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Drag racing fans have waited all winter for this moment, and it’s finally here! The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series era begins as the 24-race 2013 campaign gets underway at the very location it has every year since 1961 — the fabled Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, in the shadow of the stunning San Gabriel mountains. Following a thrilling 2012 campaign, the points are reset and every team enters the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals on the same page and with one thought on their minds: championship glory. Dragzine will be bringing you same day coverage of the opener all weekend long, including some of the hottest storylines of the off season, including Brittany Force’s rookie Top Fuel campaign and Del Worsham and Larry Dixon’s return to the drivers seat.
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Roaming the pits prior to the first round of Pro class qualifying here at the Auto Club Raceway Pomona is a great time to get up close and personal with the drivers and crew members before the mad rush of the Saturday and Sunday crowds. Here are some tidbits from the pits to get your drag racing weekend started. The Pro classes (Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock — Pro Stock Motorcycle doesn’t make a pass today) are scheduled to run at 2:00 pm so check back sometime after that and we’ll give you complete first round coverage.
The 2013 Winternationals are witnessing the debut of two female rookies in the Top Fuel class. Brittany Force (right photo, middle) is driving her dad's Fuel digger while her younger sister Courtney is back for her second season in the Traxxas Funny Car. Also here is vintage fuel racer Leah Pruett (left photo) behind the butterfly wheel of the Dote Racing Top Fueler.
Last year it was Full Throttle energy drink as the main NHRA sponsor, but the 2013 season is now the Mello Yello series. Right: Del Worsham is now in Connie Kalitta's DHL Funny Car for the 2013 season.
Left: Dismissed from Don Schumacher's Top Fuel team after some awards banquet high-jinks last year, Spencer Massey and Team Schumacher made up over the winter and he's back in the car, as a teammate to Tony Schumacher. Right: Defending Top Fuel champ, and crowd favorite, Antron Brown is just about done signing autographs while the crew does final prep on his digger before the first round of qualifying.
Well, the first round of qualifying is in the books, and it took a little over two hours to run the top three classes. Many cars were searching for some traction that evaded them, especially in the left lane, there were a few oildowns that held up the action, and Gary Densham’s parachutes didn’t come out, sending him into the sandtrap at the end of the track (but thankfully not into the catch fence). There were a few good runs though, especially the 3.70s that took the top spots in Top Fuel (Brandon Bernstein, Tony Schumacher, and Clay Millican), Densham’s 4.053 at 307 in Funny Car (on his off-road pass), and V. Gaines’s 6.538 at 211 in Pro Stock.
Come back tomorrow for more action from Pomona!
Here's your qualifiers in the top three classes, after one today. Tomorrow also has one round, again at 2:00 pm, and things get hot and heavy during the last qualifying sessions.
The first pair of Top Fuel cars was going to be the rookie lady show, with Brittany Force taking on Leah Pruett, but it was anticlimactic. Force rolled through the lights, DQing her for the day. Dejected, she climbed out of the car as Pruett blasted a 4.018 at 251 mph.
Clay Millican laid the smack down early with a 3.79 at 325, but Bernstein and Schumacher did him a couple hundredths quicker.
Right after he made the quickest lap, Gary Densham (right) ran off the end of the track. The car was dirty, but undamaged. It was Courtney Force and her Traxxas Mustang (left), however, that took the top speed so far with a 311.49 mph pass and a 4.071 for a second place qualifier.
