NHRA Season Gets in Gear With Force in Driver’s Seat

Irrepressible John Force will make his first official start today as motor racing’s American driver of the year when time trials begin at the Pomona Raceway for the 37th annual Chief Auto Parts Winternationals, opening event of the National Hot Rod Assn. drag racing season.

Force, the first drag racer to be named to racing’s highest honor after winning a record 13 of 19 events last year, will be looking for a fast start in quest of a seventh NHRA funny car championship. Tests two weeks ago in Phoenix, where he ran the quickest quarter-mile in funny car history, indicate that he is well prepared.

“We ran a 4.86 [seconds elapsed time]; that’s better than the 4.88 we ran last year that’s the fastest official run,” Force said. “We need all the speed we can find because there’s a lot of guys out there looking to knock us off. You know that Cruz [Pedregon] is coming back strong, and Don Prudhomme’s new guy [Ron Capps] will be right there, and my buddy Whit Bazemore will be running hard with his new Winston paint job.

“We have a great team, though. Tony Pedregon has been doing great things with our R&D; program, so I’m expecting a lot from both of us this year.”

Tony Pedregon, Force’s second funny car driver, finished second behind his boss last year, dropping his brother, Cruz, back to third place. Cruz Pedregon, who won the funny car title in 1992 as a rookie, is the only driver other than Force to have won since 1990.

Kenny Bernstein, who became the first driver to win both NHRA funny car and top fuel championships when he won top fuel last year, and Jim Yates, the defending pro stock champion, will also be looking for repeat titles. Yates won the Winternationals last year and was never out of the points lead.

Yates and other pro stock drivers will also be after a $25,000 bonus for the first to record 200 mph. Warren Johnson and Troy Coughlin both unofficially reached 200 during tests at Gainesville, Fla., two weeks ago, but the fastest official run is 199.15 mph by Johnson in March 1995 at Houston Raceway Park. All three run Pontiac Firebirds.

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Winternationals

* Where: Pomona Raceway.

* When: Qualifying today-Saturday, finals Sunday.

* TV: TNN, Sunday, 1 p.m.

* Defending champions: Blaine Johnson (top fuel); Al Hofmann (funny car); Jim Yates (pro stock).