O’Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals Start This Weekend

by Motor Sports Unplugged | February 6, 2012 at 06:45 pm

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The anticipated start of the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle season cannot come quickly enough. The long winter off-season is over and the racers and teams are ready to go this weekend at Pomona for the 52nd annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals.

The question stills remains - who will dominate the year and take the year-end hardware from NHRA President Tom Compton?

There’s competitiveness among the ranks, but with the NHRA Countdown concept, you can dominate the season and have a terrible last six races and everything goes down the tube, with someone else taking your trophy.

A 23-race season could make a team rethink its process.

Look at the Funny Car scene of 2011. Mike Neff dominated most of the races throughout the year only to have Matt Hagan step up the pace when it counted and, most interestingly, return to a position of taking the Funny Car title, which he was denied the year before to 15-time titlist John Force.

Whatever his Tommy DeLago-led Don Schumacher Racing Aaron’s team did throughout the regular season was saved and applied at the start of the Countdown – the team reset the Funny Car National record to 3.995 seconds.

Neff waned in the final events while Hagan fought off his teammates, Jack Beckman, the Countdown spoiler, Johnny Gray and Cruz Pedregon to reign supreme.

"It will be incredible to be able to carry the '1' on the car," Hagan said of the car number that designates him as the champion.

"There's a lot of competition out there just with my teammates. Nobody is going to give anyone anything. We'll start with zero points like every other driver."

We could see all this happen again. Knowing the determination of these racers though, I doubt it.

New faces in familiar cars for 2012 and the raw talent that’s coming up through the ranks show a great deal of promise and a brighter outlook for the sport.

One that has my interest is Shawn Langdon driving for the Al-Anabi team. This is Langdon’s time to show everyone what he’s made of and the two-time Super Comp champion’s name is one I’m looking forward to hear repeatedly throughout the year.

His teammate, Kalid alBalooshi, is also a former champion of the Pro Mod series and his transition to the nitro series is seamless with Alan Johnson tutelage. Just like last year, when Del Worsham led at both points of the regular season and the Countdown, although this is both Langdon and alBalooshi’s first year driving for Al-Anabi, expect these two to dominate the early season headlines.

Al-Anabi’s main competition this year will be the fleet of Don Schumacher’s Top Fuel dragsters with son, Tony, Antron Brown and Spencer Massey behind the wheel.

Schumacher’s Top Fuel teams amassed 10 wins among the three and the Al-Anabi teams won 10, too. Al-Anabi won the championship with Worsham, who had eight of those wins, including the last two.

So, in review of the 2011 Top Fuel season, we only had Bob Vandergriff and Morgan Lucas break the winner’s circle grip of Al-Anabi and DSR. It was great to see Vandergriff finally win, as he had been 0-13 before knocking the door down in Dallas - and then run back up the track to celebrate the win. That’s the enthusiasm you want to see every week.

Alan Johnson Racing will influence Lucas and his new teammate, Brandon Bernstein, this year. Lucas is the defending Winternationals champion and you can expect good things out of both of these cars.

Worsham will head up the efforts of Alexis DeJoria for Team Tequila Patron’s Kalitta Racing’s operation.

Likewise in Funny Car, it’s John Force Racing versus Don Schumacher Racing. Only in 2012, it’s 4 vs. 4. Force has himself, team president, Robert Hight, Neff, and newcomer and rookie candidate, Force’s daughter Courtney, now sitting in the cockpit.

DSR has Hagan, Beckman, Rob Capps, and Gray. Among them they earned eight wins in 2011 and had 19 total final-round appearances for the team. JFR had 11 wins and participated in 15 finals. The only other ones to win in 2011 were Jeff Arend, Cruz Pedregon and Tim Wilkerson.

Pedregon is the thorn to both DSR and JFR. Pedregon was the last driver blocking Hagan’s path to the championship and finished third in the points, amidst all the DSR and JFR drivers, and was the only outsider campaigning for the championship. Now, with Lee Beard heading up the tune up, you can count on Cruz and his brother Tony to both be contenders this year.

NHRA calls it “The Nitro Generation” and the three prime rookie candidates right now are DeJoria, Courtney Force, and alBalooshi. All three are riding with three premium teams and much is expected from them.

“I’m much more comfortable with it [Traxxas Ford Mustang] now,” the 23-year-old Force said. “Just having seat time has taught me a lot. We have a new chassis, a new car, a completely new team on board, as well as (crew chiefs) Ron Douglas and Scott Wible tuning my car. It took a couple days but that’s what test and tune is all about. It definitely went well. I think by the end of testing we definitely got our stuff together and I think we got our car figured out and ready for Pomona. I’m very excited.”

DeJoria, who competed in the league minimum four races at the end of last season to maintain her rookie eligibility, will join Force on the track behind the wheel of her Tequila Patron Toyota Camry under the watchful eye of veteran Funny Car pilot and rookie crew chief Worsham.

Like Force, DeJoria, daughter of famed entrepreneur John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell Hair Care Systems and Tequila Patron, doesn’t appear to be your typical race car driver. The 34-year-old single mother and self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie has gained tons of experience during her sportsman days in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, and is well prepared for her first full season in the NHRA Full Throttle Series.

“I’m very excited to be racing against these teams and drivers that I’ve been watching on TV for so long,” DeJoria said. “Our class is so competitive and I love that. It’s going to be fun to go up against not only Courtney, but a couple of other Funny Car rookies like Blake Alexander and Todd Lesenko as well. I know everyone is going to have a field day with the whole ‘me vs. Courtney’ thing, but I welcome it. I’m a competitive person by nature and I’ve been working and preparing for this season for a very long time. I’m definitely ready for it.”

In Pro Stock, it’s going to be aggressive. Defending champion Jason Line and the Ken Black Racing team with teammate Greg Anderson will again be the team to beat in 2012.

Going into the season-opening race at Pomona, the KB racing bunch has a total of five of the last six Winternationals victories. Mike Edwards won in 2010, Anderson in 2006-08 and Line in 2009 and 2011. Edwards will again be strong and has to maintain it all year.

KB Racing has been working very hard. They will be constructing a Pro Stock Chevrolet Camaro for debut this spring. They conquered 11 of the 22 races with Anderson, five wins, and Pro Stock champ Line with six last year.

Allen Johnson, Jeg Coughlin and Vincent Nobile will lead the Mopar Dodge Pro Stock charge in 2012.

Following off-season surgery to repair his right bicep, Johnson is now back at full strength.

“I’m just dying to get going,” said Johnson. “It’s going to be an exciting season. We have such a strong team in place and a great car in our Mopar Dodge Avenger. It’s time to go and I am certainly ready. We look to start the season on a very strong note at Pomona.”

Johnson wrapped up 2011 as one of the most consistent drivers in the Pro Stock class. The native of Greeneville, Tenn. reached the final round in two of the final three races of the season, en route to finishing a career-best fourth in the standings.

Johnson’s team recently recorded the fastest unofficial pass in Pro Stock history during pre-season testing in Florida, with a run of 6.466-seconds. Richie Stevens was piloting the Mopar Dodge Avenger during the test, as Johnson was still recuperating from his surgery at that time.

“We just have to continue what we were doing at the end of last year and making the right decisions and choices,” explained the second-generation driver. “We have the right personnel in place and we just have to let them do their job, and I have to do my job behind the wheel.”

This being the 52nd annual race of the Winternationals, some of the past winners include such legends as Bob Glidden, PS – 7; Don Garlits, TF– 5; Don Prudhomme, TF/FC – 5; John Force, FC – 5; Warren Johnson, PS – 5; Larry Dixon, TF – 4; and Greg Anderson, PS – 4.

Television starts at at 11 p.m. on Saturday, February 11 on ESPN2.

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