Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Pro Stock champ Johnson praises LVMS Strip

Thursday, April 24, 2003 | 9:59 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.

Although six-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Warren Johnson never has won a national event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, there is no mistaking which track on the circuit he considers his favorite.

Johnson, who will be attempting to defend his Pro Stock title this weekend at the state-of-the-art Bristol Dragway in Tennessee, said the drag strip in Las Vegas should be the model for how future facilities are built.

"There's no doubt that the Vegas racetrack has set the bar as far as what a drag-racing facility should look like," Johnson said. "From the competitors' standpoint, with completely paved pits and a racetrack surface that's smooth, it's the way a racetrack should be built.

"But when you look at it from the real important side of it -- the spectators -- you've got the suites and skyboxes there overlooking the racetrack."

The Strip at LVMS and the drag strip at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., are the only two NHRA tracks that features luxury suites that overlook the quarter-mile strip; other tracks' suites typically are located in a tower behind the starting line. Burton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. owns both facilities.

"I've argued for 20 years, ever since Billy Meyer introduced the first (VIP tower at the Texas Motorplex) with the suites behind the starting line, I said that was the dumbest move ever made -- it's better than nothing, but not much," Johnson said.

With suites running nearly the length of the quarter-mile, Johnson said, "(Spectators) get the sensation of speed. You don't get the feel of it but you can surely smell them and see them coming and going and there's not a bad view in the house from the suites that (Las Vegas has)."

Bristol Dragway, which Smith also owns, underwent an $18 million renovation after he purchased the facility in 1996. Johnson, who won six IHRA events at the old Bristol International Dragway, also likes what Smith has done with the Tennessee track.

"Trying to compare Bristol Dragway, as it exists today, to the track we raced on in the '70's and '80's is like trying to describe the difference between day and night," Johnson said. "Just as he has with his track in Las Vegas, Bruton Smith has elevated the bar as to what a modern-day drag-racing facility should be."

Johnson, who advanced to the semifinals at Las Vegas earlier this month before losing to eventual Pro Stock winner Greg Anderson, is third in Pro Stock points going into this weekend's MAC Tools Thunder Valley Nationals.

If he should succeed, it won't be the first time the John Force Racing driver has won three in a row. Last fall, while battling Force for the Funny Car championship, he posted consecutive victories in Reading, Pa., Memphis and Joliet, Ill., before eventually losing the championship to Force by 78 points.

"Last year, when we won three in a row, they told me no one ever lost the championship after winning three straight races, so I'm a little skeptical," Pedregon said. "Besides, it's way too early to even talk about the championship; we'll just go out this week and try to do what we've been doing."

Pedregon started his streak by winning the SummitRacing.com Nationals in Las Vegas on April 6. He followed that performance with a victory a week later in the O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park. Pedregon holds a 63-point lead over teammate Gary Densham and an 83-point edge over Whit Bazemore.

A test-and-tune session Friday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. will precede "Midnight Mayhem" for street-legal cars from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

On Saturday, the Junior Dragsters will compete from noon to 4 p.m. and the second bracket points race will be from 5:30 to 11 p.m.