Younger talent rising in NHRA pro ranks
Reaction Time column
By Susan Wade
In qualifying No. 1 in the Funny Car lineup for the SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, John Force spoke last Saturday more like a mere steward of a powerful race car and a powerful empire, not like the one responsible for all of its success.
By the end of the weekend, his organization had tightened its chokehold on the class. A JFR driver has won the Funny Car trophy at the past five events, dating back to the 2010 Halloween-weekend event at Las Vegas. Robert Hight became the first Funny Car driver at Las Vegas with back-to-back victories as he won his second of at three races so far this NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season. Crew chief Mike Neff, pressed back into double duty in late January as driver of the car he also tunes, won Race No. 2, at Gainesville, Fla.
Force talked more about Dean “Guido” Antonelli and Ron Douglas who mastermind the tune-up that produced his class-best 4.136-second pass in the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang. He paid tribute to his daughter, Ashley Force Hood, who’s sidelined by pregnancy this season. He gave a nod to teammates Neff and Hight.
“Let’s not forget: that’s my daughter’s — Ashley Force Hood’s — car,” he said of his Mustang. “More than any thing I want to do good for her, because that car means a lot to her and the kids she raced with for four years.”
Then, alluding to his future and that of his organization that just named Hight its president this Jan. 25, Force said, “Kids have so much energy. Me, I’ve turned so corporate. I can’t say a word without having a sponsor’s name in it. I’m guilty of that, but I’m the lead here, to keep the money for the kids in the hard times. And it took me 30 years to get it. I love to watch them.
“One day,” he said, “I’ll get out at the other end and I’ll get on that freeway and you’ll never see me again. I’ll just disappear and leave it to the kids when they’re ready to run it. I won’t have a final tour. I don’t like good-byes. My wife never said good-bye to me. I just got home and I was locked out. And that’s the way it ought to be.”
So Force, the 15-time champion, still is in his racing groove and planning for that next step, whether it’s for the April 14-17 VisitMyrtleBeach.com 4-Wide Nationals at Concord, N.C., or the dawn of the next generation.
His “Next Generation” contingent includes youngest daughter, Courtney, who tested early this week at Las Vegas in the company Mustang under Douglas’ supervision. Buty they aren’t the only youngsters who shined or learned something at Las Vegas last weekend.
Second-generation Pro Stock driver Vincent Nobile, in the Mountain View Tire Dodge Avenger, was fearless against Las Vegas dominator Mike Edwards in the final round. Nobile debuted at Brainerd, Minn., last summer and tried to qualify at three more events last fall. He’s contending for rookie-of-the-year honors this season. So in just his third start, Nobile eliminated some of the toughest class’ toughest customers Sunday.
First he defeated Warren Johnson, the most successful Pro Stock driver in NHRA history and a man who beat his father, John Nobile, in 11 of their 12 meetings. Then he knocked off Allen Johnson, one of the mightiest threats and his own engine supplier and mentor. He advanced to final by taking out Greg Stanfield, last year’s series runner-up.
Nobile said, “No pressure” when learning he would meet Mike Edwards in the final round, and he didn’t exhibit any kind of worry when the two lined up for the first time ever in eliminations. Nobile beat Edwards off the starting line, although Edwards caught up by half-track and edged the 19-year-old by about only two feet for a 0.0079-second margin of victory.
Edwards denied Nobile the distinction of being the youngest race winner in NHRA Pro Stock history. But Edwards and Allen Johnson both indicated he has an excellent chance to earn that honor.
“That Vincent Nobile, he is going to be quite a Pro Stock driver, I can tell you that right now,” Edwards said. “That young man, he’s a super talent. He’s going to win some of these races. He’s going to give us old guys a run for our money, I can tell you that.”
Allen Johnson agreed: “The kid is doing great. It’s a joy to watch him do well, and it feels good to have our Mopar/J&J engine in the final round. I think in the next couple of races if we can get on opposite sides of the ladder, you’ll see us both in the finals. If we can both get up there in the top five, it’ll start to get fun.”
It’s starting to get fun for Buddy Perkinson, another 19-year-old Pro Stock rookie. He failed to qualify for the Las Vegas grid but went home to Virginia with high spirits.
“This weekend was a lot different than what we’ve been used to, team-wise. Each time we went to the starting line, I knew everything we had done to the car. I knew the chances of it shaking and our chances of slipping the clutch, which I did when Bob [Glidden] was with us, too. But it was definitely more of a team thing this time,” Perkinson said.
“I really had a good feeling of what the car was supposed to do before we ever even went to the starting line, because the four of us sat in the trailer and we all made the decisions together. I got asked my opinion along with everybody else, and that just really made me feel like a part of the team that I had neveds said. “That young man, he’s a super talent. He’s going to win some of these races. He’s going to give us old guys a run for our money, I can tell you that.”
Allen Johnson agreed: “The kid is doing great. It’s a joy to watch him do well, and it feels good to have our Mopar/J&J engine in the final round. I think in the next couple of races if we can get on opposite sides of the ladder, you’ll see us both in the finals. If we can both get up there in the top five, it’ll start to get fun.”
It’s starting to get fun for Buddy Perkinson, another 19-year-old Pro Stock rookie. He failed to qualify for the Las Vegas grid but went home to Virginia with high spirits.
“This weekend was a lot different than what we’ve been used to, team-wise. Each time we went to the starting line, I knew everything we had done to the car. I knew the chances of it shaking and our chances of slipping the clutch, which I did when Bob [Glidden] was with us, too. But it was definitely more of a team thing this time,” Perkinson said.
“I really had a good feeling of what the car was supposed to do before we ever even went to the starting line, because the four of us sat in the trailer and we all made the decisions together. I got asked my opinion along with everybody else, and that just really made me feel like a part of the team that I had never really felt before.”
As for performance, Perkinson said, “We’ll get there. Yes, we did struggle [at Las Vegas], but we’re going to do some testing before Charlotte. And I really think we’re going to be just fine as long as we continue to work together. I really do. We should get all of our parts in before the truck gets back to the shop. We’ll have our motors freshened up and ready to go quickly. We have some new intakes and new things we’d like to try . . . some carburetors for sure
