NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Unseasonably warm weather hung over Gateway Motorsports Park for the second straight day while qualifying concluded for the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals. Four tough rounds of qualifying have resulted in some intriguing race-day matchups that are sure to have an impact on the Countdown to the Championship standings.

Here are today’s highlights:

1. Crampton stays No. 1
Richie Crampton and the Lucas Oil Top Fuel team went 0-for-2 Saturday with a pair of aborted runs, but they held on to the top spot with Friday’s 3.733 best. Crampton will take on No. 16 qualifier Kebin Kinsley in round one.

2. Hight shines at AAA event
Auto Club-backed Funny Car driver Robert Hight made his sponsor happy when he drove his Camaro to the top spot with his 3.893 Friday. Hight, who has not been ranked higher than third this season, will lead the field for the 48th time in his career.

3. Anderson sneaks into top spot
The top eight drivers in Pro Stock are separated by just two-hundredths of a second, but everyone is chasing Greg Anderson, who claimed the top spot for the seventh time this season and 87th time in his career following a 6.604 run in his Summit Camaro.

4. Another green hat for Krawiec
No one in Pro Stock Motorcycle has had more success in qualifying than Eddie Krawiec and the Vance & Hines Harley rider, who bagged another green hat when he rode to a 6.819 Saturday.

5. Pro Mod drama
The battle for the championship in the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series is not over yet, but Rickie Smith’s odds to win a third title appear to be very strong. Smith won his first-round battle Saturday afternoon and watched while his closest pursuer, Charlotte champ Bob Rahaim, lost in round one. Rahaim lost to Troy Coughlin, the only other driver still mathematically in the hunt.
 

Funny Car | Pro Stock | Pro Stock Motorcycle | Etc.

After a sterling outing in the Countdown opener in Charlotte, points leader Antron Brown and the Matco Tools team have struggled mightily and ended up just No. 12 on the grid, their worst start of the season (previous worst was eighth, in Topeka). The team came into Saturday’s final two qualifying sessions in the No. 12 spot after missing the tune-up and smoking the tires to a 5.46 in Friday’s night’s “hero” session, leaving him with his first pass of 3.808 to rank on the scoresheets. It didn’t get any better Saturday, when he ran 3.811 and an early-shutoff 3.928, leaving him No. 12.

“Friday night, we were just going for it, and the track just wasn’t as good as we thought it was right there,” explained Brown, who’s vying for his fifth consecutive win at this event. “The good thing is we stayed in the top 12 of the field and had a run that counts. The first run today I think the track was better than people thought it was.

"St. Louis has been so good to me. There are some places you go and everything just clicks, and that has been one of them. But there's a lot of hard work that goes into it. We just have to take it one round at a time.”

It has been a tough road already for Clay Millican, who’s participating in his just third Countdown since the format was introduced in 2007. He lost in round one to world champ and eventual race winner Antron Brown in the Countdown opener last week in Charlotte – slipping one spot from eighth to ninth in the standings – and has been battling a mild case of walking pneumonia this weekend.

Asked about the tough draw in Charlotte, co-crew chief Lance Larsen laughed, “We weren’t trying to pick on Antron; he was just in our damn way. I’m just racing whoever they put in the other lane. We’re happy. It’s been a long road. As bad as we were in the middle of the summer, it’s a good thing we finally found our way before we got to Indy.”

Millican ended up No. 9 with a 3.798 best and will face Brittany Force in round one.

Sharp-eyed St. Louis fans of the local baseball team may have noticed the St. Louis Cardinals logo riding aboard the Papa John's-backed dragster of Leah Pritchett. No, the former Southern Californian and now resident Hoosier isn’t changing loyalties. Papa John's is the official pizza of the Cardinals (in fact, all of Major League Baseball as well as the NFL), so the team is showing its support of that partnership this weekend in the home of the former World Series champs.

Pritchett and her Todd Okuhara- and Joe Barlam-tuned machine had a good start to the Countdown in Charlotte, moving up two spots to eighth in the standings with a second-round finish, and went a baseball impressive four-for-four in qualifying passes (3.828, 3.773, 3.786, and 3.770) here, one of just three to make it down the tricky track on each qualifying pass (J.R. Todd and Tony Schumacher are the others).

 

J.R. Todd, winner this year in Sonoma, is looking good for his second season win after a successful quartet of passes: 3.901 in Friday’s hot session followed by a 3.772, a 3.781, and a 3.750 that was the second-best run of the final session behind Tony Schumacher’s 3.740.

“Hats off to Rob [Flynn] and Connie [Kalitta] and all of the guys,” he said after his last blast, which put him in the No. 3 qualifying spot. “I think that puts us in pretty good shape for tomorrow.”

Tony Schumacher was the last driver not named Brown to win Top Fuel at Gateway. Schumacher won the race in 2010, then the tour took a one-year hiatus from Gateway in 2011, and Brown has won every event here since in addition to his triumph 2009. Despite his first-round loss last weekend in Charlotte, Schumacher remains supremely confident in his car, and a best-of-session 3.740 in Q4 didn’t change that opinion.

 
“The car is perfect – right where we want it,” said Schumacher, whose Army dragster has made it down the track on 18 of the 20 passes since the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. “Part of me wishes that at least once during the weekend we could run at 11 o’clock like we do to start the day on Sunday. But I understand it’s an entertainment sport, and the fans have to be there, and you have to do what’s right. It’s all good. The Army car is fantastic. It’s been fantastic since Indy. We had one little hiccup at the last race or else we’d be right in the middle of the fight. We’ve got a car, and that’s really all that matters at this point.

"We made two changes right before that last run even though we had a really good car. Mike [Green, crew chief] said it was something he thought would fix the middle of the track, and it most certainly did. Man, after finishing the day like that, I just can’t wait to get back here in the morning and represent the U.S. Army in this bad-to-the-bone race car.”

Friday’s low qualifier, Richie Crampton, didn’t get in a full run on either pass Saturday – recording e.t.s of 4.44 and 4.34 with his Aaron Brooks-tuned Lucas Oil dragster – but nonetheless held on for his second No. 1 of the season and the fifth of his career.

“We were trying to get down the racetrack today, and it just didn’t work out,” he said. “It’s not like we were trying to swing for the fences or anything, but it just shows why it’s important to get a good run on the board Friday night.

“Aaron’s pulling his hair out a little bit. I don’t think we were trying anything out of the usual today, we just didn’t have enough power on both of our sessions; maybe we were just trying to tread a little too lightly, but I think what he learned today will definitely help us tomorrow. I just need to concentrate on doing my job.”

After making a big move in the points last weekend with a runner-up in Charlotte, Tommy Johnson Jr. and the Make-A-Wish team found themselves behind the eight ball after failing to get down the track on a full pass in either session Friday. They responded with a 4.008 in Q3 and a 3.944 in Q4, putting the team a bit more at ease at an event that bedeviled them last year. In 2015, Johnson was upset in the opening round, which Johnson believes cost them a shot at title.

"This is the race that cost us the championship,” he said. “During the Countdown, you cannot have a bad race, and this was one that we had a bad weekend and lost first round.  I'm very determined to change that result this year. To have a good weekend in St. Louis would definitely separate the field."

Since kicking off their season in Brainerd, John Bojec and his team have taken their Toyota to a series of low-four-second passes and last weekend in Charlotte finally got their first 300-mph pass, so their eyes are now firmly set on their first three. Bojec had a good pass under way Friday night but had to lift early and coasted through with a 4.037 at just 293.22 mph.

"We have finally dialed in our fuel system,” he said. “My team has worked hard to get us to this point, and we feel as though we are right there, and our early numbers show we can make a three-second run. This is a huge step for our team, and we need to capitalize on this opportunity and continue to keep dialing in the car.”

After a disappointing outing in Charlotte, Jim Dunn sent a lot of parts out for inspection and found some issues in the bellhousing as well as the fuel system that were rectified. They sat out Q1 thinking there was nothing to be gained by running in the heat, but driver John Hale came back with a 4.17 in Q2 that ranked them just No. 13, meaning the e.t. would not carry over into Saturday’s effort.

A 4.156 in Q3 got the Oberto Charger into the field in the No. 15 spot, and they dropped one position to the bump after another 4.156 in Q4 but held on to their place in the field.

With the heat this weekend, there won’t be any improvements in the top 10 list of best Funny Car runs – a rarity this season, in which marks have been consistently bettered – but some drivers can’t help but point their fingers to next weekend’s Dodge NHRA Nationals at performance-friendly Maple Grove Raceway. After Matt Hagan’s 3.82 national record run in mid-August in Brainerd, a lot of folks have been looking forward to the event as the possible site of the sport’s first 3.7-second Funny Car pass.

Despite owning the second- and third-quickest passes in class history – 3.832 and 3.841, recorded this year in Seattle – Del Worsham isn’t so sure that’s going to happen.

“I’m not saying it’s impossible, but even if we could run 60-foot times like Courtney [Force] and backhalf like Matt Hagan, I think we could run like 3.808,” said Worsham, who obviously has given the subject more than a passing glance. “Courtney’s been .845, and we’ve been .858 [to 60 feet], and Hagan’s been a little less than a hundredth better than us on the other end. It’s going to be putting both of those ends together, plus everything right in the middle. Essentially, it’s going to take a perfect run.”

Since Gateway Motorsports Park reopened in 2012 after a one-year hiatus, Matt Hagan has been to the final three of the last four years, including the last two, and has been the No. 1 qualifier twice, but he still is looking for his first win here.

"You want to win everywhere you go, but we really want to win in St. Louis just to say we sealed the deal there,” he said. “It's important to get wins in this Countdown, so that's what we're looking to do. Coming off the win in Indy, we felt real confident going to Charlotte last weekend, and it was a bit of a rough race for us. We didn't qualify like we wanted to; we were able to get the car going down the track on race day, but we need to be able to string more runs together, so that's the plan this weekend."

Robert Hight held on to the No. 1 spot he earned after dominating Friday qualifying with the best run of each session, and even though Saturday was not as convincing – he didn’t get in a full run in Q3 – only he came close to bettering his Friday 3.89. Hight’s final pass, a 3.910, was cut short by a broken blower belt.

“Three of our four runs were low e.t., and that third run, we were still pushing hard, and it’s nice to know what your limit is going into Sunday so you don’t find it on Sunday. On our last run, it was going to run in the .80s again; it shut off at 3.5 seconds because the belt came off.

“It’s been a great weekend; I’m more excited about race day tomorrow than I’ve been for a long time.”

While the 10 drivers in the Countdown are focusing on winning championships, Aaron Strong has a different agenda. Strong is campaigning to entice voters (motorsports journalists) to cast their ballots for him in the race for the Auto Club Road to the Future Award that honors NHRA’s top Professional rookie. The main candidates for the award are Strong and Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Cory Reed. Reed has run all of the Pro Stock Motorcycle events and has a semifinal finish to his credit. Strong has competed at just eight events thus far, but he does have a victory at the rain-delayed Seattle race.

“I don’t spend too much time thinking about it, but it would be a nice deal to win,” said Strong. “Honestly, I think that if we had just gone to all the races and just qualified for all of them, we’d have come very close to making the top 10. We’ve got a few more races to go this year, so it would be nice to win a few more rounds.”

In St. Louis, Strong struggled a bit Friday but returned to record a respectable 6.674 in his Elite-powered Camaro Saturday. He finished No. 12 and will have a round-one match against Alex Laughlin’s Gas Monkey Camaro.

“We broke in some tires on Friday and basically didn’t make a good run,” said Strong. “We made a bunch of changes today, and we ran a lot better. With these cars, when you make one change, it changes the whole tune-up, but we’ll figure that out. I’m just happy to be racing on Sunday.”

Vincent Nobile described both of Friday’s runs as “decent,” including his 6.611 in Q2 that held up for the No. 4 spot. The Mountain View Tire driver and team entered Saturday’s qualifying with a fresh Elite Motorsports engine under the hood of their Camaro, and it proved to be just as strong with an improved 6.606 that is good for the No. 4 spot, but Nobile is just two-thousandths of a second behind leader Shane Gray.

“I short-shifted the car in Q2, and that probably cost me a couple of thousandths,” said Nobile. “I’m not sure it would have been quick enough to finish the day No. 1, but I think I’d have been second or third. It doesn’t really matter at this point. I’m in the top half of the field, and we’ve got lane choice tomorrow, and that’s about all you can ask for. This new engine ran like we hoped it would, so we also have a lot of confidence going into eliminations. We’re in a very good spot right now.”

Second-year Pro Stock driver Alex Laughlin turned in another solid qualifying effort when he put his Gas Monkey Camaro into the top half of the field with a fifth-best 6.610. With qualifying behind him, Laughlin is focused on improving his race-day performance, specifically his starting-line reaction times. Last week in Charlotte, Laughlin reached the semifinals for the first time in his career, but his reaction times on race day were unacceptable at .102, .105, and .100.

"The car is fine; I need to work on my lights,” said Laughlin. “We’ve been jacking around with the clutch linkage to try and help me out. Last week, I was slow, but I was consistent. You can’t miss it that badly three times in a row, so that tells me we’re having a problem with the car. I sat in Shane’s [Gray] car and felt the clutch pedal, and from that, we made some changes to my car. I was .050 yesterday, so I think it’s helped out a bit.”

Laughlin also revealed that his schedule for the rest of the season remains up in the air. He plans to race at his home event in Dallas but is undecided on the final two events of the season in Las Vegas and Pomona.

“We have talked about using that time to prepare for next season, so we’ll see,” said Laughlin. “We didn’t finish in the top 10, so it might be time to turn our focus to 2017.”

Jeg Coughlin Jr. accepts the current reality that if he’s going to win a race, he’s likely going to have to do it from the bottom half of the field. Coughlin and his Elite team have worked hard to better their Hemi engine program, but progress has been slower than expected. After four rounds of qualifying in St. Louis, the five-time world champion finished as the No. 10 seed and will face Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals champ Chris McGaha in round one. For the last two events, Coughlin has been using engines from V. Gaines’ Madcap Engine business.

"We’ve been hovering around the No. 10 spot for a while, but we’re now only about three- or four-hundredths behind the leaders, so that’s progress,” said Coughlin. “This week, we’re using V. Gaines’ engines again. It’s pretty much his whole engine including the intake manifold and our fuel and timing curve. We found that V.’s stuff is similar to our own stuff, but we’ve only had a chance to make about six runs so far. Overall, we’re doing a little better than we have been. It’s been a long, slow process, but that’s Pro Stock for you.”

The Pro Stock class of 2016 is beginning to resemble the Pro Stock class of years gone by, with the top half of the field separated by .021-second and the top six drivers just .007 apart. In that mix is current points leader and recent Charlotte champ Jason Line, who admits that he directs far more of his attention to qualifying than he probably should.

"I want to have the best car, and right now, I don’t,” said Line. “We’re off a tick. It’s not bad, but it’s still off a tick, and that bothers me. You know me: If I’m going to win a race, I’d rather crush everyone by five-hundredths and drive like [crap]. Thankfully, I have people around me that have a different philosophy, and they tend to help me keep my priorities straight. As a team, we’re all about winning the championship.”

In one of the closest fields of the year, at least from No. 1 to No. 8, Shane Gray emerged as the top qualifier for the second time this season. Gray ran a 6.604 Saturday to take the lead, but he is only .021-second quicker than the No. 8 qualifier, his teammate Drew Skillman.

“I am really happy with the way our car is running right now,” said Gray. “The only person that can screw this up is me. We made good runs all weekend, and the car was safe. Now we just need to go out on race day and do what we can do. Anytime you can outqualify those [KB Racing] guys, you’ve done something. We’re still shy on cars, but we are getting back to where we used to be. This [close field] will help that. Everyone out here is starting to get a much better handle on their setup. We all work hard, and we all deserve success at some point.”
 

Proving once again that father knows best, Melissa Surber's father, James, wasn’t afraid to provide an honest assessment of his daughter's first year in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class. When asked the difference between her bike and the one ridden by teammate Chip Ellis, Surber didn’t have to think long before answering.

“The rider,” he said. “We’ve tried to make both bikes as close as possible, but the fact is that we have one super-experienced rider and one rookie. Melissa makes some really nice runs, but sometimes she struggles a bit with consistency. Chip is rock-solid. He gets the most out of the bike almost every time, and his guys use that data to make changes. With Melissa, we get good data, but not as much of it, so we don’t always know which direction to go. She’s still learning, and she’s come a long way, but that’s the reality of it. She just needs more seat time.”

To continue her education as a Pro Stock Motorcycle racer, Melissa plans to move from her native Northern California to Mooresville, N.C., to be closer to the headquarters of Junior Pippin’s team. The 21-year-old struggled initially but made a respectable 6.914 pass to qualify No. 12 and earn a date with two-time world champ Matt Smith in round one.

Lucas Oil Buell teammates Hector Arana Sr. and Jr. considered themselves lucky just to make it to Gateway Motorsports Park after their motorhome broke down in Charlotte. The Aranas were stranded at zMAX Dragway, but Junior Pippin, the owner of Chip Ellis’ race-winning Buell, came to the rescue.

"Junior was down in Georgia, and he got in his motorhome and drove to Charlotte and picked us up,” said Arana Sr. “He’s being treated for cancer, but he doesn’t care; he wanted to help, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s the kind of person he is. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think we would have made it here.”

Arana Sr. struggled with his bike Friday but safely made his way into the show with a 6.880 that is good for the No. 7 spot. He will take on Karen Stoffer in Sunday’s opening round.

“I was on a good run Friday night before the transmission broke,” said Arana Sr. “We fixed that and made a pretty good run. We were pressed for time this weekend because of the whole motorhome deal, but we still managed to do all of our normal maintenance.”

This has been a tumultuous week for the Star team in the wake of the recent bombshell announcement that riders Cory Reed and Angelle Sampey would be leaving at the end of the season, but their on-track performance has not appeared to suffer. Reed earned a top-half starting spot with an eighth-best 6.884, and Sampey challenged for the top spot before eventually dropping to No. 2 with a 6.831 best. Because they are on opposite sides of the ladder, Reed and Sampey could not race until the final round.

"I’m a little disappointed that we missed the green hat this time because I was getting spoiled for it,” said Sampey. “Although I am very proud of my team and the fact that we are No. 2 going into race day, our mutual goal is to finish the season strong, and this weekend we showed that we are working together in the same direction.”

Reigning St. Louis champ Jerry Savoie settled into the No. 4 spot in qualifying after a solid 6.852 effort on his White Alligator Suzuki. Savoie admittedly didn’t make a perfect run in any of the four sessions, but he also believes he has a bike that is capable of reaching the winner’s circle again.

"In the last session, we probably should have run a 6.82, which would have been good enough for the No. 2 spot,” said Savoie. “Everybody out here is going fast, and it takes everything you can find just to stay in the top half of the field. We get good power from Vance & Hines, but you have to dig deep to find it as far as our tune-up goes. You have to learn how to manage it, and that’s the real challenge.”

Eddie Krawiec qualified in the top spot at four of the first five races this season, but his performance, at least early on, had trailed off to the point where he was a season-low fifth in Brainerd and third in Indy. Krawiec regained the top spot in St. Louis after riding his Harley-Davidson V-Rod to a 6.891 to gap the field by two-hundredths.

"All of the stars aligned, and we made a clean, straight run,” said Krawiec, who has now been the top qualifier 33 times in his career. “I didn’t think it was going to run that number. We were picking away a little at a time, and the air was drying out a little bit. The biggest thing is that we kept the tire hooked. The tune-up was right, and Matt [Hines, crew chief] has been working hard to refine our package. I lost in the first round last week, and that hurt. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I need to pick up some points.”

 

The battle for the J&A Service Pro Mod championship will carry into Sunday, when Rickie Smith will need just to win his second-round race with 2010 season champ Von Smith (no relation) to claim his third championship. Von, however, will be no pushover as he qualified No. 1 with a 5.81; Smith qualified No. 8 with a 5.87.

The drama unfolded because Bob Rahaim, who came into the event in second place, was upset in round one Saturday by third-place Troy Coughlin. Coughlin, who barely made the field in the No. 15 spot on his last pass, now trails Smith by 113 points. Rahaim is 110 points behind Smith.

Pro Mod racers can earn a maximum of 118 points at each event, and with just the NHRA Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas left on their schedule, Smith needs to win one more round than Coughlin to lock up the title, which would put him out of reach of Coughlin and Rahaim.

Should Smith and Coughlin both lose in the same round Sunday, Smith would claim the championship just by showing up at the season finale in Las Vegas, where racers get a minimum of 10 points regardless of whether they qualify.

Despite the hot weather and track conditions, the Pro Mod racers established the second-quickest field in class history, sporting a 6.941 bump held by Bill Glidden, who is back behind the wheel of his own Mickey Thompson-backed, nitrous-assisted Mustang after some great success midyear with Harry Hruska’s turbocharged Camaro. The quickest field in class history was set three races ago, at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, where the bump spot was 5.892.


Two-time and reigning Pro Stock champion Erica Enders once again pulled double duty this weekend by racing in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. Enders, who drove Joe Welch’s Drag Pak Challenger in the Factory Stock Showdown in Indy, was behind the wheel of Tommy Phillips’ Camaro roadster Super Gasser in Indy. Enders made a competitive pass but lost in a double breakout against Marcus Bush’s ’77 Nova.

“We struggled a little with this car in time trials, so I was kind of winging it when I got up there for the first round,” said Enders, who got her first national event win in the Super Gas class. “I really don’t get enough seat time in this car, but I enjoy driving it. I’d love to be able to do it more often.”


Charlotte Pro Stock Motorcycle winner Chip Ellis, Pro Stock ace Vincent Nobile, and Mello Yello world champs Antron Brown and Del Worsham took part in the Mello Yello autograph session with fans.
 

AAA Funny Car driver Robert Hight and NHRA's Alan Reinhart taught Nitro School to eager fans from the AAA stage in the pits.


Traxxas-sponsored Funny Car racer Courtney Force joined some young fans for a selfie at the Traxxas radio-control demonstration track in the pits.


From back to front and top to bottom, the crews of the NHRA nitro teams wrenched, torqued, and massaged their 10,0000-horsepower machines between runs to prepare for another round of battle.



Friday's notebook