The new season of the American drag racing kicked off in Pomona, CA. We are talking about the NHRA — the most prestigious and popular motor sports series in the world. The surprises and patterns of the first round are covered by the commentator of the Russian TV channel Viasat Sport and one of Dragtimes.ru authors Sergey Bednaruk.
Only one participant from the list of current champions in three dragster classes came off with flying colours in Pomona — the ever-young John Force. The legendary pilot demonstrated excellent performance in the beginning of his fight for the 17th career title in the Funny Car class by scoring victory at his home track Pomona Raceway.
64-year-old Force demonstrated his great shape during the qualifications. Not only did he show best time, but also set a national speed record of 324.12 mph in the evening session! And in the final round the 16-time champion defeated Matt Hagan setting another time record by covering 305 metres in 3.965 seconds. It became 137th win in John’s career and seventh win in the Winternationals, the traditional opening round of the NHRA series.
On the contrary, Courtney Force, John’s daughter, was out of luck in Pomona — she had to capitulate after the first round, losing to Hagan. Then again one can say that her dad claimed vengeance for his daughter by leaving Matt without the first place.
“It’s just unbelievable,” John Force comments on his first round results in his usual manner. “We had tough off-season time but we managed to solve all problems. Everything was just perfect today and I’m really inspired by our success.”
Top Fuel, the most powerful class, had a rather unexpected winner — first place was taken by Khalid alBalooshi, a Dubai native. On his way to success he defeated seven-time champion Tony Schumacher, the defending world champion; his teammate at Al-Anabi Racing, Shawn Langdon; and the most promising Steve Torrence. In the final round alBalooshi defeated Doug Kalitta, who had raced to the first qualifying position.
It was only third career victory for alBalooshi, who has been taking part in the NHRA series since 2012, letting him take the lead in the championship standings for the first time in two seasons. “I could already feel progress in the course of the previous season”, Khalid says. “Pre-season tests fuelled us with self-confidence and after defeating Schumacher in the first round I felt our day was open for a good result”.
The winner in the Pro Stock division is Jason Line who managed to leave V. Gaines behind surviving close competition in the final round. And before that he was able to defeat Matt Hartford, Dave Connolly and Shane Gray. It’s the 32nd career victory for Line and third in the Winternationals.
Last year’s champion Jeg Coughlin got knocked out in the quarterfinals by Vincent Nobile. However, it was just the first round and there are still 23 fascinating racing NHRA week-ends to go.
The second round of the American drag racing series will be held in less than two weeks, on February 23. As always, the competitions will be shown on the Viasat Sport channel and if you missed the translation of the first round you can watch its re-run this Thursday at 19:00 (MSK). The continuation of the season promises to be really intriguing!
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