BILL STEPHENS “IN THE GROOVE” 5/25/10

Robert is unstoppable!

His win in Topeka last weekend was his first ever at Heartland Park and he has now won three races in a row. He has never done that before and he is now only 49 points behind John for the standings lead. He slipped passed Ashley for the second spot and appears to be ready to go after John when racing resumes in Chicago and Route 66 Raceway next week.

This has been a phenomenal start to the year for JFR and to see John, Robert, and Ashley holding in the top four slots in the Full Throttle points is quite remarkable. Would you have guessed we’d see this kind of dominance this year in such a consistent manner? With all of the changes that were made to the team alignment since the end of 2009, it boggles the mind that JFR has looked near-invincible since the opening event of the season.

While the NHRA was racing in Topeka last weekend, I was in Indianapolis as part of the TV crew covering the Mecum Muscle Car Auction on HD Theater. It was the largest collector car auction of the year with over 1700 cars crossing the auction block over 5 days. We televised the action on Wednesday through Saturday and the number of absolutely first-rate muscle cars and high performance machines of all types was enormous.

What really made my heart palpitate was seeing several vintage A/FX. B/FX, and Super Stock cars go up for auction, including the outrageous 1965 Mercury Cyclone Factory Experimental campaigned by Hall of Famer Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick. Arnie himself was there all week to meet fans and talk about the good old days of factory drag racing. Arnie is surely best remembered for the many great Pontiac racers he competed in back in the 1960’s and many people may not remember that in 1965, he switched to the Mercury which rolled onto the auction block in absolutely immaculate condition.

I also saw two awesome 1963 Pontiac Tempest drag machines go to the block—one a sedan and one a station wagon—both powered by the legendary 421 cubic-inch Pontiac Super Duty engine. The two cars had been raced by a string of privateers over the years and both had received total restorations which made them very, very valuable indeed. Both cars sold for six-figure money and any drag racing fan would have given all they had to own either one.

With Memorial Day weekend off, the NHRA will get busy the following week in Chicago and we’ll all be watching to see if the JFR tidal wave for 2010 keeps rolling!