The off-season between Del Worsham’s 2011 NHRA Top Fuel Championship win and 2012 pre-season testing has been a crazy one. The face of Top Fuel has changed quite a bit over the last several weeks. The fact that 2011 NHRA Top Fuel Champion Del Worsham was leaving Al-Anabi and retiring from driving shocked a ton of people. The hot news had to be the split between Larry Dixon and Al-Anabi Racing, and not only did it send a shockwave through the entire racing community, but subsequently resulted in teams all over the place finding themselves in search of new drivers. Dixon leaves Al-Anabi to do god knows what, and both Al-Anabi cars are empty. The next day, Shawn Langdon leaves Morgan Lucas Racing to drive for Al-Anabi in the car that Larry Dixon drove in 2011. With an empty seat, Morgan Lucas finds himself looking for a driver and throws his buddy Brandon Berstein into the newly vacated Lucas Oil Dragster. At some point, Khalid Al Balooshi, who won both the NHRA and Arabian Drag Racing League Pro Mod Championships, was announced as the new driver of the Al-Anabi Gold car that won the NHRA Top Fuel Championship with Del Worsham behind the wheel in 2011. Meanwhile, Don Schumacher Racing has been keeping their staff busy with new cars, and a renewed vigor after Tony Schumacher’s lackluster season in 2011. As if that wasn’t enough, crew chiefs are moving and sponsors are changing. Ugggghhhhhhh. It’s enough to drive you crazy.
Chad’s Predictions
What I think all this means is that Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher, along with teammates Antron Brown and Spencer Massey, will be huge players in 2012 because they are pissed at having not won the championship and still have the consistency within the organization that Don Schumacher is known for. At the same time, Al Balooshi and Langdon are both driving cars that have not only won championships, but also have Alan Johnson tuning them. He’s arguably the greatest Top Fuel Crew Chief ever, and that is going to mean a lot. Our emotional favorite, Terry McMillan is also a real player, along with Doug Kalitta and David Grubnic at the Kalitta camp. With the best week of testing ever, and career best ET and Speed, Morgan Lucas kicked ass at PBIR. We haven’t seen him look this happy going into the first event of the season ever! It’s anyone’s game in Pomona I guess, but ultimately I have to say that my intellectual choice would be the Al-Anabi team of Shawn Langdon and Khalid Al Balooshi.
Langdon has driven amazingly well since his debut in Top Fuel a couple years ago. And although the Lucas Oil Dragster he piloted had all the best parts, consistency was sometimes a challenge, and Shawn still hasn’t won his first national event in Top Fuel. He’s known as a leaver and if he uses Alan Johnson’s consistency to it’s fullest potential, he could take the NHRA Top Fuel Championship Wally home at the end of the season. Of course, in order to do that Shawn is going to have to beat teammate Khalid Al-Balooshi. There is no substitute for enthusiasm and drive, and after a season that even he didn’t expect in Pro Mod, Khalid is on top of the world. If he can keep rolling with that momentum, he could be tough to beat. We saw him in testing at PBIR, and the man has no fear. None. Never once did he flinch when driving the Al-Anabi fueler, even on his first passes. So, I think one of these two is going to be the guy. BUT, as much as I think they are going to be hard to beat, and as cool as it would be for either of them to win for the first time, my heart wants Terry McMillan, David Grubnic, or Doug Kalitta to win it. All three are killer guys, have been beat under some really tough to swallow circumstances, and deserve to win. We’ll be watching from the first run in Pomona in a few weeks, and let you know how things go as the season continues.
Brian’ Predictions
Rather than write a novel like Chad, I’m going to pick the 10 teams that will make the Countdown to One and give a little opinion on each one and why. I am not going to try and pick a Champion, because it would be completely insane. Last year’s Countdown was nuts and early favorites like Mike Neff in Funny Car, fell off at the end.
Here’s my pick of the 10 teams that will be in the nitro fueled “playoffs”, in no particular order.
10. Tony Schumacher/Army – Tony Schumacher and his team did not win a single race in 2011. It was shocking in some respects but not in others. Top Fuel is no joke and the competition is as stout as it has ever been in the history of the sport. We don’t see a repeat of this performance coming with Tony at the tiller and Don Schumacher running the organization. Tony’s winless streak will end very early in 2012.
9.) Antron Brown/Matco-Army – Antron is one of the most talented Top Fuel drivers out there and took to these cars like a duck to water after coming over from Pro Stock Motorcycle a couple of years ago. He has been in the hunt each season and he’ll be there again in 2012.
8.) Doug Kalitta/Kalitta Motorsports – Doug Kalitta suffered one of the most heartbreaking ends to a season in history when Tony Schumacher made “The Run” at Pomona the year before the Countdown to One started. With the resources of Kalitta Motorsports and the brain trust of crew chiefs they have, we’re seeing Doug as a prime threat to climb the mountain in 2012.
7.) Terry McMillan/Amalie Oil – Talking about heartbreak, Terry McMillan has missed the Countdown in the last two years by the length of his whiskers. Two years ago, 20 points kept he and his crew out and last year they actually made the Countdown and were out of the Countdown on the same lap. McMillan won the round he needed to make it in but spread the motor out in the process, causing him to incur a points fine and that fine kicked him back enough that the team was in the 11th spot. He’s hell bent on being there this year.
6.) Khlaid Al-Balooshi/Al-Anabi – The man has literally won in everything he has ever sat in and as Chad mentioned above, he has one of the top three greatest nitro crew chiefs in the history of the sport leading his operation. In watching some of his first runs in testing at PBIR, it is clear that Al-Balooshi is one heck of a driver. He was doing stuff with an out of shape Top Fuel car that we’ve rarely seen others do.
5.) Shawn Langdon/Al-Anabi – One of the best leavers in the sport has found himself in one of the best cars in the sport. At the end of the year it would not surprise us if he was facing down his own teammate for glory and the big trophy in Pomona. For all the reasons above, Langdon must be looked at as a championship threat.
4.) Spencer Massey/Fram – He just missed winning the championship last season in heartbreaking fashion. Like Matt Hagan the year before it came down to a crushing loss in the early rounds of Pomona to end what would have been a dream season. Hagan came back and went nuts in 2011, taking home the championship. We’re sure these two have chatted about that, being teammates and all, so Massey will be driving like his hair is on fire this season.
3.) Bob Vandergriff/CJ Energy – Bob Vandergriff is a single car operation, but with Rob Flynn on the tune up duties, he’s got as good a shot as anyone to climb into the Top 10 when the rubber meets the road at mid-season. Vandergriff broke through a very long win drought last season and sometimes when that happens and all the monkeys are off of a driver’s proverbial back, those Wally trophies start coming a lot easier.
2.) Morgan Lucas/Geico – Coming off a week that he declared as the best testing experience of his career, how can we not get Morgan Lucas on this list. He was as upbeat, loose, and focused as we have ever seen and Morgan seems very much comfortable with the current state of his car and his team. We think he’ll be racing like he has something to prove in 2012 and so long as the confidence stays up and his car is underneath him, he has the talent to bring the thunder.
1.) Brandon Bernstein/MavTV – This will be a super interesting year for Bernstein who is now the teammate of Morgan Lucas in the MavTV dragster. Gone are the days of Bernstein having to lead his team and potentially deal with lots of other stresses outside of driving and winning rounds. As a team driver in an organization that he is a piece of but not the owner of, the reduction in pressure could yield big dividends for his trophy case.
