Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Hammonds makes first final after firing crew chief

Thursday, June 6, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Former Georgia Tech basketball coach Bobby Cremins once called Tom Hammonds "the hardest-working ballplayer I've ever coached."

Hammonds, the former NBA power forward who now is an NHRA Pro Stock driver, obviously has carried that work ethic into professional drag racing.

Hammonds advanced to his first final-round appearance of the season last weekend at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill. -- and did so despite taking over the tuning responsibilities on his car after firing his crew chief, Donnie Gardner, last Friday.

Hammonds qualified second for Sunday's eliminations and then defeated Kurt Johnson, Gene Wilson and Allen Johnson before an exhausted Hammonds lost to Bruce Allen in the final.

"To be honest, I had a mini-training camp (last) weekend in terms of working on the motor again and I just ran out of gas in the final," Hammonds said. "It was tough, as tired as I was, to concentrate but we're not about to use that as an excuse.

"Bruce Allen is a tough competitor and although you don't ever get used to losing to somebody, it's something we can live with."

There are three drivers among the top 10 in the NHRA Powerade Pro Stock points standings who have yet to win a race this season: Kurt Johnson, Jeg Coughlin and points leader Jim Yates. The only driver to win an NHRA season championship without a national event victory is Top Fuel driver Rob Bruins in 1979.

The last time Johnson failed to qualify for a 16-car Pro Stock field was at Gainesville, Fla., in 1987.

Dixon has six wins this season and has advanced to the final round in nine of the first 10 NHRA national events.

"You know, we haven't had a bad season," Bernstein said. "We've won two events and finished runner-up at three others, but Dixon's team has been virtually unstoppable up to this point.

"We're not quite to the halfway point of the season but we need to apply the tourniquet real soon to start gaining back some points."

Gary Densham, who knocked Force out of the points lead two weeks ago, leads the category with 730 points. Force trails Densham by 23 points and the third Team Force driver, Tony Pedregon, is 75 points off the pace in third place.