Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Bernstein not conceding in final season

Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002 | 9:51 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.

Kenny Bernstein, in his final season as driver of the Budweiser King Dragster, wanted to retire with a third NHRA Top Fuel championship.

Trailing rival Larry Dixon by 127 points with three national events remaining in the season, Bernstein said he would be able to walk away from his driving career with his head held high -- whether or not he wins the title.

"No matter how the championship turns out, we'll be able to look in the mirror at the end of the season and say we gave it every effort we possibly could," Bernstein said as he prepared for next weekend's O'Reilly Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas.

"We'll be able to walk away and say we were still competitive to the very end."

But that's not to say that Bernstein is conceding this year's Top Fuel crown to Dixon.

"We've got a tough (row) to hoe these last three races," he said. "It will be pretty difficult to run Dixon down but we're not throwing the towel in yet. We will need to be able to make some big moves in these last few events. We just hope we can make it a race to the finish."

Bernstein and Dixon waged a classic battle last year that was not decided until the final race of the season. Bernstein emerged with a 97-point edge over Dixon.

This season, Dixon won seven of the first 11 events and jumped out to a 259-point advantage over Bernstein. Although he closed to within 65 points of Dixon with five races remaining, Bernstein has lost ground to Dixon each of the past two races.

After next week's O'Reilly Fall Nationals, the NHRA returns to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Oct. 24-27 for the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals.

"I'm sure he feels the heat," Pedregon said of Force, "but I hope he doesn't feel too much because John's the type of guy that works better under the gun."

The cars of Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel), Tony Pedregon (Funny Car) and Kurt Johnson (Pro Stock) will carry the KISS logo and likenesses of the four founding band members, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.