It's over ... for now

Well, the 2008 Mac Tools U.S. Nationals is complete, joining its 53 predecessors in the record books, and the race certainly lived up to the pre-race billing it gets. The addition of the Countdown to 1 implications only ratcheted up the pressure, even though most of the berths were already locked up.

Thanks for following along with the staff through these blogs. I hope you've enjoyed them over the last few days and that they added to your U.S. Nationals experience here on NHRA.com.

We're heading out for a celebratory dinner and then off to an early bedtime to prepare to fly home Tuesday to begin work on the National DRAGSTER coverage of the event. We hope you'll be reading long there, too, either online when we post the coverage for our members or in the actual print pages.

I'd be interested in hearing any feedback from visitors, criticisms and kudos, about our coverage of the Big Go. We're always looking for ways to improve what we do for you, so, please, drop me a line here.

Thanks again for visiting. We'll see you next year.

Zimm's Staging Control Center

NHRA veteran Darrell Zimmerman, a former NHRA division director and part of the NHRA team since the early U.S. Nationals events, is the guy with his finger on the pulse of the event, monitoring Excel spreadsheets and schedules from his position in Monitor Control to keep the event moving along, and when it's time for the next class to head to the lanes, you won't find him craning his next and yelling across the room to the announcers. All he has to do is put down his infamous cigar and reach over to flip one of 15 corresponding switches on the rather official-sounding device called "Zimm's Staging Control Center."

A complementary light will then illuminate on the equally official-sounding "Announcer Response Module" in front of the announcers, requesting that they put out the call for that class over the PA system.

Prior to each day, the projected times for every round are laid out and it's Zimmerman's job to meet them as closely as possible. Oildown and track prep, of course, throw the schedule out of kilter, but halfway through Monday, we were only nine projected minutes behind schedule for the Pro semifinals.

Zimmerman also calls out, via radio, the pairings to the lanemasters to confirm the information they have on hand to correctly pair the next round's contestants.

With all of that power at the tip of his fingers, Zimm may well be the most powerful man on the grounds.

It was 20 years ago today ...

On the 20th anniversary of his final win here, NHRA acknowledged Glidden's Indy dominance during the pre-race ceremony, with NHRA President Tom Compton presenting Glidden with a crystal trophy engraved with his image and the years of his victories here: 1973, 1974, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988.

In turning the stage over to Compton, emcee Bob Frey wryly noted, "It's great to get the chance honor him here, in his homestate, at the racetrack that he – I don't know how to break this to you – owned before you did."

Glidden, who took the stage with wife Etta, addressed the roaring and appreciative crowd. "Over the years, we had a great, great road to follow and thanks to Tom and the NHRA for all of our years of success and thanks most of all to all of the fans and the people who followed us and who we love, and special thanks to the family, to Bill and Rusty and Shannon and Teresa, my grandson Brandon, and thanks most of all to Etta."

I got a chance to grab this quick photo of the crystal beauty, the image of which is actually from the 1988 winner's circle (I know because I pulled it from our files), convincing NHRA Vice President Glen Cromwell to hold still for a second and pose it for me against a black background. So worried was he about perhaps it falling from a posed perch and shattering on the Indy asphalt, he initially insisted on holding it – but then that would have made a terrible photo, right? He finally set it down on a metal bar on the stage backdrop but, as his hand lingering nearby indicates, he wasn't crazy about that idea.

Anyway, congratulations, Bob … and thanks for the memories.

Rocking the vote

Welcome to day – what is it? 10? 12? Six, I guess – of the 2008 U.S. Nationals. The air is electric as the teams put the finishing touches on their mounts and prepare to do battle, but first, a little bookkeeping.

I put a poll up on the home page yesterday after qualifying was complete, asking visitors to pick which of the four low qualifiers they thought had the best chance of going wire to wire. Just 90 minutes to the beginning of eliminations, y'all are backing Tony Pedregon to go the distance for the first time here, followed by Matt Smith, Larry Dixon, and Allen Johnson.

Me, I'm going with A.J. He's had the best car in almost every session, and I like him to go four and get his first Big Go Wally.

Plus, looking back on the days' previous polls, I'm not sure I'd take your picks to Vegas.

After all, only 3.6 percent of the voters picked Eddie Krawiec to win Saturday's Ringers Gloves Pro Bike Battle – as opposed to the 32.3 and 29.2 percentage of love heaped upon Matt Smith and Andrew Hines – and a similarly disproportionate vote of confidence was conferred upon eventual NHRA U.S. Smokeless Showdown champ Cruz Pedregon, who garnered just 4.8 percent of the nearly 3,000 votes that were cast. Robert Hight, who received the most votes, just over 22 percent, lost in round one to Del Worsham, who received the least, at just 2.2 percent.

Ready to win

"It's bigger than I think sometimes," he said. "My approach is to treat all the races the same because, really, when you're in the car and rolling that car into stage, you're really not thinking; you're on instinct, but to be honest it really dawned on me this morning that you can only fool yourself mentally so much.

"It's a big race, and I'd love to win it. I've had several highlights in my career, and there's no question that if I could win this race it would be in the top three. When you’re talking about winning a couple of championships versus winning one race, that means something."

Pedregon has been to the final before, in 2001 when he lost in the final to Whit Bazemore after smoking the tires, and has also sat on the Indy pole previously, in 2002 while driving for John Force, but he just hasn't been able to put together four good runs on Monday.

"It just hasn’t happened," he said, almost apologetically. "I really thought I was going to win going to into the [2001] final, but it didn’t pan out. It takes a lot of work to be able to win this race. I can only keep trying to get better and better. If we have a good day tomorrow, I don’t see any reason we can't, but it's going to take a lot – a lot of good decisions and a lot of good driving to get back to the final."

Like a lot of second-generation drivers, the importance of the U.S. Nationals was instilled early in life.

"My dad [Frank Pedregon Sr.] raced Top Fuel cars when we were younger, and we knew about this race, but he never ran here," he said. "I don’t think our old station wagon would have made it. But we knew that this race was bigger and better than any 10 of them put together, and I think, in a lot of ways, it still is.

"It's funny because [brother] Cruz and I both feel the same way. We see Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein and John Force and Don Garlits walking around, and we haven’t changed. There's a certain part of us that still goes, 'Man, can you believe we’re actually doing this?' I go out of my way to recall that it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to do this."

For all that sentimentality, Pedregon plans to put it his firesuit pocket tomorrow and put on his game face.

"I think it’s a good thing to reflect, and I'm going to do that tonight," he said. "Tomorrow I'm going to come out here and do what I always do and try to turn all that other stuff off and just turn into Tony Pedregon the driver, nothing else."

Maybe this year ...

If you said that they are among the cream of the crop of the 98 Pro drivers in competition at the 54th annual Big Go, you’d certainly be right, but the more pointed fact of the matter is that none of them has ever won Indy. To make matters worse, in his long and decorated career, Capps has never even been to the final here, nor have Hines or A.J.

Of the 20 Top Fuel drivers trying to make the field, three –Tony Schumacher, Cory McClenathan, and Larry Dixon -- have won Indy multiple times in the class, and three others have an Indy Wally from a different classes: Antron Brown (PSM, 2000 and '04) and Morgan Lucas and Steve Torrence (TAD, 2003 and 2005, respectively). Bernstein, Kalitta, Doug Herbert, and Bob Vandergriff Jr. have all reached the final of Indy in Top Fuel; "Hot Rod" Fuller reached the final round here in 1998, in Super Gas.

The picture is a little more full in Funny Car, where 22 drivers are in competition, Cruz Pedregon, Gary Densham, Robert Hight, Del Worsham, John Force, Tim Wilkerson, and Jim Head all have won fuel coupe titles here; Head has won it in both Top Fuel (1997) and Funny Car (1984). Tony Bartone and Ashley Force have previous alcohol-class wins here, T-Bone in Alcohol Funny Car in 1993 and '99 and Ms. Force in Alcohol Dragster in 2005. Bartone also has four Alcohol Funny Car runner-ups here, for a total of six Indy final-round appearances, but none in fuel Funny Car. Tony Pedregon and Tommy Johnson Jr. have both been to the final round here, but came up short, in 2001 and 2002, respectively, while Frank Hawley made it to the 1990 Top Fuel final but also came up short. Melanie Troxel has never won Indy, but her dad, Mike, did in 1987, in Alcohol Dragster.

There are seven former Indy winners among the 29 Pro Stock pilots, with Warren Johnson, Greg Anderson, Dave Connolly, Mike Edwards, Kurt Johnson, Jeg Coughlin, and Larry Morgan all having been to the hallowed ground that is the Indy winner's circle. Coughlin and Morgan have been there as Pros and Sportsman; Jeg in Super Gas in 1992 and Pro Stock in 2000 and 2002 and Morgan in 1984 in Super Stock and in Pro Stock five years later. Yates, Richie Stevens, V. Gaines, and Ron Krisher have all been turned away in the final round of Pro Stock here, and Johnny Gray was the Funny Car bridesmaid here in 2003.

Of the 27 riders in Pro Stock Motorcycle, just four have previously won in Indy: Matt Smith, Steve Johnson, Craig Treble, and Angelle Sampey, and the lightnin' lady from Louisiana is the only one among them with more than one title, having bagged the Big Go back to back in 2001 and '02. So where are all the past Indy bike winners? Dave Schultz and John Myers, the class' late heroes, hogged the Indy spotlight in the '80s and '90s, with respective win totals of six and three, and Matt Hines, Andrew's older brother, and Brown, now racing in Top Fuel, each won Indy twice on two-wheelers.

Tire tracks in the grass

At Indy, the westside pits extend the length of the track and all the way down to the very end of the shutdown area, and five days ago it will filled with the happy sounds of racers from across the nation unpacking their stuff for what they hoped would be a very long stay while visions of Indy Wallys danced in their heads. It was a beautiful sight.

Today, as the vanquished disappear, their rigs trickling out the pit gates, it looks a little bit like a beauty queen with a few teeth missing.

We started sending racers home as early as Friday, when Super Comp and Super Gas hopefuls contested their first rounds; for those losing racers, their Indy 2008 experience lasted a short two days.

As you drive through the pits after any round, you'll find defeated teams forlornly folding those awnings that a few days ago were erected with his vigor and drivers sitting on ice chests staring at the ground, sadly shaking their heads, replaying their losing effort and thinking of what could have been.

In some sections of the pits, there are large vacated areas, while others are still wall to wall with survivors, like some random wildfire swept through, claiming some homes and leaving others intact. On the gravel roads of the Indy settlements, where just a few days ago new pit neighbors met and introduced themselves, there have been sorrowed goodbyes, like old friends moving away. Those still alive have to look over at the empty spots and wonder if they'll be the next to pull up stakes and spend Labor Day on the road or at home instead of in the winner's circle

In their wake, the vanquished leave little more than tire tracks in the matted grass as testimony that they were at Indy, and that their dream ended way too soon.

We were doing the 1,000-foot thing in the '80s

No, there was a lot more reason to sit there, and that was to be in the midst of the hardest-core drag fans on the planet, the members of the infamous 1,000-foot Club. Instituted by Jeff Burk (of DRO fame), Bret Kepner, and the gang from Midwest Racer magazine in the early 1980s, it was the place to hang out if you could hold your own in the world of drag racing minutiae: the facts, figures, and personalities of drag racing past and present.

It was probably where I first met ND Senior Editor Kevin McKenna and the rest of the editorial elite, and here's the photographic proof. This early- to mid-1980s photo shows the TFC on what's apparently a slow day, enjoying qualifying in those old-school bleachers beneath the club's trademark banner.

That's me in the top row, in the DRAGSTER-colors-coordinated outfit, right down to the bright yellow shorts (hey, it was the '80s, but what was I thinking?), standing next to Kepner. McKenna is seated at far left with, we believe, the late Gary Hajek. At far right is former ND editor George Phillips (now working in NHRA's broadcasting department) and, in the "front row" is that north-of-the-border lunatic known as Capt. Canuck.

Alas, the TFC hasn't convened a meeting in many a year, and the Indy grandstands today don't even reach the 1,000-foot mark.

Mr. Modesty

I've always really liked Dixon. I can say I knew him before he was a star driver, back when he was "just" a crewman on Don Prudhomme's Funny Cars; he was always approachable and eager to help me with any information I needed about the team. I like the fact that he still holds Indy in reverence above and beyond all races. A lot of guys talk that talk, but Dixon really means it.

Still, even as three-time winner of this event, he's not crowning himself king of the world or anything, and refuses to kick Schumacher and tuner Alan Johnson, currently not qualified, when they're down.

"I'll probably sleep better tonight than Tony Schumacher," was his opening remark when asked about his pole qualifying spot. He then spent the next 15 minutes deflecting questions about what No. 1 might mean. Other guys might have basked in the glory, but Dixon was all business .. unless of course that business included counting any chickens.

Will that run hold for No. 1? he was asked.

"If Alan Johnson gets stuck in traffic, we've got a shot," he deadpanned.

Does being a three-time winner work to your advantage against guys who have never won Indy?

"If it works against them, great. Having won here before, at least you don’t worry about is this is going to be the year you finally win it. Anymore it's just about hoping we can wrestle one away from Schumacher. That's what it's all about lately, and that's very difficult.

What would being the No. 1 qualifier here mean to you?

"In the grand scheme of things, I don't care. I'm qualified and I've not qualified here before and that's devastating, so I know I'm going to be racing. No. 1, 3, 5 … I'm good with it."

Does qualifying No. 1 mean that you guys are peaking just in time for the Countdown to 1?

"I think we're going in the right direction; hopefully we're far from peaking. Time will tell. We run the races during the day, not the night, so we still have to work on our day setups."

Will the announcement of Alan Johnson leaving Schumacher cause them to be distracted?

"I hope so, because there hasn’t been anything else to distract them. A couple of years ago we had eight or nine wins; now I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that. It's frustrating. Look at Antron Brown; he's the second winningest driver this year and he only has two wins. Two! Tony has 10.

"But to answer the question, knowing everything Alan Johnson's gone through in his career let alone his lifetime, I doubt it will be a distraction for him. We don’t have any control over that; the only thing we can control is what happens in our pit area and do the best we can."

Coloring his way into our hearts

From left, Shannon, Bart, and Sam Millard, Bob Tasca III, and Ford's Al Giombetti and Geoff Smith with the winning design.

The paint design is by unknown artist Sam Millard and features a bold design and plenty of color. The reason that the artist is unknown is largely because he’s a 6-year-old from Texas.

Sam’s winning “Imagine a Cure” design took top honors in Ford’s Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation competition to design a scheme for the event, and team publicist Alexis Kinch took me on a guided tour of the car.

The painter faithfully followed Sam’s drawing, skillfully interpreting crayon strokes of varying pressure into paint and matching the design right down to the “coloring outside the lines” parts that are on the left fender rear of the cockpit and the heart on the index finger of the blue hand that adorns the hood. Kinch explained that the heart represents how, when his parents check his blood sugar, he can feel his heart beating in his finger.

Millard, a member of the Greater Dallas JDRF Chapter, helped unveil his car with Al Giombetti from Ford Customer Service Division at NHRA’s pre-race press conference Thursday at Monument Circle.

“To have Sam see his design on our racecar for the first time today was just really special,” said Tasca. “I am so proud to be a part of this great contest with Ford and JDRF and look forward to putting Sam’s design in the winner’s circle this weekend.”

As the winner of the design contest, Millard spent Friday at the track with the Tasca team as an honorary crew member and got to see his car design run during qualifying.

Forty years shooting at Indy

Brady, a former Division 3 photographer, attended his first U.S. Nationals back in 1969, when front-engined Top Fuelers were the order of the day. He remembers his first trip to the Big Go for us.

“I didn’t really have credentials then, but no matter: Indy was the place to be over the Labor Day weekend if you were a racer, crewmember, spectator, with the media, or even just a plain ol’ fan. Of course, the track looks way different now than it did in those days. I remember once I arrived to Indianapolis, and on the circle-type bypass known as I-465, I took the Clermont exit and drove west towards the track, and once you got near Clermont the banners started to show up, and then there were the tents along the way that were hawking any number of things, from t-shirts to hats and jackets and even model-car kits.

“There were people camping on both sides of the road leading to the entrance and, mind you, not many four-wheel campers in those days. No, these were a hardy bunch who camped in tents pitched in every space possible! There were tents on the track property and more side businesses selling their wares. It was almost too much to take in!

“Not having credentials didn’t stop me from trying to shoot photos, and in those days, the infamous Hurst Bridge was closer to the start line than it is today. There were guards at each end to keep the traffic flowing, and no one was to stop for very long watching the race cars from this lofty position! For me, it was just another block I had to over come and did to be able to shoot something from this event! I was yelled at more than once and told to move along by the best of them, but I persisted and, after shooting for awhile, would move off or swing around and go back to the other end to shoot there again! I had one camera in those days, and it was a true 35mm film camera, and I recall it was a Minolta SRT-101 single lens reflex camera. I shot roll after roll of film -- not really the stuff that would make any editor swoon, that’s for sure --- but, hey, I was new to the game in those days, and I was trying!

There were cars everywhere, and both sides of the pits were filled. Another wonderful thing that was done in those days was a lot of the cars were taken to the motels to be worked on back then, so each night, I’d drive to all sorts of local motels to see who was working on what and, of course, the big thrill was to watch them work on the cars and then to hear them fire the car up to be sure they had it right which could be anywhere from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. It was like this huge dream to be there for all of this.

“There wasn’t a Parks Tower back then either. There was the DA Tower, which stood on the west side of the start line, and in the area where the Parks Tower now sits was a sponsor viewing area set of stands, and I was able to get into that area several times.  A person was fairly close to the action if you were in that set of stands but it wasn’t all that great for photos because of the angle of the stands, though morning burnouts of the bigger cars could be interesting! I also seem to recall it was a single run of Armco guardrail all the way down the track back then and very little if any guardrail up near the start line where the credentialed photographers were. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall any scoreboards in the late ‘60s either, but, hey, looking at scoreboards wasn’t why I was there.

“The cars were simply amazing to me and so many of them, too! The paint schemes were truly works of art back in those days where as today most are wrapped in vinyl. I could say some of the cars I saw back then were sort of archaic by today’s standards, but they sure were fun to watch and photograph, no matter the class. I was lucky to meet back then several of the day's leading photographers while at this race. I remember that the Wide World of Sports cameras were there that year, and I had to wait until something like December of that year to watch what they filmed back then. Keith Jackson of college football announcing fame was the headline announcer for the show they did. As time went on for me and as I grew into this sport, so did my camera equipment, and I was eventually given credentials the following year, and I have been going ever since.

"It’s like the Drag Race Of All Drag Races, and a person has to have been there for a few of them to understand all this. The cars of today have changed and so to have the drivers names, but it’s still the Nationals! The facility itself has changed over the years, too, but it’s still the place to be, still the race to go to each year!”

"Hero" time in Comp

Welcome to day four of the 54^th Mac Tools U.S. Nationals and, for Comp fans like me, the best day short of Monday. Today’s early-morning “hero session,” held in the cool air, promised to shake up the standings and did just that.

Although Steve Matsusek’s turbo car stayed atop the pack, there was plenty of movement below him. Todd Patterson picked up more than a tenth and jumped from 14^th to second and Brian Browell from tenth to fourth. The top 16 cutoff went from .55 under to .608 under and the 64-car bump from .326 under to .362 under.

Before the session, I had taken a quick cruise down the lanes to greet old friends and meet new ones.

Nick, who wasn’t even born when his dad captured his first Indy crown, in Super Stock in 1984, and was newly born when he won it in Pro Stock, in 1989, licensed just prior to the event and wasted no time in proving that driving runs in the family.

At the wheel of his dad’s Rick Jones-built Stratus, running a 500-cid engine with a planetary transmission in B/AP (when Larry drove the car in Norwalk, it was in B/A), Morgan ran a 7.44 yesterday and then a blistering 7.24 this morning.

“This is great, I love it,’ said the second-generation racer, who rolled the beams on his second qualifying pass. “I’ll tell you one thing, though, I’ll never give my dad crap about his driving again. It’s harder than it looks.”

There’s also a Morgan powerplant beneath the wheel of another second-gen Pro Stock racer in Comp, Shane Gray, 36-year-old son of Johnny, who’s racing in B/A and already has run 7.10.

Further down the lanes in Comp, I ran into homestate favorite Browell, who’s still looking for his first Indy win but will probably end up in a winner’s circle in Pro Stock, where his lightweight aluminum bellhousings are the choice of the Summit and Warren/Kurt Johnson teams, among others.

He’s got a lot on his plate here, too, where he needs to get past the third round to gain ground on points leader Dan Fletcher and then turn his attention to the divisional level, where he can improve quite a bit and will race on three of four weekends in September.

I also checked in with another longtime friend, two-time Indy runner-up (Super Stock in ’99, Comp in ’89) Rick Brown. Brown, who won in Atlanta earlier this season, has his whole family with him and would love to finally land the big one with them in attendance. He improved to third in the session, greatly improving his chances.

'Slick' enjoying his re-tire-ment

There, watching the races from the lofty perch was a guy who played a key in the NHRA racing world from the early 1980s through the late 1990s: former Goodyear Racing Tires Division Field Manager John Slikkerveer, who helped keep the NHRA world rolling on Akron rubber.

Slikkerveer, whose last event representing the tire giant was Indy 10 years ago, was a well-liked and –respected friend to the racers during his tenure, a guy who worked his way up through the rubber ranks to become the company’s face at our events.

Slikkerveer, known, appropriately enough in racing circles, as “Slick,” joined the Goodyear team in 1962 while a sophomore in college, working part-time to learn the ropes and by 1983 he was running the show.

Other than two years spent on the IndyCar circuit, he was with NHRA for the balance of the time.

Now retired – and still living in the Akron area -- and enjoying his grandkids, fishing, and cruising his ’69 Shelby and other vintage Ford iron, Slikkerveer doesn’t make it to many national events – his last race before this one was the 50^th anniversary U.S. Nationals four years ago – but he makes sure to catch the races on TV.

Testing? We don't need no stinking testing ...

One significant change to the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals tradition will manifest itself in that first qualifying session as teams will take to the track without the benefit of their usual week-previous test sessions that became a staple of the hoopla leading up to the race. Early favorites could always be detected based on how well their cars ran in the three days leading up to the mandatory week off from running on the track, but this year’s testing ban to conserve nitro meant that no fuel cars were able to test on the O’Reilly Raceway Park track prior to this year’s Big Go.

Rob Flynn, crew chief for the Rod Fuller-driven Caterpillar dragster who won the race as crew chief for Whit Bazemore in Funny Car in 1997 and has twice been on an Indy runner-up team (Jim Epler in 1999 and Tommy Johnson Jr. in 2002), notes that traditionally the left lane has been the lane of choice Friday night because that’s where most of the testing was done, and that the lack of pre-event runs may well even the lanes out, which should make lane choice less critical.

“It’s all going to depend on when we run,” he said. “Right now, we’re scheduled to run at 6:30, and the sun will be out still, so if we can get them to drag it out a half hour or so, it might get really good for us.”

Pappa Cunningham, by the way, has a rich U.S. Nationals tradition. His first Nationals was the 1960 event, the year before NHRA moved the event from Detroit to Indy.

Jimmy Walsh, tuner for Morgan Lucas, has four Indy wins to his credit, three in Top Fuel with Joe Amato – 1987, ’89, and ’90 – and also won it in Alcohol Dragster, with his brother Bill driving, in 1985.

Walsh says he isn’t sure that the lack of testing is going to hurt many people, nor that, other than getting a chance to get a feel for the air conditions, getting laps on the track in testing is very helpful. “By the time we get to run, there have been thousands of Sportsman cars run in the three days of the event, so the track has changed,” he says. “Right now our biggest concern is the air because it’s pretty wet out there. There’s supposed to be a front coming in that will dry it out, but, then again, running at nighttime masks a multitude of sins.”

And it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime ...

No, this isn’t a Bob Seger concert, just the isolated thundershowers that we’ve watched remain stubbornly on the forecast all week. The ground was wet when the wake-up call came this morning, and a quick glance at weather.com shows more “isolated t-storms” through 4 p.m. today. If it’s raining, this must be the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Friday.

The good news is that the rest of the weekend is supposed to be moisture-free, but you know what they say about weather in the Midwest ...

In a few minutes, I’m headed down to the lobby for the first of what promises to be the Groundhog Day breakfast routine. We’re here so long that every day seems to meld into the next, with routines established. Our hotel becomes home away from home, our fellow staffers our families, the rental car the family grocery getter, and the path between here and O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis the daily commute.

Its not presently raining (8:30 a.m.), and action was supposed to already be underway out at ORP, so after a quick splash of OJ and some cereal and muffins, we’ll be out there among ‘em, and see what the day holds. The first and only Pro session today isn’t scheduled until 5:15, but there’s a ton of Sportsman qualifying, the Mopar Hemi Super Stock Challenge, and more on tap before then.

Once we’re settled in the media center of Parks Tower, we’ll begin filling in all of the blanks on our photo galleries wall of fame, starting with a tour of the fabled facility, and then the blog material should start rolling in from our five correspondents.

If there’s weather issues throughout the day, I’ll try to post them on the home page to keep everyone informed.

Next stop: breakfast!

Does someone know a song from 1962 that I could hum?

The way it was

It’s Thursday morning, the current issue of National DRAGSTER shipped last night, and I’m getting ready to kiss the kids goodbye for almost a week, step out the front door, and head to my Labor Day home away from home.

The Pro cars don’t run, of course, until Friday evening, but that’s not the way it used to be, remembers Mike Dunn. Back in the ‘70s and before, qualifying began Thursday, and it wasn’t uncommon for some teams to make 10 or more qualifying passes.

“You’d be in line all day, and NHRA would come by and say they were going to take two pairs or six pairs or whatever … you never knew. You just waited. I remember seeing ‘Jungle Jim’ changing the crank in the lanes to get to some spun rod bearings. That wasn’t abnormal. You had to get your spot.”

Back in those days, Funny Cars used to be pitted on the other side of the track from where they are now, and the teams had to maneuver down the winding road course to get to the staging lanes; there always was competition to see who could get into line first in the morning recalled Dunn.

“Roland had me sleep in the truck in our pit so that we could be one of the first in line, but I remember Dale Pulde bribing his way into the track early in the morning, hooking up his Funny Car, and then shutting off the engine in his truck and coasting past everybody because he knew we were sleeping. Me and a guy from [Tom] Hoover’s team tried to get our cars up there early, so we headed out from our pits at 5:30, but an official stopped us just before we got to the lanes because the lanes didn’t open until 7. We were all just piled up there waiting; there must have been 25 teams stacked up behind us. At five minutes to 7, he told us we could pull up, and it was like the start of LeMans. Everyone ran to their trucks, and I remember [Austin] Coil was right beside us. We got Roland’s car up there -- I think we were fourth in line -- and headed back to get Hoover’s car, but Coil was pissed off at me because he thought I’d cut him off. Once I explained that I was also trying to help get Hoover's car up there he was less pissed, but Hoover’s car ended up back like 18th.”

Dunn is one of those racers who can claim an Indy win on his résumé, having defeated Billy Meyer in the 1986 final. Dunn, driving Joe Pisano’s Olds, smoked the tires, but Meyer broke his input shaft early in the run. Dunn pedaled it and raced across the finish line an Indy champion.

“My first final round there I was so freaking nervous I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I’d never been more nervous before or since. I knew how much it meant to Joe and how much it would mean to my dad, and I understood the history.

“We smoked the tires, and I figured that was it, then he broke. I couldn’t believe it. I rolled back into it and still went 6.20. I put it in high gear and drove around him, and it was like, ‘Wow, I just won Indy.’ What a swing of emotions in about two minutes.”

Dunn made it back to the final the next year but lost to Kenny Bernstein; he had two chances to join the small list of drivers to have won Indy in both fuel classes, but he lost the Top Fuel final round in 1998 to Gary Scelzi and in 2001 to Larry Dixon. The 2001 one stings the worst because a crewmember inadvertently left three main bearings out of the engine. "It went a couple of hundred feet and blew the engine out if it,” he recalled forlornly. “And I had two-hundredths on him at the light (.494 to .473)."

Even though Dunn’s career feels a bit empty without a world championship, Dunn is firmly in the camp that agrees no driver’s career is complete without an Indy win. "The only thing that saves my career is that I won Indy,” he says.

“In the old days, winning Indy meant more than winning the championship; I don’t think winning the championship began to really mean as much or more until the 1980s,” he said. “Indy was still bigger for a long time.

“Look at Ed McCulloch; he won Indy six times and never won the championship, but the fact that he won six times and did it in Top Fuel and Funny Car and a lot of times in convincing fashion makes him a great racer, championship or not.”

Been here, seen that ...

For a guy who doesn’t live in the Hoosier State, I’ve sure spent a lot of days in Indianapolis. This year’s Mac Tools U.S. Nationals will be my 26th consecutive trip to the Big Go, and with an average stay of between five and six days, including travel days, that’s a lot of days. I’m thinking of applying for voting rights.

Obviously, a lot of those 100-plus days were spent at the racetrack, so, in light of that, I should at least be able to vote for my all-time memorable Indy moments, don’t you think?

While it could easily be said that any trip to the U.S. Nationals is a magical one, there are years and days that easily come to my mind. Different things strike different people differently, so though my list no doubt will vary from that of, say, fellow Indy long-timer Kevin McKenna, I’m guessing that the spirit is the same.

1983: My first Indy. Like your first kiss, you never forget your first Indy. My excitement was tempered only because I had missed the previous year’s event due to budget constraints so had missed such momentous occasions as Don Prudhomme’s jaw-dropping 5.63 in Funny Car, Gary Beck’s first-in-the-.40s 5.48, Shirley Muldowney beating Connie Kalitta in the Top Fuel final, and more, but as soon as we turned off Crawfordsville Road and onto Raceway Road and those famous fuel tanks appeared, my eyes were as big as saucers.

Soon I could see the famous crossover bridge and then the pits, already packed with race teams.

And, of course, the iconic starting-line tower, which stood across from the brand-new Parks Tower yet was an iconic sentinel to the history it had witnessed throughout the years.

I prowled the pits, walking in the famous footsteps of Garlits and Prudhomme and Mulligan and Montgomery, soaking it all in. It was famously hot and muggy, but that didn’t matter. I went everywhere at the track, viewing the action from the same angles that I had lusted over for years in the drag mags that cluttered my bedroom.

Every single Funny Car qualified in the fives (a first) and Kenny Bernstein doubled up, winning the Big Bud Shootout – then only in its second year and worth “only” $25,000, though he did get a special treat from crew chief Dale Armstrong (pictured)  – Sunday and the Big Go Monday, his first of three Indy wins, and John Force became the eighth driver to exceed 250 in a Funny Car.

I saw Elmer Trett for the first time – he went 200 on two wheels to win Top Fuel Bike – and, regrettably, also would see his last pass, 13 years later.

Gary Beck won Top Fuel, and Bob Glidden – who else? – won Pro Stock for the fifth time; only Prudhomme, with six, had won more overall. Darrell Gwynn, who two years later would runner-up here in Top Fuel, won Top Alcohol Dragster, and I knew I’d be there. Once you’ve been to Indy, you never want to miss another.

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Don Garlits, with partner Art Malone, left, and crew chief Herb Parks, second from left, blew 'em all away, literally and figuratively, in 1984.

1984: ‘Big’ comes back … again. In my first two years at National DRAGSTER, I think I may have typed Don Garlits’ name only a half-dozen times (if that) because he hadn’t won a race in nearly five years, since the 1979 World Finals in Ontario, and had only run NHRA national events sporadically since. When “Big Daddy” announced out of nowhere that he and good pal and former driver Art Malone were going to pull Garlits’ three-year-old Swamp Rat 26 literally out of his museum and bring it to Indy, I have to admit that quite a few people were rolling their eyes.

Yet “the Old Man,” Malone, Herb Parks, "Gar’s" brother Ed, and a few others came to Indy and stomped everyone to win; it was Garlits' sixth Indy title and his first since 1978. He qualified third, just behind Beck and reigning season champ Joe Amato, and then, despite losing a front tire in the eyes, mowed down Shannon Stuart in round one. He borrowed a set of front rubber from yet another of his old cronies, “the Greek,” Chris Karamesines (the loan was obvious because the wheels were gold) and set down Howard Haight and Larry Minor – who had beaten his own driver, Beck, in round one – to reach the final, where he dispatched another longtime pal and contemporary, Connie Kalitta, 5.52 to 5.69.

But Garlits’ win didn’t just reinvigorate his career, it damned near single-handedly saved Top Fuel. Shirley Muldowney was still recovering from her horrific accident three months earlier in Montreal, and popular Doug Kerhulas also was out of action after his top-end accident in Columbus, fields were getting lighter than a titanium wrist pin, and Funny Cars were getting all of the big sponsors. Garlits’ win -- no doubt inspired by a pre-race message from Muldowney to “Go up there and kick their butts” – injected the class with new life and attention, and then when Cragar/Weld announced at the event the creation of a Big Bud Shootout-like bonus event for Top Fuelers for 1985; Charlie Allen a few weeks later staged a Top Fuel match race – pretty much unheard-of then -- at Firebird Int’l Raceway (which Garlits won, defeating Beck in the final, 5.59 to 5.65); and Garlits won the World Finals and soon thereafter announced he would run the whole schedule in 1985, suddenly, Top Fuel was king again.

Early in qualifying, the Bud King team hung back in the lanes waiting for the weather and track conditions to improve and ended up with a solo run. When 5.50, 271.41 – the quickest and fastest pass ever --  flashed on the scoreboards, fans had to rub their eyes to make sure they were reading it right, but any fuel tuner who was within earshot knew that “Double-A Dale” was up to something because the change in engine tone at the top end was immediately noticeable.

I was not keen-eared enough to notice the change, but my ears were filled to the brim in interviews with drivers and crew chiefs during the next few days, each speculating about the run, much of it hinged either on the use of a three-speed transmission or some sort of clutch gizmo, and the speculation only grew deeper after their next pass, when anyone with a stake in nitro racing was listening.

In an interview two years ago, Armstrong remembered, “I told Kenny we couldn’t have that happen again because we knew people would be listening, so we made sure we were in the middle of the pack for the next session, and, wouldn’t you know it, the guy we were supposed to run broke on the burnout. After that, the cat was out of the bag. I don’t think people would have picked it up as fast as they did. By the next season, everyone had one.”

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1988-1991: Weird Top Fuel finals. When Gene Snow, who had run 5.006 the round before (just missing being Indy’s -- and NHRA’s -- first four-second driver) broke the throttle linkage almost at the hit of the pedal in the 1988 final against tire-smoking Joe Amato, it set the tone for four weird Top Fuel finals to come, a somewhat unfitting way for the year’s single biggest round to end.

The next year, Dick LaHaie, who scored Indy’s first four in qualifying, broke the blower snout just off the line in the final against Darrell Gwynn. After a reasonably normal 1990 final, Pat Austin famously banged the blower on the burnout in the 1991 final (more on this in the next item), then watched in disbelief as Kenny Bernstein smoked the tires on his solo. Austin got his Indy Top Fuel win in 1993, but only after a pedalfest with Doug Herbert, and two years later, Bob Vandergriff Jr. appeared to be leading Larry Dixon when his chute prematurely deployed.

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That Pat Austin won Top Alcohol Funny Car in Indy in 1991 was no surprise; that he almost did it in his Top Fuel debut as well was amazing.

1991: Pat Awesome. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I spent a lot of time interviewing Pat Austin, who was kicking everyone’s butt on a regular basis in Top Alcohol Funny Car, so when he and his family made the sudden leap to Top Fuel, purchasing the assets of their late Castrol GTX teammate Gary Ormsby, I had a bit of an inside track with him, which led to an interesting post-race moment after the 1991 event.

Austin entered both his Top Alcohol Funny Car and the Top Fueler, which he had only driven in licensing, at Indy in 1991 and, against all odds, made it to the final round in both.

No one had ever doubled up and won two eliminators at a single event, and for four days, Austin’s name was on the lips of fans as well as racers in all classes. He’d already won 40 Wallys in the alcohol car – three times at Indy alone – so a win there would be no surprise, but after he qualified the dragster No. 6 and displayed some uncanny reaction times, people suddenly began to think he could do it. With crew chief Lee Beard tuning and teaching – current Tony Pedregon crew chief Dickie Venables was also a member of the crew -- Austin had lights of .439, .415, and .419 in the first three rounds of Top Fuel to reach the final against Bernstein. Austin’s semifinal 5.03 e.t. was better than Bernstein’s meet-best 5.06, and given the reaction-time advantage Austin was sure to get, Bernstein almost seemed resigned to give Austin the win.

"Let's face it," said Bernstein. "No matter what I do up there, I can't overcome a 5.03 on the Tree. We better step it up a taste, or we'll be playing runner-up."

As we know, Austin won with the Top Alcohol Funny Car and not with the Top Fueler; his rear tires hooked up on his final-round burnout, he didn’t lift in time, and the blower went bang. Then Bernstein smoked the tires.

After facing the media and acknowledging her error, Austin retreated to his pits, where I caught up to him. He was a lot harder on himself there with me than he was in the media center, but he told me, “Phil, I guarantee that I will not only win with the Top Fueler before the season is over, but I'll win with both cars at the same race."

I couldn’t let a juicy quote like that go unused, so I included it in the event Top Fuel story for National DRAGSTER. When the paper hit mailboxes, it caused quite a stir, especially in Tacoma, Wash., where Austin couldn’t believe his eyes. He later told me that he’d meant that comment to stay between us, so I was aghast. He hadn’t said “Off the record” or anything, but I still felt awful because a lot of people suddenly thought he was too big for his britches.

Well, damned if in two races later, in Topeka, he didn’t pull it off, beating Chuck Cheeseman for TAFC honors and Amato for the Top Fuel trophy.

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(Above) After 15 tries, John Force finally won Indy in 1993. (Below) After being shut off with a fuel leak, final-round opponent Kenji Okazaki could only look on as Force set low e.t.

1993: Force finally wins Indy. Believe it or not, it took John Force 15 tries before he finally won Indy, which he did in 1993, the same year that Pat Austin made good for his 1991 foul-up.

After all those years of trying, Force’s long-awaited moment came in the oddest of ways as opponent Kenji Okazaki, seeking to become the first Japanese driver to win any event – let alone the U.S. Nationals – had to shut off with a fuel leak in Jim Dunn’s Mooneyes Dodge. Okazaki had lost the blower belt in winning the semifinals, which apparently smacked loose a small fuel-pressure line that was almost impossible to see under the engine. The problem did not become apparent until Dunn fired the engine while Force was in the midst of one of his then-patented long and smoky burnouts.

Force didn’t take it easy on his single run to immortality, blasting out low e.t. of the meet with a 5.10.

“After [tuner Austin] Coil's signal that I had a single, I figured that if I did some little half-pass, the fans would come over the fences and tear the body off the car,” he said. “So we hit it and ran a 5.10.

"It was really something. Everybody probably was saying, 'Oh boy, it's National Hot Rod versus Japan,' but I just tried to keep cool. [Okazaki] is a great guy. Before the final, he came to me and said something like, 'I'm so proud to be racing you.' Hell, I loved the kid.

"And I loved winning Indy. It's the big one. It's just like if you were an IndyCar driver and had all these race wins but never the 500. That'll eat at you for the rest of your life. I finally got it right here, and I'll never forget it."

Me either.

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(Above) The Johnson family saluted their fallen hero in the pre-race ceremony. (Below) After an emotional handoff from Top Fuel winner Cory McClenathan, Alan Johnson hoisted the Top Fuel trophy that he and brother Blaine might well have captured themselves.

1996: Pure sadness, shared together. It’s hard to call a weekend that you lose two of your very best “memorable,” but, like everyone who was there a dozen years ago will attest, you’ll never forget the almost unbearable weight of sorrow that fell upon us after we lost Blaine Johnson Saturday and Elmer Trett Sunday to a pair of freak accidents. I’ll also never forget how it was the Johnson family who helped lift our hearts and spirits that same weekend and helped the NHRA community through a period of tremendous loss and grief.

I don’t need to go into the details of what happened to each, but I remember where I was and exactly what I was doing at the millisecond each of their accidents occurred, but what I will most carry away from that sad Labor Day weekend was the spirit of community, led by the Johnsons. Personally, the DRAGSTER staff was still grieving after losing the heart of our little world, Leslie Lovett, who had died suddenly less than two months earlier. It was our first Indy without him, and his loss was obvious and still painful to us, and I know I took great solace in watching the pride and dignity that the Johnsons displayed that weekend.

They didn’t go into seclusion, as some might have. Alan Johnson was right back out there, helping his and Blaine’s mutual friend Jim Head. The rest of the Johnson clan was there, too – father Everett, mother Agnes, sister Pam, and wife Kym – receiving fans and visitors in their pit area, seemingly as much to comfort us as themselves.

I’ll never forget either the semiprivate Monday morning service, where Alan and Pam shared their thoughts and memories of Blaine, and fellow Top Fuel Bike racer Larry McBride and Head theirs of Trett. When Sheila Massengill, a crewmember on Dave Schultz’s team who often had sung the nation anthem, launched into a stirring a cappella version of “Amazing Grace," there wasn’t a dry eye in the tent.

The Johnsons and their were there on the starting line during the pre-race ceremony, holding hands, united in body and spirit, to accept the well-wishes of the crowd, then watched a young Tony Schumacher, who qualified on the bump spot in his first Top Fuel event, idle down the track next to Blaine’s empty lane. Schumacher went on to reach the final, where he lost to Cory McClenathan, his only loss in seven Indy finals. It’s all very ironic today, with Alan Johnson tuning Schumacher to the greatness that Blaine seemed destined to reach with Cory Mac as his teammate.

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2001: Legends return. During NHRA’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2001, fans in Indy got to see two legends, Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney, at the U.S. Nationals for the first time in 15 years, and, in a real treat, they faced off against one another in Saturday night qualifying, with former NHRA Chief Starter Buster Couch resuming his age-old post to send them on their way.

The two had dueled in Indy throughout the years, for the first time in the final in 1975, but with Garlits at age 60 and Muldowney 61, Garlits warned, "People better have their cameras ready because this will probably never happen again."

"The fans are excited about this," agreed Muldowney. “Lining Don and I up together will be a real treat for everyone."

Garlits had come back to race after retirement to try to earn his first four-second and 300-mph clockings and was at the wheel of Gary Clapshaw’s Spirit of Las Vegas dragster, flying the Matco Tools colors. Muldowney’s trademark pink bannered teenage Internet entrepreneur Ashley Power’s GooseHead.com and Action Collectibles. “Big” had logged a planned shutoff 5.33 on his Friday night pass but lost his Saturday morning pass when a bolt came loose on his throttle linkage on the burnout and he couldn’t engage reverse because the idle was too high. Muldowney already was solidly in the field with her Friday 4.64.

They were the first pair to the line Saturday night, and I made sure I had a ringside seat. The air was filled with nitro fumes hanging in warm evening air, and I think everyone there took a mental snapshot of the moment as the two staged against one another for what had to be the umpteenth time in their amazing careers. It was over quick -- too quick for Garlits, who smoked the tires and had to watch Muldowney race to a career-best speed of 320.20 mph in 4.67 seconds.

Garlits got what he came for early in Sunday’s session. Lined up, appropriately enough, against longtime friend Chris Karamesines, “Big” thundered to a 4.72 at 303.37 that placed him 15th in the field, 12 spots behind Muldowney. Both were gone after the first round – Muldowney on a red-light when a weld on her brake handle broke and Garlits in tire smoke – but no one forgot they had been there.

Garlits returned the next year with his monowing Swamp Rat 34 and went quicker and faster still – 4.76 at 318.54 -- but missed the field by one spot. Muldowney again qualified No. 12 and beat John Smith in round one before falling to Andrew Cowin in round two. They both missed the field in 2003 and, as Garlits had predicted, never ran against one another again in Indy.

But we’ll always have 2001.

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2004: Indy turns 50. I was too young (19) to trip eastward for the silver-anniversary Nationals in 1979, but I was there when the Big Go turned a half-century old with a marvelous birthday celebration that included Art Chrisman’s famed No. 25 dragster re-creating (yet again) its opening lap from the 1955 Nats in Great Bend, Kan., Mike Boyd in the Marcellus & Borsch Winged Express fuel altered, the Golden 50 car show that included historic vehicles such as Calvin Rice’s J.E. Riley & Sons 1955 winner, Don Nicholson’s ’64 comet, Don Prudhomme’s Hot Wheels 'Cuda, a Cacklefest, and more.

Indianapolis proclaimed NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals Week, and event banners were flown from special standards throughout downtown. There was definitely a buzz in the air.

We even created a very cool Web site for the event that’s still worth visiting; it includes many great historic photos, event recaps from every year, the unveiling of the event’s most memorable moments, a searchable list of past winners, and more. Check it out here.

The race itself was memorable for veteran Gary Densham, at the wheel of one of John Force’s cars, not only finally winning Indy but also Sunday’s Skoal Showdown, as well as Tony Schumacher’s fourth Indy win in five years, Ashley Force’s Top Alcohol Dragster win, and Jeg Coughlin’s surprising win over the Mopar Hemi Challenge field, which also included Jason Line.

Which brings us to 2008 ... I wonder if 10 years from now I'll be counting this year's event among my most memorable.