Larry Dixon raced to his 11th Top Fuel victory of the year, beating Doug Kalitta on Sunday in the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals in Concord, N.C., to remain perfect in final-round appearances this season.
Dixon had a winning pass of 3.858 seconds at 316.60 mph at zMax Dragway to stretch his points lead over 2nd-place Cory McClenathan to 85 after the 2nd of 6 events in the Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship playoffs.
Cruz Pedregon (Top Fuel), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and LE Tonglet (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won their divisions. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“I can’t believe the amount of wins we’ve had and the amount of finals we’ve been in without losing,” said Dixon. “It’s hard to imagine when you think about all the great cars that are out here. It’s a credit to the team. They are an unbelievable bunch of guys. As a fan of this sport, I realize how hard it is.”
Pedregon was the No. 1 qualifier in Funny Car and scored the win when he topped Jack Beckman with a winning run of 299.13 mph. It was the first win by Pedregon since Pomona in 2008.
Pro Stock racer Anderson tallied his third win of the season when he topped Greg Stanfield in the finals.
“This is not how we planned it, to have all three Summit cars on one side of the ladder but that’s how it fell. When you have three great cars on one side, you have a good shot to get one into the final. We made a couple mistakes on the other two cars and I feel bad for Jason and Ronnie. Otherwise, we could have done more,” said Anderson. AHN | All Headline News
“Today I had the best hot rod on the grounds, by far. I’m a lucky man. This is my home track, and I have struggled here, but zMax Dragway is now officially my favorite track. Heck, I didn’t even know where the press room was until this weekend, but now I want to race here 10 times a year. In the final, I made one of the most perfect runs I’ve ever made. It was so smooth. I thought, ‘If I lose this race on a holeshot I’ll never be able to live with myself.’ Apparently I put too much pressure on myself. Sometimes you can press too hard and make mistakes. I had to treat this like another event and it all went smooth.“
It’s been a long time since Pedregon had an outing like he had in Charlotte, where his Snap-on-backed ride was the dominant car from Friday evening on. After qualifying No. 1 and pacing the field in three of the four qualifying sessions, Pedregon continued to lead the way on Sunday, culminating in 4.17 to 4.21 defeat of Beckman in the final round. It was Pedregon’s first win since the final race of the 2008 season and the 27th of his career.
“I’ve had some great cars in my career when I drove for guys like Larry Minor and Joe Gibbs, but I don’t think I’ve been in a better car than I had this weekend,” said an emotional Pedregon, who was celebrating his birthday on Sunday. “I can’t say enough about the team. Me and [crew chief] Danny DeGennaro, who’s a young guy in his 30s, were both kind of on the sidelines this off-season. We worked real hard to get to this point. It took us awhile to get going, and there were times when I thought, ‘What the heck are we doing this for?’ but we stayed at it.
“Our philosophy is to look at these races like we’re in the Countdown. I’ve been a champion twice before, and I need to act like a champion. Even though some people were surprised by us, we’re not coming into races thinking we’re underdogs. We had a great weekend. I’m afraid to change the oil on it before Dallas.”
Indy champ Stanfield continued to string together round-wins with what looked like relative ease. Stanfield got a freebie in round one when Shane Gray red-lighted, then he paired a .019 light with a 6.65 to easily stop Jeg Coughlin Jr. In the semi’s, Stanfield jumped to a .026 to .071 lead at the Tree, which led him to a 6.659 to 6.656 holeshot win over Warren Johnson. The victory earned him a trip to Pro Stock final No. 15 and the third of 2010.
Though his bike looked different, sporting Nitro Fish colors, the end result was the same for Tonglet, who won his second straight event, again by defeating Hines in the final. Hines got off the starting line first, .012 to .035, but Tonglet was able to ride around him and win the rematch of the Indy final on a 6.92 to 6.97 count.
“We’re not event thinking about the rookie of the year anymore,“ said Tonglet. “We’ve got a bigger thing, the championship, on our minds. With Nitro Fish behind us, we have a good shot. Hopefully, we just keep going rounds and we can run this good in Dallas.
“I’m happy to be in the final again. We said we just wanted to get to the semi’s. Anything after that is a bonus. After the semi’s, I was on the return road and GT said, ‘We’re going to tune it up.’ We had been spinning the tire. We leaned it out a little more and it picked up a lot for the final. I’m still trying to believe that this is all happening.I owe it all to Kenny [Koretsky]. Without him, we wouldn’t be here.“ NHRA.com
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