Favorites Find Trouble Advancing

John Force called it a reality check when neither he nor any of his funny car teammates could advance beyond the first round Sunday in the elimination portion of the National Hot Rod Assn.’s season-opening Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.

Tony Schumacher cited driver error after smoking his wheels and failing to get his top-fuel dragster past the second round of an event that he dominated through qualifying rounds.

Greg Anderson said that a pro-stock team that had been overpowering for most of the last two seasons simply committed too many errors as it too failed to make it beyond the second round.

Whatever it was that kept last year’s NHRA Powerade series champions, and many other high-seeded drivers in what could best be described as a day of monumental upsets, well out of their respective division finals, it was all right by those who did advance, three of whom emerged as unlikely winners.

“You can’t believe how sweet this feels for the trouble that we’ve had,” said Tommy Johnson Jr., who defeated Phil Burkart Jr. in the funny car final to claim his first victory since 2001, ending an 88-race drought.

His triumph, with a quarter-mile pass in his Monte Carlo of 4.741 seconds at 327.59 mph, was the first in the division in 44 races for owner Don Prudhomme, 63, who as a driver earned his first NHRA victory in the Winternationals 40 years ago. Prudhomme now has 99 career wins: 49 as a driver and 50 as a car owner.

“This is the best win I can remember in a long time -- a long time,” Prudhomme said.

Winning the top-fuel division was Scott Kalitta, a one-time event winner and two-time finalist last season. It was his first triumph at Pomona, and he got it with a run in his McKinney dragster of 4.487 seconds at 328.46 mph.

In the pro stock final, Dave Connelly, in a Cavalier, edged Warren Johnson, 61, postponing the latter driver’s bid to become the oldest NHRA event winner. Johnson, in his last full season of racing, defeated son Kurt to advance to his first final round since last year’s Winternationals.

For Anderson, the two-time defending champion who lost in the second round to Kurt Johnson, it is the first time he has not held the division points lead since the middle of the 2003 season, a span of 35 races.

As noteworthy was the first-round exit for the John Force Racing team, and especially for the namesake owner and 13-time funny car champion, who lost traction 100 feet into his run and again farther down the track, ultimately blowing up his supercharger near the finish line as he lost to Jim Head.

Eric Medlen, a second-year driver, red-lighted, or false-started, and was disqualified against Del Worsham. Rookie Robert Hight veered out of the groove and lost speed in his match against Bob Gilbertson.

It was only the second time all of the Force entries bowed out so early. The other was in Atlanta in 2001, a span of 86 races.

“You’ve got veterans out there [running against us], and it takes time to build veterans,” Force, 55, said of Medlen and Hight. “What the team is lacking is experience, so maybe my 30 years will help. They’ll all go home, think about what they did, absorb it, and we’ll turn them loose in Phoenix. So that’s our plan. This is a reality check.”

As for Schumacher, the top-seeded driver in the top-fuel division, the day was ruined when he stepped too heavily on the pedal and spun his wheels at the start of his second-round bout against Doug Herbert.

But the trip was not a total loss. Schumacher’s first-round time of 4.458 included a speed of 331.77 mph, which allowed his speed of 334.65 mph in qualifying on Saturday stand as a national record. To establish a speed record a driver is required to back it up by running within 1% of the speed during the same event.

“You clearly want to stay away from those kinds of performances if you want to win championships,” said Schumacher, who won last year’s title largely on the merit of 10 victories. “We’ll just have to put this one aside and get ready for the Phoenix race in two weeks.”