NHRA's newest venue drawing rave reviews, generating buzz

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

Saturday, Sep. 06, 2008

As a service to Speedway Motorsports chairman Bruton Smith, we offer the following warning.

"When I see ol' Bruton," drag racing legend John Force said, "I am going to kiss him on the lips."

Force was at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May, walking around and taking a long look at the new zMAX Dragway @ Concord. Back then, though, the pouring of the actual racing surface was just beginning. The west grandstand named in honor of Force, the National Hot Rod Association's 14-time Funny Car champion, was rapidly being assembled, but the $60 million facility was still a work in progress.

"I sent my own guys down there to take pictures," Force said at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. "I didn't want to listen to the rumors or look at things on the Internet. I wanted to see it.

"My guys came back with the pictures and said, 'Man! Look at this!' (NHRA president Tom) Compton called me from down there and said, 'I have to give Bruton credit. This thing down here makes you want to cry.' "

So that's why Force wants to plant one on "ol' Bruton."

"The NHRA has a great product," Force said. "But we don't have great stadiums. We have one now.

"I'll be honest, I thought he'd come over here and ruin our sport. But I believe Burton was put on this Earth to grow motorsports."

There is a genuine buzz in the drag racing world about what's scheduled to happen this week at the House that Bruton Built.

With seating for around 30,000, zMAX Dragway @ Concord is the largest facility in which the NHRA's Powerade Series will compete. The round track across the highway, Lowe's Motor Speedway, may have a capacity of five times that, but for drag racing the inaugural Carolina Nationals is a big step.

"We may never be as big as NASCAR," Force said. "We're never going to pack in 200,000 in one day. We're a different machine. But we can get right up next to them."

Force and the rest of the stars in NHRA's four professional classes - Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle - are scheduled to begin qualifying runs on Friday. Sportsman classes kick off the Carolinas Nationals with their runs a day earlier.

"It's going to be a home run," said Greg Anderson, the three-time Pro Stock series champion who lives in Charlotte and bases his team in Mooresville. "The U.S. Nationals is our biggest race of the year, but may not be next year. That race we're going to in Charlotte may surpass it in its first year out.

"The buzz around going to the town and about the facility that Bruton built, everybody is so excited about. It's going to be a grand slam, knock-it-out-the-park home run. I really predict big things for it."

The father-and-son Pro Stock team of Warren and Kurt Johnson were at the drag strip this week for a day of testing. They were not disappointed.

"This is absolutely the best facility I have ever raced at in my career," Kurt Johnson said. "Since no one had really gone down this track before, we were expecting to only make eighth-mile runs. But we were able to go to the finish line four times with no problems whatsoever, showing that a lot of people paid attention when building this new track.This is a huge addition to our sport."

Warren Johnson is a six-time Pro Stock champion with a class-leading 96 career victories.

"The shutdown area here is smoother than the racing surfaces at many of the other tracks we run on," the elder Johnson said. "Considering how quickly this project was completed, you'd have to say they did a bang-up job."

Warren Johnson said he doesn't think fans who might be more used to seeing cars go in circles will have any trouble adapting to drag racing's straight-line competition.

"Anything that goes putt-putt and smells bad, they're going to come see it," he said.

Drag racing's most powerful cars, the Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars, hardly go "putt-putt." The engines make so much power they can't be truly measured on a dynamometer, but crew chiefs will tell you the estimate of 7,000 horsepower listed on the NHRA's web site is low by as much as 1,500 horses.

Tommy Johnson Jr. drives a Funny Car for the team owned by Kenny Bernstein. His wife, Melanie Troxel, competes in Funny Car, too. Neither has been here to test, but one member of the family has been down the track.

Tommy Johnson Sr., Tommy Jr.'s father, took his own car down the track at the public open house two weeks ago.

"He drove his tricked-out Camaro down the strip and then sent me pictures," Johnson Jr. said. "So he got to say he was first in the family to race on the surface and had nothing but great things to say about the facility. ... I think this will be the ultimate drag strip."

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