Kris Krabill

The final round was going to be a war for many reasons. First, there are two of the best teams in all of nostalgia funny car racing. Second, there has been a bit of a riff between the two drivers that started last year over staging tactics, and this has carried over to this year. The two teams ran each other in the first two qualifying sessions.  Reports stated that there were some non-family friendly words exchanged by the two drivers at the top end of the racetrack after each run.

In the final as the air and the track started to cool off this race was going to be barnburner.

The one question would be Horan’s driving. Would he continue to be consistent as he had been over the weekend or would he be very late or way early as he was in the past?

Both drivers took their sweet time staging, as tension was starting to build. At the green it was Krabill out first .078 to Horan’s .131, which was consistent for Horan. By the 330 mark Horan had made up much of the difference and by half-track the two were almost even. Then strangeness set in.  As the cars crossed half-track the fire went out of the pipes for Krabill and Horan went on to take his first victory, 5.85/247.11 to Krabill’s 7.79/113.63.

Guess which team won the final round? On the starting line the “Horan crowd” went wild and celebrated their long-waited first win. Then both teams walked towards each other and congratulated each other.

As both drivers got out of their cars Krabill was upset -- not at Horan, but at the fact the throttle linkage housing broke and the linkage fell off. Both drivers shook hands and walked away.

Horan’s team was very excited with their win, however, the team’s leaders were very even keel and stoic. Swearingen and Horan do not show much emotion.