5 seconds: Dragsters light it up at LVMS

Friday, Oct. 26, 2001 | 12:07 p.m.

If the Kentucky Derby is considered "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports," there is little question that a nitromethane-powered NHRA Top Fuel dragster or Funny Car race is "The Most Exciting Five Seconds in Sports."

In the time it takes to run one Kentucky Derby, a 6,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragster or Funny Car could make 24 passes down a quarter-mile drag strip -- and do so each time with the same force it would take to launch a NASA space shuttle.

Although an ideal Top Fuel or Funny Car run lasts a little less than five seconds, the race actually starts a minute or two before when the cars do tire-smoking burnouts -- done to heat up the engine, clutch and rear tires in preparation for the race -- and roll up to the staging lights.

Kenny Bernstein, a five-time NHRA champion in both Top Fuel (1996) and Funny Car (1985-88) and winner of both NHRA Top Fuel events at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, said races are won and lost at the "Christmas Tree," a series of lights that sets the side-by-side race in motion.

"I roll up to the staging lights the same way every time: Very slow and very deliberate," said Bernstein, who is in Las Vegas this weekend for the inaugural ACDelco NHRA Nationals at The Strip at LVMS. "The real key in staging is to turn on those lights as easy as you can and not roll into them too hard.

"I roll into the first light and I just sit there. When my competitor rolls into his pre-stage light, then I reach over and turn both fuel shutoffs all the way on, I put my visor down on my helmet and I move into my second light, which is the stage light. Then the gentleman or lady next to me does the same thing."

Bernstein, the first NHRA driver to break the 300-mph barrier with a speed of 301.70 in 1992, said quite a bit happens in the cockpit of his Budweiser King Dragster in the five seconds between taking the green light and crossing the finish line.

"My goal at the start is the yellow light -- in other words, we don't wait for the green light to come on," he said. "Many people think we wait for the green, but we don't. By the time your brain reacts, your foot reacts and the car reacts, if you wait for green, you're way behind.

"So, the big, bright yellow light is my 'go mark' and when I see it just flicker a teeny bit of yellow, I slam the throttle to the floor as hard and as fast as I can. Then it's up to me to drive the racecar with whatever it's telling me to do. It may be going perfectly straight, and that's fine, it may have its wheels in the air, it may be going to the left, it may be going to the right, it may shake.

"Whatever it's telling me, I have to react as a driver. Sometimes I have to get off and on the throttle, sometimes I have to grab the brake, sometimes I have to abort the run because I'm completely out of shape."

If it's a run similar to the one he made in June at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill., when he set a national record with an elapsed time of 4.477 seconds, Bernstein said he basically just has to keep the dragster running in a straight line.

"Assuming it's a straight run, I'm going down the racecourse and at about 300 or 400 feet, it starts engaging the clutch and really takes off," he said. "What you're trying to do as a driver at that point is do what the car's telling you, but keep it in the center of the racetrack -- what we call the groove."

Once the run is under way, Bernstein said he keeps his focus just ahead of the nose of the dragster and never looks at his competitor or the scoreboard.

"As I'm going down to the finish line, I don't look way ahead, I'm looking right out the nose," he said. "I then look up a little bit and try to pick up the finish-line light. I don't pick up the scoreboard -- nobody does that -- there are lights in the middle of the racetrack and that's what I pick up. I see them coming and when I see them get to me and basically go by, I jump off the throttle and at the same time I push a button that deploys the parachute.

"At the same time I deploy the chute, I reach over and I've got my hand on the brake and the minute the parachute hits, I go down on the brake -- put it on real hard one or two times -- just to make sure, in case the parachute doesn't open. Then the parachute opens and it's really a good feeling, it's kind of quiet as you're coasting down there. You make your turn off to the left or right and you're done."

If he doesn't look at the scoreboard and he can't see his competitor, how does Bernstein know whether he won or lost?

"You can't tell who wins if you're side-by-side because we sit so low in the cars and the bodywork is up so high," he said. "In Dallas last week, I really thought we had won the race; I couldn't see (Larry Dixon) and I thought we had won the race, but it was an inch-and-a-half or two inches his way. And he didn't know who won, either.

"I turned the corner at Dallas and I looked for the TV crews. They didn't come my way and I knew I had lost. When TV wasn't coming my way, I knew that was a bad sign."