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eDRAG RACE e NHRA Winston Cham~ioDShi~ _Se_rie_s:R _O_UD_d 8 _ ~ o C(') .... v ..0 o .... u o John Myers (near lane) was disqualified when he jumped the green light In the Top Fuel final; Dave Schultz (far lane) score d the win for the firth time th is season. High drama in Tx s ea By Todd Veney ENNIS, TX, OCT. 10·13 avid Schultz, the first drag racer to win more even ts (five) than all othe r racers com bine d (three) witho ut cli nc hi ng the cha mpionsh ip long before the end of the season, became the first to win a race (the NHRA Chief Nati on al s) and act ua lly lose ground to the runner-up (John Myers; wh o earned just 982 points to Sch ultz's 11 30, but received 200 bonus points for selling a Na tional performance record ). Schultz, the 1987-88 NHRA Champi on and undisputed king of th e quarter-mile in 1991, won the firs t four ra ces of th e season and h is th ird cham p io nship - if not offi cially th en certa inly in the minds of most of his demoralized competitors, wh o knew in June that they were racing for second place. Then a fu nny th in g ha p p ened. Schultz stopped winning, and , despite final-four finishes at the few races he didn't win, his once-giant lead began to dissolve. By the time the expanded nine-race NHRA tour reached the allconcrete Texas Motorp lex, th e first of drag racing's modern super tracks and the strip against which all others are . judged, it appeared as if the impossible could hap pen . D 16 Myers, closing in fast wit h two victori es in the last three races, mad e the q uickest ru n in Pro Stock history, 7.6 1 seconds - a full eight-hundred ths of a second fas ter than his own lon gsta nding all-time record of 7.69, which had been the only pass under 7.70. "A run like tha t could on ly happen at a trac k lik e this because it's so smooth," Myers said of the cou rse tha t p rod uced the first seven-second Pro Stock run (by T err y Vance) in 1987 bu t hasn 't hosted an NH RA mo tor cycle race since. " Most tracks have bumps and cracks, and the rear tir e never gets pl anted. Here, th e ti re hooks up and stays that way to the fin ish line." T he run was so fast - an unprecedented 10th of a second ah ead of No . 2 seed Schultz, 16-hundredths ahead of No . 3 qualifier Jim Bernard, and as far ahead of No .4 man Norm DeVin e (.24-second), as DeVine was ah ead of th e No . 20 qualifier - that Schultz and other skeptics refused to believe that it was legit. Myers, the reig ning NH RA Champion,le£! them liule choice in Sunday's first round eliminations, when , in the stifling Texas heat and on a track tacky enough fo r just one other sub-7.8 secon d time - Schultz's 7.79 - he sped to the seco nd-q uickest tim e ever, a 7.66 that crushed No. 16 qualifier Tom Wolbers' 8.04. Becau se it was within on e-percent (as required by NHRA rules to back a National record) of the landmark 7.61, Myers was now 200 points closer to Schul tz, wh o had a 696-po int edge comi ng into th e race. Suddenl y, Myers had all any compe titor in any spo rt cou ld want - hi s fate in hi s own hands - and by all acco unts, nothing sho rt of freak mecha nica l breakage would be ab le to sto p him . Kno win g th a t th e cha m p io nsh ip wo uld be his if he co uld win th e event and the seaso n-endi ng Win ston Final s (and make the fastest run a t the Fin als) - even if hi s hated ri val, Schultz, was ru nner-up at both - Myers cha rged ahead of Paul Gast in the second ro und and ran yet ano ther 7.6 - a 7.68 on George Bryce's Suzuki GSXR. But just before he hit the fini sh lin e, a co n nec ti n g rod i n Myer s' Star Ra cing-prepped two-valve Suzuki bullet snapped, slinging itself around th e cra n kcase . and destroying th e engine in a cloud of " dea th smoke" and slowing him from his earlier 174175 mph pace to just 166. Schu ltz, who had languished far behind Myers' barrier-breaking 7.6s with 7.79 and 7.82 pre liminary-round wins over Steve Meiterrnan and Steve Johnson , clocked a 7.78 in his semi final defeat of Bern ard, and actually rated an edge in the final over Myers, who won his semi final heat over DeVine with a way-off 7.81. Righ t when he really needed it . Myers' overwhelming performance J edge had becom e a thing of the pa st; if he was to defeat Schultz in the high- < pressure fina l round, it would have to I be with hi s reflexes. But, as it turned o ut, horsepower had nothing to do wit h the o utco me of th e , . anticlim a cti c final. Wh en Myers twist ed hi s wrist and peg ged the eng ine, o n th e 8200-rpm rev-limiter while , awa iting the green, a bal ky input sha ft allo wed the clutch to drag h im acros s th e starti ng lin e, acti vating the redlight o n the Christmas tree and au to- i, maticall y disqualify ing him before th e race had begun. Even with the cl u tch handle pi nned to the handlebar and the front tire .... locked a nd sk idding thro u gh t he stagi ng beams, there was no thing . Myers cou ld do to hold the bi ke on th e lin e. Schultz, who has ridde n flawl essly a lmost a ll seaso n, sped to • 'a 7.73 o n hi s Van ce & H ines-built Kawasaki ZX-IO for his fifth win of the season, but h is fir st since th e Springnati on als, With a 644-point lead in the heated race for the NHRA Ch ampionship, J Schultz can gua ra ntee himself hi s first tit le since the T erry Vanc e era ended I in 1988 - even with his worst finish , of the year, another semi final loss, at [ the season-ending Winston Finals at the Los Ang eles County Fairplex in ., 1 Pomo na, California. O nl y if he wins the Winston Finals, I as he has the only two times he has competed there - and Schultz loses 1 in the firs t or second round to some inexpl icable mechanical failure - will I the championship go , for the second year in a row, to Myers. al