’ve accomplished that with Darrell Gwynn and his team.”

Why did they select Gwynn’s team, one that had been on the sidelines since the 2000 season began here in February, as their standard-bearer?

“The family’s love for and unprecedented commitment to the sport is so impressive that it really made our decision very easy,” Steinbrenner said. “It was an easy decision based upon the success, loyalty and character of the Gwynns, Dunn and Veney.” Said Dunn: “When Darrell called and told me that the Steinbrenners were going to be our business partners, you could have blown me over with a feather. I was ready to get back to the races. I’d seen all the soap operas I needed.”

Since joining Gwynn’s team in 1993, Dunn has won 10 national events. Before that, Frank Hawley won two, including the dramatic 1990 Springnationals, the team’s first event after Darrell’s accident, and Michael Brotherton won one in 1992.

As a driver, Gwynn won 28 national events, 18 in top fuel and 10 in top-alcohol dragsters.

“What a great feeling it is to be back at the track, back with a competitive car,” he said. “Sitting out nearly a full season was frustrating, but it had one positive. That was that I was able to spend so much time with my wife Lisa and our daughter, Katie Brianne, which I can’t normally do during the race season.”

Through the help of doctors and researchers and the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Katie Brianne, now 2 1/2, was the first to be born using a frozen embryo.

Both Gwynn and Dunn are happy to be back at Pomona. Gwynn won the Finals here three consecutive years, 1986-88, and last year Dunn became only the third driver to score a Pomona double by winning the season-opening Winternationals and the Winston Finals in the same year. Gwynn is one of the two others, having accomplished it in 1986.

“Being a Southern California native, this is like home,” said Dunn, who lives in Wrightsville, Pa. “Of course, I grew up rooting for the Dodgers, but I’m proud to be wearing Yankee pinstripes now.”

Automobile Club Finals

* What: Final eliminations.

* When: Today, 11 a.m.

* Where: Pomona Raceway.