Scott Kalitta, Tommy Johnson Jr., and Dave Connolly all scored big wins at the NHRA season-opening 45th annual CARQUEST Auto Parts Winternationals to put a fresh look on the POWERade rankings. Even the runner-ups at this race - Doug Herbert, Phil Burkart Jr., and Warren Johnson - prove the races for this year's championships are as wide open as they've ever been.
Kalitta and Connolly had the most impressive trophy runs on the day, with Kalitta running four consecutive 4.4-second quarter miles. For his part, Connolly never ran slower than 6.711 seconds, proving he's ready to improve on his third-place finish in '04. T.J. needed a little luck early to score his first win in four years and give team owner Don "the Snake" Prudhomme his 99th victory overall. Sharing the winner’s circle spotlight with Prudhomme were two other legends of the sport, Connie Kalitta, owner of Scott’s dragster, and Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, engine builder for Connolly’s Chevy.
 Scott KalittaWith all three team cars running so strong, it seemed inevitable that a Kalitta Motorsports machine would reach the money round. Early on, it looked like Dave Grubnic would be the favored son, especially after he posted a career-best 4.448 in the opening stanza. But Kalitta's consistency ultimately paid off and he scored his 17th NHRA victory.
The final was relatively easy for Kalitta after Herbert's engine let go just past half-track. He might have been tough to catch any way, posting a 4.487 at 328.46 mph to Herbert's labored 5.371 at 181.84 mph.
"I've never won here so this is special," Kalitta said. "Dad [crew chief Connie Kalitta] won way back in 1967 so it's been a long time since we've celebrated here. It's a great time and I'm having fun. If we weren't enjoying ourselves, we wouldn't do it. We certainly don't have to race. We want to race. And when you race, you want to win.
"We've done a lot of testing with three cars. People say we're crazy to run three cars and yeah, maybe we are. But it's definitely an advantage because we're three cars on one team. We all share the data and we have three times as much of it as anyone else in the class. It took some time for us to get it to work to our advantage but we're there now."
With his car's namesake and sponsor rooting him on in person, Kalitta pushed his Jesse James/Mac Tools rail past Scott Weis, two-time champ Larry Dixon, and Grubnic to get to his 34th career final round.
Snap-on Tools pro Herbert marched from the bottom of the grid past David Baca, reigning series champion Tony Schumacher, and red-hot Morgan Lucas, who had raced to the last two final rounds at the close of the 2004 season. The win over Lucas was fortuitous as Herbert blew up before the finish line. However, Lucas had encountered trouble much earlier in his run and Herbert still won by a wide margin.
Schumacher double-stepped the accelerator at the start of his race against Herbert and couldn't stop the progression of the clutch timers, which ultimately left him in a cloud of tire smoke. Before Herbert showed him the door, the races' No. 1 qualifier did manage to back-up his 334.65 mph top speed from qualifying to set a new national record. "Given us getting beat, that record doesn't mean very much right now," Schumacher said.
 Tommy Johnson Jr.An emotional Johnson shook off a 89-race hiatus from the winner's circle with a quick 4.741-second, 327.59-mph victory over Burkart, who smoked his tires early in the run and drifted through the lights with a 7.069 at 123.34 mph. The win was the sixth for Johnson and the 50th for Prudhomme as a team owner. Prudhomme had 49 wins himself in Top Fuel and Funny Car.
"It's been a long time," Johnson said, as he fought back tears. "Snake won this race 40 years ago and now we've won it again for him. This one is for my team, my crew. These guys could have left for other teams but they all stuck together and stayed behind me, thank God. The last two years have been tough but no one gave up. That means so much to me.”
Johnson certainly used up the majority of his race day luck in the first round when he surrendered the win to Pedregon after smoking his tires only to watch Pedregon hit the top-end timing cone and disqualify himself. Johnson and his Skoal Racing Monte Carlo then recorded a pair of 4.761s in big wins over Bob Gilbertson and Whit Bazemore to carry lane choice into the money round. This was the 17th final of Johnson's career.
"Almost every win comes with a gift and we got ours in the first round,” he said. “The car shook and I saw Frank [Pedregon] just blazing away. Then he started creeping left and I was thinking 'Come on, come on, come on,' then boom, he hit the timing cone and I was like, 'Alright!' I got on the radio and said, 'Hey guys, we won.' No one could believe it."
Prudhomme, who scored his first win at this race in 1965, was beaming when he entered the Shav Glick Media Center.
"I am so proud of these guys it's hard to describe," he said. 'We knew things would turn but sometimes it seems like it takes forever. This was for the guys. That's why I didn't go down to the top end. This one wasn't about me; it was about that group of guys."
A relative sleeper at the start of the day, No. 11 qualifier Burkart took out heavyweight Gary Scelzi with a huge .096 to .154-second reaction time advantage to win with a 4.769 to Scelzi's 4.717. It turned out to be Sunday's closest race. He then put away his Checker, Schuck's, Kragen teammate and boss Del Worsham with a 4.73 before taking a 4.78-second win over a red-lighting Cruz Pedregon.
 David ConnollyStarting off his year-long "School's Out" Retirement Tour, W.J. was certainly the sentimental favorite heading into the final round, but someone forgot to tell Connolly. The 22-year-old surrendered a small, five-thousandths-of-a-second starting line advantage to Johnson but had that time made up by the 60-foot timer. From there, he never looked back, zooming away to a 6.711-second win at 204.98 mph. W.J. eventually crossed in 6.802 second at 203.31 mph.
Connolly's Bullet Motorsports Chevrolet Cavalier was rock steady all day, posting a 6.710 against Jeg Coughlin, a 6.701 opposite Allen Johnson, and a 6.708 versus Ron Krisher in the semi’s. Connolly now has four wins in nine final rounds in just 37 Pro starts.
"You look at the ladder at the start of the day and you see 16 guys who could easily be standing right here [in the winner's circle]," Connolly said. "Today was just my day. The car was perfect. It went dead straight every pass. My job was easy. I might have gotten a jump on the rest of the guys but you just know it's going to be a long year the way everyone qualified here. But right now we're No. 1 and we'll take it. I've never been No. 1 in the points before. It's a great start.
"I didn't really get nervous racing Warren. The guy's done a lot for the class and you have to respect his accomplishments. I don't know if I've ever even raced him before. Certainly to beat him in the finals is a huge deal for anyone."
Johnson used a couple of holeshot wins to get his GM Performance Parts Pontiac Grand Am to his 144th career final round. The big one came against his son Kurt in the semifinals, where his .008-second start against K.J.'s sluggish .055 launch, which allowed his 6.736 to prevail over Kurt's 6.706. He also got the jump on quarterfinal foe Larry Morgan. W.J. started the day with a win over Ben Watson.
