Columnist Larry Dixon: Car falls short, but fans stand tall

Larry Dixon

Monday, April 10, 2000 | 9:31 a.m.

This is the last in a series of columns by Larry Dixon, driver of Don Prudhomme's Miller Lite Top Fuel Dragster.

What a great week we had here in Las Vegas. Besides the racing stuff, just the support we got from everyone here has been awesome. And this town, the fans -- everybody -- they have all just been really pumped up for the inaugural SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The way they have all been acting, you'd think they have been having races here for 40 years or something. I can't wait to get back here again.

The track surface at Las Vegas Motor Speedway turned out to be great; it just needed some runs on it to get some rubber down. Next year, with the announcement that they are going to run this race in October, and even with the altitude, this could be a track on which you could see some national records set.

As far as our day on Sunday went, in the first round we took on Doug Herbert and he is always a tough race. He is really good off the light and we know when we go up to race him we realize that he has a bone to pick with us because of our crew chief, Dick LaHaie, being his crew chief last year. I knew he would be on his game.

I went up to the light and I was a little late and I got really mad at myself. As it turned out, I was only a hundredth of a second off, but I was angry that I didn't do as good of a job as I should have.

In the second round I was really on my game. I just kicked butt on the tree. I mean, I was all over it! It was a .451 light, which was my best of the year and the second-best reaction time out there Sunday among the Top Fuel drivers. Leaving the starting line against Cory McClenathan, I knew I had a good light and I felt good about that because after the first round, I didn't want to have to wait a week to try and cut a better time.

Unfortunately, our run was done one and a half seconds into it. When Cory smoked the tires, I thought we might have a chance at first to win the race because we were actually leading at half track. But as it turned out we had an air fitting failure, and that was crushing for us.

Basically, our car went into neutral as the clutch didn't get the air pressure it needs and there was nothing I could do to it one and a half seconds into the run; we were dead in the water by then.

One thing that helped lift my spirits after losing in such a disappointing way was the response I got from the fans at the track. In some of the markets we go into, we run into first-time fans that may not know a lot about us. They don't know what to expect and they might be a little confused with all the different categories we have competing in the NHRA. But the fans here in Las Vegas are extremely knowledgeable; they are very responsive and know everything that's going on.

I don't know that I have ever seen a more enthusiastic crowd. Every run we make as drivers we are putting our lives on the line, so when we are coming back down the return road, whether you have had a good run or a bad run, the fans show you respect and it makes you feel good. They really appreciate the show we put on here. I am just sorry for the fans that we came up a couple of rounds short.

I am not going to dwell on this weekend though. Over the next month and a half, we are going to have a third of our season over. I am going to get back in the car in just a few days when we make our stop in Houston and I am excited about that.

Well, that pretty much wraps up my last guest column for this year and it has been a lot of fun. The last column I got to write was a couple of years ago and I like the fact that I got to do it again because I hope it gives the fans a little insight as to what is going on in our lives away from the racetrack.

The folks at the Sun have asked me to make it a yearly thing, just like my Miller Lite racing teammate Rusty Wallace does when NASCAR comes to town, so I look forward to sharing what is going on with me and the entire Snake Racing Team again next year.