For the first time in drag racing history a father and daughter met in the finals of a professional category. And for the first time in history a woman won in the Nitro Funny Car division as Ashley Force took advantage of her father John's dead-late .170 reaction time and way early tire smoking run to spank her old man on the way to her first ever national event win in an NHRA professional category.
The historic match-up between Forces was the third time two different
generations have met in a
professional class final. Warren
and Kurt Johnson and Connie
and Scott Kalitta were the
other two examples.
Words By Jeff Burk - Photos By Ron Lewis,
Linda Brock and Rich Singer - 4/29/2008
There was another historic happening in a professional class at Atlanta as Danny Rowe became the 14th member of the DragRacingOnline.com Pro Mod Five-Second Club presented by supercharger guru Darren Mayer's DMPE. Rowe's 5.993/236.09 got him the 14th spot in the Five-Second Club with the help of his tuner Jimmy Rector who joins Al Billes as the only two tuners with two cars in the club. That leaves just two spots left to fill the 16-driver club going into this weekend’s race at St. Louis.
There was one more effort that was worthy of mention at this event and that was the NHRA and their track prep crew. Both the NHRA and their crew have taken a lot of heat recently over the condition of the track surfaces, especially at Houston and Las Vegas, and at Atlanta they silenced their critics with a stellar display of track prep. The crew couldn't do anything about the "bump" in the left lane, which the Top Fuel cars could compensate for but which gave Pro Stock, Pro Mod and fuel Funny Cars drivers fits, but the track surface itself in both lanes was nearly perfect despite rain, oil-downs, and long delays. Kudos are deserved for NHRA and their track prep crew for delivering and maintaining their best surface of the year under adverse conditions.
RACE SUMMARY
The Top Fuel division had the minimum number of cars entered, but the racing was outstanding with rookie Top Fuel pilot Antron Brown won his second event of the year defeating defending World Champ Tony Schumacher in the final round in a classic race to solidify his early season points lead in Top Fuel.
In the Funny Car class, aside from the historic Force vs. Force finale, there were several other items of note. The DNQ's of Melanie Troxel and Tommy Johnson (the first husband and wife team in drag racing history competing in a professional eliminator) were also the first couple to both DNQ at the same NHRA pro class at a national event.
And then there was the strangeness surrounding privateer Gary Densham, who was qualified, disqualified, and re-qualified with the same single Friday pass. Seems like the "incremental times" police at NHRA took exception to some of the numbers his time slip showed and the pass was disallowed. Then, according to Densham, he showed the NHRA officials that his last ten or so ET slips that had basically the same pattern of numbers and they then reinstated his qualifying times. Who says the NHRA is unyielding and unwilling to admit a mistake?