Two New Class Leaders Emerge From Countdown Race At Maple Grove

Funny Car’s John Force and Pro Stock’s Jeg Coughlin carried winner trophies and new points leads away from the Auto Plus NHRA Nationals Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa.
 
Meanwhile, leaders Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) padded their advantages as the fourth of six Countdown to the Championship welcomed the familiar faces to the winners circle.
 
The next stop on the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour is The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Oct. 25-27 Toyota Nationals, the penultimate race of the season. But here’s a look back as the circuit heads West at the final East Coast race of the year:
 

LANGDON NOT READY TO CELEBRATE YET – Top Fuel points leader Shawn Langdon clearly looked like he was in championship form as he defeated Antron Brown in the final round to record his sixth victory of the year. He said he wasn’t “firmly” in control of the lead but “we have a good grasp on it. ” However, he reminded, “There’s two races left. Anything can happen. We’ve seen that the last couple races, that the championship-contending cars aren’t qualifying [and are] going out first round. The competition level’s so tough that if you have an advantage, it’s not really  that much of an advantage as would think.” Langdon is the fourth different Countdown winner, following Morgan Lucas (Charlotte), Doug Kalitta (Dallas), and Brown (St. Louis). This marked the second straight year and  fourth in five that the Al-Anabi team has won at MapleGrove. This victory put Langdon in the lead by 83 points over No. 2 challenger Doug Kalitta, his semifinal victim Sunday. Just 129 ponts separate Langdon and No. 5 Brown, the reigning champion.
 
FORCE REACHES MILESTONES – Fifteen-time Funny Car champion John Force has won the two most recent Countdown races, assumed the points lead, and earned his record seventh triumph at Maple Grove Raceway. In defeating rookie Chad Head, one of his former employees, Force won from No. 1 qualifying position for the first time since at the 2004 season finale. He has a 65-point cushion against No. 2 Matt Hagan. He said Castrol Ford Mustang crew chief Jimmy Prock “likes to swing for the fence, and that scares me sometimes. When he is hot, he is hot. There was good competition today. You had to be ready for anything.”

FINALLY, IT’S MINE! – Jeg Coughlin had driven his JEGS.com / Mopar Dodge into the Pro Stock points lead during the previous two races but couldn’t hang onto it at the end of each event. This time, though, he assured himself of the points lead by beating previous leader Jason Line and then extended it to 45 points by defeated Mopar teammate Allen Johnson to win the race. “I wasn’t worried about not leaving with the points lead in those other races,” Coughlin said. “I was frustrated by the fashion [in which] we were eliminated from those events. It’s all about racing hard, racing smart. Fortunately, our team did both those things this weekend.” He called himself “an optimistic person” but said, “We’ve got a lot of racing left to do. We’d love to say this thing is all but over, but there are a lot of rounds left.”

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE – Matt Smith beat Eddie Krawiec in the final round for his second consecutive Countdown victory and tightened his grip on first place in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class with two races left on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. But he said he was keeping his eye on his goal: to win the title and share the stage with his father in historic fashion at the postseason awards ceremony at Los Angeles. “This thing’s not over yet,” Smith said. “Until they give me that check, that jacket, and that trophy, I’m still looking at every race as just 20 points.” His dad, Rickie Smith, clinched the Pro Modified championship the weekend before, at St. Louis, then announced his retirement. If Matt Smith could follow suit with the series crown in the bike class, the two would be drag racing’s first father-son championship combination in the same season. “I’d like to stand on that podium with my dad. He’s already done it, and I’m trying to,” Matt Smith said. “I’m trying my best to get it, Dad.”

DIDN’T GO AS PLANNED – Fourth-seeded Countdown driver Morgan Lucas led the Top Fuel field in qualifying and was poised in Sunday’s eliminations to earn some valuable points and possibly a second playoff victory in Sunday’s eliminations. But rookie Sidnei Frigo got the jump at the launch and earned his first elimination-round victory in just his sixth race, while Lucas experienced tire smoke right at the start of his run.
 

WHO DESERVES THE AWARD? – Did Chad Head emerge this weekend as a strong candidate for the Automobile Club of Southern California Road To the Future Award recipient? A panel of media-member voters will have Head’s runner-up finish in the Funny Car class Sunday to add to the mix of criteria to consider. It was Head’s second final-round appearance. The former Al-Anabi Racing general manager and IZOD IndyCar Series director of operations has four rivals for the postseason honor from the Top Fuel ranks — Brittany Force, Sidnei Frigo, Leah Pruett, and Billy Torrence — and Adam Arana from the Pro Stock Motorcycle class. Frigo is a long shot, but he did knock out No. 1 qualifier Morgan Lucas at Reading in the first round.
   
BIONDO, FLETCHER SCORE KEY SPORTSMAN VICTORIES – Northeast racing fixture Sal Biondo, of Middle Village, N.Y., won his first national victory in Stock Eliminator in his family’s 100th in national event competition. He described his day as “seven perfect rounds in this beautiful Ford.”  Thanks to Tom Sheehan’s red light, sportsman icon Dan Fletcher, of Churchville, N.Y., passed Pro Stock great Bob Glidden on the victories list with 86, capturing his 45th in Super Stock in his Chevy Camaro.

In Super Gas competition, first-time national-event winner Charlie Kenopic, of Ontario, was racing in only his second national-even final (the other one was in June at Epping, N.H.). For Top Alcohol Funny Car champion Paul Noakes, Sunday brought a bit of déjà vu for the veteran from Ontario: his only other final-round appearance at this race last October, when he lost to class dominator Frank Manzo. He and his Mustang defeated Mickey Ferro and his Monte Carlo. Russell Joly came from Louisa, Va., with his Chevy Cobalt to win his second nation-event trophy in Competition Eliminator. Robin Samsel, of Marion, Ind., won in Top Alcohol Dragster for the first time on a national stage. Sunday’s Super Comp final was the charming third for Patrick Myers, of Dover, Pa.

 
THEY SAID IT – Laurie Force, wife of John Force, said she was happy with the 137thWally trophy her husband dedicated to her as a belated 32nd wedding anniversary gift. The previous week, when the Funny Car icon won at St. Louis, and with Laurie Force’s blessing he gave the trophy to the new AAA Missouri president and to crew chief Jimmy Prock. “After 32 years of being married, this is a pretty good anniversary gift,” she said, “especially since the first nine years we were married I never saw one of these. This is awesome.”

 After Matt Hagan lost his second-round race against Don Schumacher Racing mate Ron Capps and his Funny Car points lead, the Mopar / Rocky Boots Dodge driver said, “It was just a tricky race track out there today. A lot of teams were smoking the tires first round and second round. When you run a [driver] like Capps you have to be aggressive, and it just happened that [crew chief Rahn] Tobler made his best run of the weekend against us. He seems to do that a lot. We can’t take them lightly, and we weren’t. We were trying to go up there and run a good number and try to get lane choice for the semifinals. It just didn’t work out. We smoked the tires. Sometimes when you roll the dice you crap out and other times you get lucky.” He trails Force in second place by 65 points.
 
Funny Car owner-driver Tim Wilkerson said of his first-round loss to Del Worsham: “My brakes were weak, I staged funny, and I was driving a paint-shaker. Not a good combination. Just about anything that could go wrong went wrong on that lap. I was all out of my routine. There was absolutely something wrong with the car in the rear end area, and it shook me harder than anything I’d ever experienced and I really couldn’t see where I was going. I didn’t realize I fouled, so I kept going in the hope it would clear up, but it got over on the centerline, and that was it.”