John Force moved closer to a possible 15th Funny Car season title, beating Matt Hagan on Sunday in the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals for his record 131st career victory.
The 61-year-old Force had a final-round pass of 4.232 seconds at 281.36 mph in his Ford Mustang, while Hagan lost traction in his Dodge and finished in 6.925 at 110.96.
Force, seeking his first season title since 2005, is second in the standings, 37 points behind Hagan with only the season-ending race in Pomona, Calif., left.
Seriously injured in a crash in 2007, Force has five victories this season.
In Top Fuel, Tony Schumacher raced to his fifth win of the season and 67th overall. Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and LE Tonglet (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won. ESPN
“I’m going to do my job, keep my nose clean. If Hagan whips me. I’m going to say, `God Bless you kid,’ ” the 61-year-old Force said. “He’s fighting. He’s a tiger. He’s a bull, that’s what I like about him.
“It is hard to get up for him, he takes all I got. I’ve learned to time myself. I do not party anymore and I will not party tonight because we will be out here (at Las Vegas Motor Speedway) testing in the morning and (Austin) Coil wants me here at 8 o’clock to warm up. I go to bed at night. I eat right and I do not do the things I used to do. I had to change my lifestyle.
“I gave it everything I had today and that’s what it takes for me to stay up with the young bucks. Hagan might get stressed, but he doesn’t get tired.”
Schumacher ended an impressive weekend for Dom Lagana. Schumacher clocked a blistering 3.846-second run at 316.61 mph to eclipse Lagana’s 3.98-second effort.
“No question it is fun to drive a fast car,” Schumacher said after his sixth win of the year. “It was amazing and dead-straight perfect.
“It just fun to be in the title mix.”
Schumacher now trails Larry Dixon by only 85 points in the race for the Top Fuel championship. San Bernardino Sun
Anderson and teammate Jason Line had more reason to celebrate beyond the championship jackpot as the event marked the return to the track of team owner Ken Black, a Las Vegas resident. Black had been sidelined by health issues all season and his presence no doubt served as a great motivator for the team. Any concerns about whether team orders would be in place to benefit Anderson were answered when then left almost together, .022 to.033 favoring Anderson, and ran 6.654 to 6.656.
“I couldn’t have drawn up this weekend on paper any better than what happened today,” said Anderson. “It was a wonderful, wonderful day. I’m almost speechless, and I know that sounds odd for me. I hope this goes miles toward Ken [Black’s] recovery. Now he’s planning on attending Pomona. I can’t think of better medicine for the man. This is why our team works so hard, because we want to do so much for Ken.
“We have a lot of pride, Jason and I, as does the rest of our team. I think we’ve proved over many years now that we don’t have any team orders when we race each other, and we’re not going to start now. If you’re going to win, you have to feel good about yourself. Jason did a great job today taking out Greg Stanfield in the semi’s. If he hadn’t done that, Stanfield might have gotten to me in the final, and we’d be talking about a whole different story.”
Tonglet was able to close the gap on Hines by reaching the final round for the fifth straight time and Hines’ streak of final-round appearances was snapped at seven with a semifinal loss to Smith. The final went to Tonglet’s blue Suzuki, 6.95 to 6.98.
“I don’t want to wake up,” said Tonglet. “It’s just been an awesome year since Indy. We came into the Countdown in seventh and after Indy we were No. 2. We’ve been on a roll since then, and we have to keep the momentum going. The Harley team is going to be tough to beat. Andrew has been in this situation before. We just need to keep our heads on straight and see what happens.” NHRA.com
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