Congratulations U.S. ARMY

Lets take a break from politics for a second.... shall we?

DRAG RACING STILL GROWING STRONGER AND GOING FASTER
If you missed it, (ESPN2 Sunday Night) you missed the most exciting and unbelievable finish to end the season and determine a champion in motorsports racing history this past weekend from Pomona CA.

Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster fought back from over 300 points behind in the last half of the season just to be in position to win his 3^rd NHRA Championship in a row in front of a standing room only crowd buzzing with excitement even before the final run.

After miraculously making it to the finals over several top teams, Schumacher still needed to win the race AND set a new NHRA ¼ mile world record to have just enough points to win the championship from Doug Kalitta, who came in to the final event with a 45 point lead in the Championship points series.

Just winning the event would fall short by a few points and no Top Fuel team had set a world record at this event in almost a decade.
But the conditions had been better than usual all weekend, and the Army team went for it.

With over 8,000 Horsepower a dragster can overpower any track surface easily and smoke the tires. The trick is to apply as much horsepower as possible without applying too much, sort of like driving on ice in a 2-wheeldrive pickup. (Sorta’).
As the car gains speed and “down-force” on the wing and tires (over 2,000lbs at 300mph), they can apply more horsepower, and so on… as long as they don’t get too greedy where the track will give-up the grip, ending the run in smoke (and a wild ride)

Tony Schumacher, Allen Johnson (crewchief/genius), and the US Army team loaded the Army Top Fuel Dragster for bear and came through with a historic, mind-numbing 4.428 second ET (335 Mph) to win the event, set the world record and thus, win his 3^rd NHRA World Championship in a ROW.

20 points and NHRA world records don’t come easy.

The last time the NHRA Top Fuel record was set was back in October of 2005 (Chicago) and you guessed it, Tony set it at an asphalt melting 4.437 seconds in the ¼ mile. Schumacher also holds the NHRA speed world record at 336.16 MPH.

Back in Drag Racing's Golden era, during the 1960’s Don Garlits shaved his beard in the winners circle after declaring he would not shave until he ran in the sixes earlier in the season. After winning rounds in the low 7’s all day, he went a 6.77 in the final round at Indy and broke-out the burma-shave.

During the early 1970’s, a study (published in Car Craft magazine) concluded that dragsters had reached the limits of physics, adhesion and friction as well as human endurance at six seconds and 200 mph.

The AA/FD record was held by “Big Daddy” Don Garlits at a 5.62 second Elapsed Time for almost a decade during the late 70’s and early 80’s. The records continue to fall to this day in spite of numerous rules and even a reduction in fuel percentage designed to slow them down.

Drag racing is the ONLY major racing motorsport that is still going faster and faster and faster.
NASCAR speed records haven’t been set since the 1985 (Bill Elliot), Indycar as well hasn’t gone faster since the 1980’s.

It is a big deal to set an NHRA record anytime, much less in the final race of the season to win the championship. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Congratulations to Tony Schumacher (T/F)4x, John Force(F/C) 14x, Jason Line(P/S) and Andrew Hines(P/S-M)3x all the 2006 NHRA POWERade Champions. (full story)

NHRA doesn’t need to change their point structure to be more like NASCAR.
Maybe NASCAR might want to watch the replay on ESPN2 of how a season championship can be exciting without being “manufactured”….I’m just sayin’.

Red