NHRA heads for finish line
Pro drag racing crowns its champions at the final race today, ending a tumultuous season that could prove a turning point in the sport.
The NHRA’s top-tier Powerade Series -- where some dragsters reach 330 mph in a quarter-mile -- endured a driver fatality, saw its most popular driver seriously hurt in another crash, imposed new driver-safety measures, rolled out a controversial championship format, and agreed to sell the series to a firm vowing to better promote the sport.
All of which happened in the same year that Wally Parks -- the man considered the father of organized drag racing, who started the Glendora-based National Hot Rod Assn. -- died at age 94.
“It’s going to be a changing of the guard,” said John Force, the popular 14-time funny car champion who was seriously injured in a crash Sept. 23.
First, though, the series’ 23-race season ends with today’s final event at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona.
Under the series’ new Countdown to the Championship format, four drivers in each of the series’ major classes are still eligible to win their division title.
They are:
* In top fuel, Rod Fuller leads in points over Larry Dixon, Brandon Bernstein and Tony Schumacher, who is going for his fourth consecutive title.
* In funny cars, Tony Pedregon leads Gary Scelzi, Robert Hight and Ron Capps.
* In pro stock, Greg Anderson leads Jeg Coughlin, Dave Connolly and Allen Johnson.
* In pro stock motorcycle, reigning champ Andrew Hines leads Chip Ellis, Matt Smith and Peggy Llewellyn.
They’ll be among the 16 drivers racing in each class in today’s final eliminations. In the last round of qualifying Saturday to set the field, Schumacher led the top fuel class with a run of 4.508 seconds and 320.58 mph.
Jeff Arend kept the top spot in funny cars at 4.781 seconds (324.90 mph). Connolly led pro stock drivers (6.648 seconds, 208.01 mph) and Hines topped the motorcycle class (6.956 seconds, 192.22 mph).
A half century after Parks and others began putting drag racing on the map with organized races at multiple tracks in Southern California, the NHRA and its Powerade Series entered 2007 among motor sports’ most popular series, albeit one lagging the enormous popularity of NASCAR.
Taking a page from NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup playoff format, the NHRA unveiled the Countdown format to bolster late-season interest in its championship.
After 17 races, the number of drivers eligible for the title was pared to eight in each class, then reduced again to four for the final two races in Las Vegas and Pomona.
Not everyone liked the change. Some complained it was hard to follow who was in contention during the season. Others said the Countdown needed added drivers with a shot at the title to keep more fans’ interest.
“I think it was great for the sport,” and the new format “gave us tremendous coverage and excitement,” said veteran Kenny Bernstein, who has won championships in top fuel and funny cars.
“I just don’t like that last four step-down thing,” he said. “I’d rather it went to eight or 10.”
The series suffered a blow in March, when Eric Medlen -- a driver on Force’s Yorba Linda-based team -- died from injuries in a practice crash in Florida.
The NHRA and race teams responded by putting additional padding and different seat-belt settings in drivers’ cockpits, among other safety changes.
“The things we learned from Eric’s accident, they’re helping,” Fuller said. “Our sport is so much safer than it was in March.”
In May, the NHRA agreed to sell the Powerade Series for $109.5 million to a group led by Eddy Hartenstein, the developer of the DirecTV satellite-television company.
The NHRA will remain the sport’s nonprofit sanctioning body and focus on its amateur drag-racing activities.
After the sale is completed, probably next month, Hartenstein’s group is expected to overhaul how the series’ events and its drivers are promoted. That includes how drag racing is covered on television and marketed on video and other media.
“It’s just a matter of taking it to that next level and promoting the sport the way it should be,” Fuller said.
Force agreed, and said the sale could widen drag-racing’s fan base. “NASCAR had a turning point like this” a decade ago, he said. “We can become NASCAR.”
Bernstein said the upcoming changes are one reason why he’s still driving at age 63.
“This might be the best time the sport has ever seen,” he said. “The next couple of years could be pretty good.”
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