Losing in the first round is a drag

Monday, Oct. 24, 2005 | 8:07 a.m.

Winners:

Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel)

Ron Capps (Funny Car)

Kurt Johnson (Pro Stock)

Chip Ellis (Pro Stock Motorcycle)

Crunch time: Schumacher earned nearly $200,000 for winning Saturday's Budweiser Shootout all-star event and Sunday's Top Fuel final.

Rod Fuller sat in the lounge of his team's transporter and forced a smile.

Although the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals had begun less than an hour earlier, Fuller already had traded his fire suit for street clothes after losing in the first round of eliminations Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"It's a shocker, it definitely is," Fuller, a Las Vegas resident, said of his loss to John Smith. "I don't even know what to do for the rest of the day because I was planning on racing all day.

"I had a lot of family and guests that hadn't even got here yet, and it's over before they even got here."

Fuller, a Las Vegas resident, had about 50 family members, friends and business associates coming to the track to watch him race, and he hadn't planned to do the meet-and-greet until late in the afternoon.

After qualifying fifth for Sunday's eliminations, Fuller was confident that he and his David Powers Motorsports team would race well into the bracket Sunday afternoon.

10. "If horse racing is the Sport of Kings, does that make drag racing the Sport of Queens?"

9. "Is that nitromethane I smell or did the Brut car just drop a valve?"

8. "How much for that keg?"

7. "That was the best burnout I've seen since Tommy Chong."

6. "Excuse me, sir, who won the Top Fuel semifinal? I blinked and missed it."

5. "Honey, I'll be home in 4.587 seconds." (Funny car driver Tommy Johnson Jr., to his wife, Top Fuel driver Melanie Troxel.)

4. "That parachute looks just like MC Hammer's pants."

3. "That was the best reaction time since Mayor Daley asked a Chicago alderman to get him a cup of coffee."

2. "Think anybody will get upset if I enter my Pacer in the Funny Car division?"

1. "Which one is Danica?"

"The hardest part is that it's your hometown," Fuller said. "I tried harder this race, and I think everybody put a little extra effort in this race ... things were looking really good for us."

Fuller blamed the loss on his determination to do well in his hometown race -- not on questionable track conditions that bedeviled several high-profile Top Fuel and Funny Car teams in the first round.

"It's on me; I shouldn't have done what I did," Fuller said. "I was geared up too much and trying too hard.

"I definitely feel terrible about it because these guys (on the team) work hard on the car, and for me to go out there and make a mistake and lose first round is really hard for me to take."

Fuller, in his first full season on the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series circuit, is 10th in Top Fuel points despite racing in only 13 of the 22 national events. He earned his first career victory in August and has since put a program together with team owner David Powers that will have him competing full time next season.

Ever the optimist, Fuller tried to remain positive and even cracked a joke in the wake of his early exit.

"I kind of feel like my Arkansas Razorbacks when they got beat 70 to 17 (at USC)," said Fuller, who was an All-American soccer player at Arkansas. "On the bright side, we're making strides, and all good race teams have their little hitch in the road, and we had ours today.

"The other positive side is that I met Oscar Goodman this morning, and he said he was proud of me for representing the city well and that means a lot to me. It was cool that he knew who I was."

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Brian Hilderbrand can be reached at 259-4089 or at bh@lasvegassun.com.