Rough day for Ford NHRA contigent at St. Louis

MADISON, Ill. – The “strength in numbers” theory took a major hit Sunday at Gateway International Raceway where none of the six Ford Funny Car qualifiers managed to survive beyond the second round of the 13^th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Midwest Nationals.

In fact, except for the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang of 14-time series champion John Force, no Ford driver managed to beat anyone other than another

Ford driver. Force, who dispatched Jack Beckman and the MTS Dodge in round one, was the last to fall, unable, despite a slight advantage at the start, to hold off points leader Ron Capps in the second round.

Capps, who extended his Funny Car division lead to 119 points by going to the finals for the fourth time in seven races this season, actually provided an inadvertent assist to Team Ford Racing by beating reigning series champion Cruz Pedregon in the semifinals, thereby retaining Top 10 status for Robert Hight and Mike Neff.

“This was just one of those weekends,” said Ashley Force Hood, a first round victim of two-time former series champ Tony Pedregon. “I’m just going to chalk this weekend up to (the fact that) I didn’t get a handle on this track and I am not going to take whatever problems I had here with me to the next track (Bristol, Tenn., Dragway).

“We’ve done fine the last couple of races. For whatever reason, there was something about this weekend that every run I felt like I was making mistakes (even though) my Castrol GTX Mustang went down the track every time.

“Whatever happened this weekend, we just forget about it and go on to the next race and keep doing what we have been doing. I think we can get right back where we need to be. I didn’t (feel comfortable here), but I’m just going to head to Bristol and do better (in the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals),” Ashley said. “I really like Bristol and hopefully we’ll have some success there. You’re going to have rough weekends and hopefully we got ours out of the way this week.”

It was an especially disappointing result for Ashley’s dad who, on Monday, celebrates his 60^th birthday.

“I’ve decided I’m just gonna bypass 60 and go to 100,” Force said. “(This is) not the way to celebrate a birthday or anything else. We didn’t get it done against Capps. Nobody did. We’ve got to get better – and we will. It’s still early (in the season) but we have to start winning some rounds. The good news is we’re all still in the Top 10, but we’ve got guys right behind us.”

Hight, who has shown only brief flashes of the form that made him a title contender in each of his first four pro seasons, lost to fellow Ford driver Bob Tasca III in a first round race that was never close.

“Like I said yesterday, this AAA Mustang has just not been cooperating,” Hight said of the car that owns the quickest times at both the standard quarter mile (4.636 seconds) and the 1,000 foot course at which races have been run for almost a year (4.005 seconds). “(Crew chief) Jimmy Prock and my guys will figure it out. I’m not going to get frustrated, because that won’t help.

“We need to keep working together. I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job for AAA and Ford (this weekend). Those guys are great sponsors and I’ll get them more wins. I’m looking forward to getting to Bristol and I just wish it was next week instead of two weeks away. We’ll be ready.”

Four pairs of cars later, Neff exited in a little more spectacular fashion against Tasca’s teammate, Tim Wilkerson, in what, in essence, was a rerun of last year’s final round.

Neff did all he could, forging a .075 of a second advantage at the starting line. Unfortunately, it all evaporated in a half track explosion that left the Ford Drive One Mustang mortally wounded, the supercharger sitting awkwardly atop the engine block, the windshield cracked, the body split down the middle.

“It was trucking along,” Neff said. “Then the next thing I knew, ‘boom.’ It happened super fast. It didn’t give me any warning at all.”

According to Neff’s crew chief, John Medlen, the explosion resulted from nitromethane fuel that accumulated in the No. 2 cylinder. The damage was extensive, rendering the body un-repairable and both Neff and Medlen wondering exactly what happened.