Mopar, Don Schumacher Racing Early Season Win Streak Ends at The Strip at Las Vegas
Don Schumacher Racing and the 2015 Mopar Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car’s win streak ends in semifinals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Tommy Johnson Jr. and the Make-A-Wish Mopar is top DSR finisher with a semifinal appearance at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals
No.1 qualifier Hagan puts Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T back in the Funny Car standings lead
Johnson takes Magneti Marelli Dodge Dart to a Pro Stock semifinal appearance
Las Vegas (Sunday, April 12, 2015) – Visitors to Las Vegas have had a long history of seeing winning streaks come to an abrupt end on “the Strip” and the Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) team and its new 2015 Mopar Dodge Charger R/T are the latest to experience it first-hand. Following four consecutive national title wins to start the 2015 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Drag Racing Series season, DSR and the new Mopar Funny Car body fell short of advancing to a final round appearance at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals event for the first time this year.
While all four DSR entries qualified in the top half of the ladder with Matt Hagan, Jack Beckman and Tommy Johnson Jr. seeded 1-2-3 for Sunday’s eliminations at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, only Johnson’s Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger made it to the semifinals. After disposing of John Hale and Tim Wilkerson, Johnson lost to Robert Height with an elapsed time run of 4.164 seconds at 305.56 miles per hour to his competitor’s 4.145/310.34. While he is the only driver in the DSR stable to not yet have taken the new race car to the winner’s circle, Johnson has been the most consistent and maintains his fourth place spot in the Funny Car standings, just 53 points behind the leader.
“We have a good racecar that hasn’t reached its potential yet,” said Johnson who was very pleased with the steady progress his team has shown through the first five events. “We’ve had a very decent season up to this point, but this team wants more. We’re staying here to test tomorrow to get more. But to be where we are in the standings at this point and knowing we aren’t yet at our full potential, it’s very encouraging.”
As No.1 qualifier, Hagan had high hopes of adding to his team’s win streak of five national titles which actually extends back to last season’s finale at Pomona where he beat John Force, won the National title and his second NHRA World Championship. However, on this Sunday, his quarterfinal match up against Force, the 25th time the two have met in eliminations with an even win-loss record of 12-12, saw the tie breaker go to his opponent. The Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T led the first 60 feet but lost traction and the race, even after a valiant effort to peddle it back into the groove. Force went on to win the national title in a final elimination showdown against his teammate Hight.
Hagan, however, won’t be leaving Las Vegas empty handed as he returned to the top spot in the Funny Car standings.
“It’s always good to be the No. 1 qualifier and we got our points lead back so you have to look at everything as positive as possible,” Hagan said. “Obviously we wanted to win the race and keep our streak alive but the competition is tough out there. We got in the left lane when we probably should have gone for the right and you look back and second guess yourself but the fact is we just missed it out there on the primary. It was a weak shake on a 125 degree race track. I couldn’t believe it and found myself peddling it. We just haven’t had that issue in a long time so it kind of caught me off guard but I got it hooked back up and running back down but it was too late. We’ll get back after it in Houston.”
Winners at the last two national events, Jack Beckman (Four-Wide Nationals) and Ron Capps (Gatornationals), both saw their days come to an end in the opening round.
No.2 qualifier Beckman saw his hopes of posting back-to-back national title wins cut short by 0.002 of a second, the margin in which his Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T was beaten to the finish line by Cruz Pedregon, when a flash fire and loss of power within a few feet of the finish line ruined his run. As a result, Beckman’s 0.095-second reaction time and elapsed of 4.138/299.00 was narrowly beaten by his opponent’s 0.138 reaction time and 4.093/305.01 pass.
Meanwhile, DSR Teammate Capps (4.156/305.08) had a great run going in his HEMI®-powered Dodge but lost the first round battle against Hight (4.087/312.50).
In Pro Stock action, things started off on a positive note for the two Dodge Dart entries of Allen Johnson and V. Gaines as both won their opening round match-ups with hole-shot wins.
Johnson’s “Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar” Dodge Dart posted a .027 reaction time and an elapsed time run of 6.699/206.20 against Drew Skillman’s 0.68 reaction time and 679/206.99 pass.
The next round saw V, Gaines fall to Greg Anderson, while another win-light turned on for Johnson against No.1 qualifier Jason Line who had a red-light foul to advance the Mopar to the next round. However, after feeling like his ride was down on power for both of those runs, Johnson and his team made the decision to change the motor before a semifinals match-up against Vincent Nobile.
“We decided not to take a chance and change the engine but when we reached the staging lanes, we suddenly realized that we had an ignition box problem that couldn’t be resolved in time and that could cause us some grief,” said Johnson who didn’t get more than a few feet from the tree before the issue ended their day. “We’re going to head to Baton Rouge to test before we head to Houston because we’re not happy. We’re not where we need to be at all but we’re going to work our butts off to get there.”
With his semifinal appearance Johnson moves up a spot into ninth place in the Pro Stock standings.
In a rematch of Saturday’s K&N Horsepower Challenge, Nobile went on to the final elimination against Erica Enders-Stevens, who for a second year in a row, not only took home the national title but also the $25,000 bonus for doubling up.