{"id":61217,"date":"2019-04-05T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=61217"},"modified":"2019-04-05T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T13:15:00","slug":"las-vegas-four-wides-on-tap-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/las-vegas-four-wides-on-tap-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Las Vegas Four Wides on Tap This Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Las
Steve Torrence. Image courtesy NHRA Media.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After two weeks\u2019 lag from the extraordinary, celebratory 50th annual Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., NHRA\u2019s Mello Yello troops have traveled cross-country to take part in the second annual DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals on The Strip as Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

The Sin City track, superbly built and maintained, showed its mettle as the second drag racing track – after fellow Speedway Motorsports-owned zMAX Dragway – to build and produce four-wide competition for the straight-line set last year. In 2018, it was eventual season-long champion Steve Torrence\u2019s dragster (Top Fuel) and J.R. Todd\u2019s Toyota Camry Funny Car taking home the Wally winner\u2019s trophies; Vincent Nobile, who no longer races in Pro Stock, earned the win in that category.<\/p>\n

Racing four-wide is an acknowledged change from competing against a single car or motorcycle. While quite a few drivers scheduled to compete this weekend have winning records on the track, only three of them have four-wide wins on the track across the street from Nellis Air Force base. For instance, three-time Top Fuel champ Antron Brown, who\u2019s won two of the last three spring races at Las Vegas, knows he can run well there, but he made the semifinals last year, losing to Torrence and Schumacher.<\/p>\n

John Force is champing at the bit to earn his 150th career Funny Car victory and hopes, with a PEAK\/BlueDef wrap on his Chevrolet Camaro SS, that the veteran can bring home that elusive trophy. NHRA\u2019s most successful racer has two spring victories at Las Vegas to go with his two No. 1 qualifier spots. Force won NHRA\u2019s first four-wide race in 2010 at zMAX outside Charlotte. Daughter Brittany Force\u2019s dragster is primed for success here; she\u2019s looking to become the first woman to win at both zMAX and The Strip this Sunday.<\/p>\n

The top Fuel entry is a bit skimpy, with only 15 cars on the list as of Thursday. It remains to be seen if Steve Torrence can regain his mojo from 2018, the magical season of his first championship run; with dad Billy along for the ride at this track, can the senior Torrence earn a second Wally this year? Rookie Austin Prock gains his first four-wide experience with John Force Racing; it\u2019s possible this is also Cameron Ferre\u2019s first such race in a four-wide situation, at least on a national scale.<\/p>\n

There are 17 entries in Funny Car and the drivers to watch are last year\u2019s winner\/champion Todd, along with Robert Hight of John Force Racing. This weekend marks Don Schumacher Racing driver Tommy Johnson Jr.\u2019s 450th national event entry, and the driver\/candle maker will celebrate a birthday on Saturday, hopefully with a No. 1 qualifier in his 2019 Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat – and not another on-track explosion. DSR\u2019s Jack Beckman owns both ends of the track record here, achieved under side-by-side competition in the fall 2017 race.<\/p>\n

With no reigning event champion in Pro Stock , the 16-car field is wide open. As has been the case in the first three races of the year, there are 14 Chevrolet Camaro entries, one Dodge Dart (Alan Prusiensky) and Jeff Isbell in a 2019 Mustang. It\u2019s hard to bet against either Summit Racing or Elite Motorsports in this mash-up, even though Summit\u2019s Greg Anderson is in a recognizable slump.<\/p>\n

Despite his eight wins at team owner Ken Black\u2019s home track, Anderson has struggled in the beginning 2019 races. Stuck on 91 career Pro Stock wins, four-time champ Anderson realizes his success at the Las Vegas track this weekend would be a major boost for his side of the Summit Racing pits. Thus far in the season, teammate Bo Butner has carried the team to the Winner\u2019s Circle twice, at Pomona and Gainesville. Anderson is hoping to change those stats.<\/p>\n

\"Las
Andrew Hines. Image courtesy NHRA Media.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Andrew Hines is hoping to turn his Gators Pro Stock Motorcycle victory into a win at this weekend\u2019s race, but the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Street Rod motorcycle will have to contend with 18 other hungry riders and an added 15 pounds on his, Angelle Sampey\u2019s and Eddie Krawiec\u2019s motorcycles and on the eight EBR\/Buell racers. Because of these changes it\u2019s hard to figure out who will get it right – we\u2019ll just have to wait and see.<\/p>\n

No need to bring rain gear this weekend, as predictions call for temps starting in the mid-70s on Friday and escalating to mid-80s by Sunday. With low humidity for all three days, the onus will be on crew chiefs to adjust for increasing temps and their effects on both blower-enhanced and naturally aspirated internal combustion engines. It\u2019s a clean slate when they all take to the track on Friday for the first set of qualifying opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NHRA\u2019s Mello Yello troops have traveled cross-country to take part in the second annual DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals on The Strip as Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":61218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5614,2,2273,41,7,1632],"class_list":["post-61217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-drag-racing","tag-four-wide","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/003-SteveTorrence-Saturday-PhoenixTest-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-fVn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61220,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61217\/revisions\/61220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}