| | Associated Press
MADISON, Ill. -- Gary Scelzi raced to his fifth Top Fuel victory of the season Saturday night, beating Kenny Bernstein in the final of the Sears Craftsman Nationals.
Despite losing traction, Scelzi won his third straight event at Gateway International Raceway with a quarter-mile run of 5.892 seconds at a top speed of 284.99 mph. Bernstein, who also lost traction, had a pass of 6.010 seconds at 307.09 mph.
"This has got to be my new favorite race track," said Scelzi. "We don't care
about low elapsed time, we don't care about tire smoke, we don't care about
anything. We just care about win lights.
"When I saw both Funny Cars in front of me go up in smoke I knew I had to be ready. I didn't see Kenny near me so I knew he must have had trouble too, but I went through the finish line and pulled the chutes and my win light went on. Then Kenny went right by me and I thought to myself that he was a little too late.
Scelzi defeated Luigi Novelli, Bob Vandergriff, Doug Herbert and Bernstein
for his 19th career victory. He now leads Tony Schumacher by 95 points in
the NHRA Winston standings.
"Kenny is a good friend of mine and he's taught me a lot, but I knew it was going to a tough battle tonight when those two big red cars met in the final," Scelzi said. "Three out of four here though, it's a great feeling."
Jerry Toliver, Ron Krisher, Matt Hines and John Coughlin also
won their divisions in the $1.9 million competition, the 12th of 23
events in the $45 million NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series
Toliver won his third Funny Car event of the year, defeating
Dean Skuza. Toliver, who also lost traction, had a run of 6.771
seconds at 186.69 mph.
Toliver drove past Scott Weiss, Del Worsham and John Force before meeting Skuza in the final round.
"Anytime you beat John it's good because you have just beat the best in the business," Toliver said of the nine-time series champ. "You have to really know what it means to beat John Force. On the other hand, every Funny Car out here has a chance of winning.
"Every race I had today was a tough one. That kid (Weiss) in the first round could have beat me and then in the second round against Del I had a blower belt come loose. Against John , I was rolling through the lights and I probably should have smoked the tires."
Toliver regained the points lead last week with his runner-up finish in Ohio. With this win he extended his points lead to 54 over Force at the midway point of the season.
"That was like a 100-plus point swing and to do that to John Force, that's tough," said Toliver. "The window of opportunity opens, and if you don't take advantage of it, it closes very quickly. I have a great team and a great crew chief in Dale Armstrong. I owe it all to him and this team has got some courage."
Krisher won his second Pro Stock race of the season, beating
Greg Anderson with a pass of 6.900 seconds at 198.44 mph.
Krisher defeated Terry Adams, Kenny Koretsky, Rickie Smith and Anderson for the win. Krisher has now been to three straight final rounds and has won two of them. This victory moves Krisher into second place in the standings, 210 points
behind Jeg Coughlin.
"What a day," said Krisher. "I have the best team out there in my opinion. I have all the best guys and they have made me a better driver. I have a lot of confidence in myself. It's a terrific group of people and obviously on race day they're awesome.
"We hope we can close the points gap some more, but Jeg is an awesome driver and they had a pretty good head start. They'll have their off days just like the rest of us, but maybe, we can squeeze it down a little bit in the next three or four races."
Hines beat Angelle Seeling in the Pro Stock Motorcycle final
with a run of 7.294 seconds at 184.37 mph. Hines, a three-time NHRA Winston Pro Stock Motorcycle champion beat Clarence Markham, Craig Treble, Geno Scali and Seeling for his 25th career victory. He now trails Seeling by 79 points in the standings.
"I wanted that win bad," said Hines. "Right now (Seeling) is the cream of the crop. Her bike is working awesome, but I have the best motors
out here. I did my job today. We're 79 points back, but I think that is
better than we were doing last year at this point."
Coughlin took the Pro Stock Truck division, beating Bob Panella
with a pass of 7.614 seconds at 176.35 mph.
"We were real fortunate today," said Coughlin. "I just can't say enough about my dad and my team, they did an excellent job. My job is easy. They did a great job of stringing four runs together today, and we finished it up with a big win. It was going to be hard to beat me today because I had the whole JEGS team behind me."
The next event is the second annual Winston Showdown, the NHRA's all-star event, at Bristol Dragway, July 7-9. | |
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NHRA results
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