DSR Ready for Bristol – Brown, Beckman, Hagan, Capps, Gray and Massey Updates
Son Anson’s NHRA Jr. Dragster keeps world champion Brown racing before heading to Thunder Valley Nationals
– Who would have thought Antron Brown could get excited about a dragster reaching a top speed of 50 mph?
But the reigning NHRA Top Fuel world champion’s enthusiasm about the early success of his 8-year-old son Anson in the family’s NHRA Jr. Dragster nearly matches his thrill of going 330 mph.
The Brown family spent Saturday racing their half-scale dragster at Gateway Motorsports Park in St. Louis before returning to Brownsburg, Ind., to race Sunday at Lucas Oil Raceway.
“I might be having as much fun as Anson,” the 37-year-old Brown said.
“It was a great weekend just being around drag racing. When I’m up there at the starting line I’m not in the car with him, but I’m right behind him hitting the gas pedal when it’s time to go.
“He’s cutting pretty good (reaction time) lights, and I think it’s making me sharper.”
Anson’s Jr. Dragster schedule will not be slowed while his dad and Don Schumacher Racing’s Matco Tools “big” dragster hits the road for four NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events over four straight weekends beginning with this weekend’s Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals at Bristol Dragway in Tennessee.
Anson’s mom, Billie Jo, will take the reins with help from family and friends.
There will be a steady of flow of texts and calls from the Jr. team to Antron, who expects to regain the championship form the Matco team showed last season to win a Top Fuel-best six titles, and the way it started this year by two of the first seven events before losing in the opening round at the past two races.
But Bristol is one of the few NHRA tracks where Brown has not left with a trophy. He’s earned the No. 1 qualifying positions two of the past three years (2010 and 2012) but lost in the semifinals a year ago. In 2011, he was runner-up.
“We’ve been close and had the car running well, but we haven’t sealed the deal yet,” he said.
Brown said despite the early loss on June 2 at Englishtown, N.J., he knows crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald have solved a few nagging problems that have affected performance.
“We have all the little details worked out in the car so we can get to Bristol and be ready to race instead of problem solving,” Brown said.
“It’s part of racing. You’re going to have those times, and I’d rather have them earlier in the season like what’s happened to us. That’s better than having them when the Countdown to the Championship playoff starts.
“I’m ready to go. Our car should be perfect.”
Pitch Energy’s Johnny Gray Hopes for Father’s Day Celebration in Bristol Winner’s Circle
– The 2013 season of NHRA’s Mello Yello Drag Racing Series is incredibly special for Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car driver Johnny Gray. Now competing in what he has deemed his final full-time run at the championship, Gray has dedicated the year to honoring his father, the late John R. Gray, and carries his father’s likeness on the quarter panel of his striking Pitch Energy Dodge. This Father’s Day weekend, the longtime drag racer sees no better way to honor his dad’s memory than to put the car in the winner’s circle on Sunday at the Ford NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.
“A couple of weeks ago in Englishtown, we just ran into Matt [Hagan, the eventual event winner] at the wrong time,” said Gray. “But this week, the Pitch Energy team sees no reason why we shouldn’t be able to go to Bristol and win this thing. We have as a good a chance as anybody, and so that is our intention.”
Last season, the now 60-year-old driver enjoyed the most successful Bristol outing of his career as he qualified in the No. 8 spot and raced to the semifinals in his Dodge Charger R/T. At this point, however, Gray and his Pitch Energy team – led by crew chief Rob Wendland – have higher expectations. With three victories already on their scorecard this year and the increasingly familiar No. 1 position in the series standings easily within reach (Gray forfeited the top spot to DSR teammate Hagan two weeks ago in Englishtown and is currently 2nd), the Pitch Energy group finds little solace in anything short of a final-round finish or better.
However, this weekend will also be largely about family for Gray, who will celebrate youngest son Jonathan’s birthday on Saturday and chase the title on Sunday, Father’s Day, alongside oldest son Shane, who competes in the Gray Motorsports Chevy Camaro in the Pro Stock category.
Raceday will kick off with the annual Bristol Dragway track walk in which fans are invited to take a stroll down the 1/4-mile with the Grays and other drivers, but a few days prior to what promises to be a thrilling run for the trophy, the weekend will begin on Thursday as a few of the men in the Gray family partner together to participate in the 10th Annual Bristol Dragway Celebrity Golf Benefit in support of Speedway Children’s Charities.
“It’s a real neat deal and I’m looking forward to playing with Jonathan, Shane, and my grandson Tanner – I think we’ll do alright, but Tanner is pretty good at the game, and he’s going to be the one who has to carry us,” laughed Gray. “It’s going to be a great weekend all around. I always enjoy going to Bristol and listening to the cars echo down there in the canyon. It’s a great facility, and it’s a pleasure to go race there.
“Having the family there is the best part. My kids, my grandkids, my wife, and my sister Terry Chandler – everyone will be there, and of course, the old man will be on the car. It would sure be great to get dad to the winner’s circle this weekend, and it would be even better if we could double-up with Shane and the Pro Stock car. That’s what we’re going after, and we’re thinking this weekend should be a lot of fun.”
Beckman confident heading to Thunder Valley Nationals after Smith, Snyder lead Valvoline/MTS Dodge into final
– Jack Beckman is very comfortable heading to the Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., and that’s because he’s confident in progress being made by his world championship Funny Car team.
He’s not deterred by still seeking his first NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event title through the first nine events of the season.
He has the patience of a world champion, and more importantly so does crew chief Todd Smith and assistant Terry Snyder on the Valvoline NextGen/MTS Mail for Wounded Warriors team.
“It’s very possible that we could go to Bristol and lose early,” Beckman said. “What I like about what we’ve been doing is we have gotten this car back to the point where it is responding predictably to our input. Once you get a car to do that, you can pick away slowly at it to get it back to the top of the charts.”
It’s been a tedious journey back to contention after Beckman lost in the first rounds of the year’s first two events.
“Everybody in nitro Funny Car has been popped at least one time in the first round, and that will happen,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a Funny Car in the next five years that will not get beat in the first round a few times.
“That’s what I love about the Funny Car class: it’s predictably unpredictable.”
Beckman’s team came close at the last Mello Yello event on June 2 at Englishtown, N.J., where it qualified third and advanced to the championship round before losing to Don Schumacher Racing teammate Matt Hagan.
“He wasn’t content with getting to the final. Now he expects us to win, and that’s great. It’s nice to be back in the position where we expect to win.”
At Englishtown, highs in the low 90s made for the hottest racing weekend of the year. Two weeks before that in cooler weather at Topeka, Kan., Beckman advanced to the semifinals where he lost to eventual event winner and teammate Johnny Gray.
“That’s the direction we’re heading in,” Beckman said. “My confidence yields better results in the cockpit, but it doesn’t affect the tune-up. I have never seen Todd more confident this year then at Englishtown.
Even after we got beat in the final round, he says we had gotten back to what we did last year and that was grinding on the competition; just getting to the point where we’re making fast run after fast run and making the other cars make mistakes against us because they know they’ll be facing the toughest car.
“That fact that Todd knows we’re back in a position where everybody is going to start looking over at us … I love to see that confidence in him.”
Confident Capps heads to Thunder Valley to defend Funny Car title, warns his NAPA AUTO PARTS team is ready to break out
– Ron Capps and the NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car team are heading to Bristol Dragway where they won the Funny Car title a year ago.
It’s the ideal time for the Don Schumacher Racing team to return to where it has a proven and winning track record.
It might not be a critical time for Capps and crew chief Rahn Tobler, but it is an important time for the team after losing in the first round at the last NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event. That marked the third time in the past six events when Capps didn’t make it past the opening round.
But Capps, who owns 39 NHRA event titles, has never wavered in his belief in his NAPA AUTO PARTS team, especially Tobler and assistant John Collins.
“The best part of being associated with this team is the fact that we know a win is coming soon,” Capps said. “I can say that confidently as a driver. That’s the feeling you get when you work with Tobler and this team.”
The team has encountered several mysterious gremlins that have slowed the team after it was runner-up at the season opener and followed that by winning the title at the next race near Phoenix. Capps was first in points after the third NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event before a variety of unpredictable maladies hit their Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car and dropped to him to No. 4.
After a disappointing No. 11 qualifying position two weeks ago at the NHRA Summernationals at Englishtown, N.J., the team found what had been causing problems. Despite producing the fourth best run of the first round at Englishtown, Capps lost to what ended up being the quickest run on that Sunday.
“We’re in the process of getting our NAPA Dodge back on track to where we were toward the end of last year,” he said of when he won three of the last eight events to come within two points of the world championship.
“We felt like we were pretty close at Englishtown but a couple things popped up that threw us a curveball. Tobler and JC (Collins) had it figured out by Sunday, but we ran up against the best run of the day.”
Capps heads to Bristol Dragway, which is part of Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc. empire of NHRA and NASCAR racetracks. It’s a track where Capps has won Funny Car titles in 2001, 2006 and last year.
“Bristol is always a good weekend. We look forward to going there, it’s one of Bruton Smith’s facilities and one of the best we go to.
“It’s one of the tracks where you can guarantee the track will be prepped and ready for NHRA when we get there, and that makes the crew chiefs happy. Bristol is circled every year because we love going there.
“I went to Bristol for a press conference right after we raced in Englishtown and they had a huge turnout. That support is one of the things that makes you feel like you want to go there.”
The Bristol event is the first of four Mello Yello events to be held over the next four consecutive weekends.
Massey excited to kick off NHRA four-race, four-week swing at Bristol Dragway’s Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals
– The Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals at Bristol Dragway kicks off a run of four races in four weeks in four cities for Spencer Massey and the Battery Extender Powered by Schumacher team.
For Massey, racing four weeks in a row is as good as it gets. He went to his first NHRA drag race when he was a child, accompanied by his father, Ray. And now he drives himself to each Mello Yello series event in a motorhome, living the dream that he envisioned as a child.
And racing on Father’s Day weekend brings back a flood of memories for Massey.
“My dad is one of the reasons I’m drag racing,” Massey said. “He took me to my first race when I was a little kid and then when I grew up I got to work with him on an alcohol dragster. I think it’s cool that now he can watch me drive a Top Fuel dragster. And it would be pretty cool to send him a Wally on Father’s Day.”
Massey has had success throughout the first nine of 24 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events, including one event title and five semifinal appearances, and hopes that momentum will build for the Battery Extender team during the next four events.
“You won’t see me complaining about racing four weekends in a row,” he said. “This is what I love to do and what I’ve always wanted to do. Hopefully we can get a little momentum going here and maybe get another race win before heading out for the Western Swing.”
But it won’t be easy.
“It’s definitely a grueling stretch of races for the guys but if we’re going rounds and running consistently, it makes it fun for all of us. I think we’re getting our consistent race car back, which is huge.
“Last year we could almost always count on the car to make good, clean, consistent runs. We’ve made it to the semifinals five times in nine races, so if we keep that up and make it to a couple final rounds in this four race stretch I think we’ll be pleased with that.”
Hagan hopes momentum brings special Father’s Day weekend for Rocky Boots team at Bristol Dragway
– Along with the Rocky Boots/Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar colors on Matt Hagan’s 10,000-horsepower Funny Car, momentum is riding with Hagan into the Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals at Bristol Dragway this weekend in Tennessee.
With nine of 24 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events complete, Hagan’s team has two wins, including the most recent event in Englishtown, N.J., four final round appearances, two No. 1 qualifier starts and leads the Funny Car points standings.
But Hagan has his eye set on even more once racing begins Friday at Bristol.
He will have a rather large cheering section this weekend with family and friends from his hometown of Christiansburg, Va., and he doesn’t want to disappoint.
“Bristol is a hometown track for me,” Hagan said. “It’s going to be crazy. It’s about two hours from where I live in Virginia. Along with family and friends, my dad is bringing around 200 employees from Shelor Motor Mile this weekend. It’s awesome. I know they are all rooting for me and I want to do well for them. Bristol would be an awesome race to win.”
To win in front of his friends is one thing. But sharing winner’s circle with his wife, Rachel, and two children, Colby and Penny, who will be attending on Father ‘s Day, would mean everything to Hagan.
“Rachel’s been my good luck charm before,” he said. “So I’m really hoping she’ll bring us the luck and to have my kids with me in the winner’s circle would just be phenomenal.
“It’s hard to think about because we take things one round at time. You just never know what you’re going to get with these racecars so I hope to do well for everyone that’s coming out to support me. We’re going to dig deep and work hard and hopefully celebrate with everyone from Rocky Boots and my family and friends on Sunday.”
SPECIAL APPEARANCE: Hagan and his Rocky Boots Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car will be at Mahoney’s (830 Sunset Drive in Johnson City, Tenn.) from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday to meet fans and sign autographs.
