Yes, Hillary Will….Win in Topeka
Written by Sheila Scarborough · June 2, 2008
It was an emotional day for a lot of teams and fans at the O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas.
At long last, it was Hillary Will’s turn to hoist a Wally for her first win in Top Fuel, after beating a tire-hazing Larry Dixon (the low qualifier) in the final with a 4.744 at 304.53. Her last final round was in 2006 at Memphis; thanks to her consistent record in qualifying for almost every race, she is now 4th in the points standings.
“I’m thankful for all the women drivers who’ve paved the way and shown that women can drive a race car and drive a race car well,” said Will. “I’m proud of Melanie [Troxel], and I’m proud of Ashley [Force], and I’m proud of other women in motorsports. Honestly, we just want to be racers. I do hope that other women who want to succeed in male-dominated fields, whether it be politics or business, can see what I do and I hope that inspires them because it’s not only in racing where women can succeed in a male-dominated field.
“There’s so many emotions for me right now because there were times when I thought, ‘I can’t do this. Maybe I shouldn’t be racing. Maybe I don’t belong in this fuel car,’ but this is what I love to do, and through everything, you can just never, never, never give up. My team never gave up on me. I still have a lot of the guys working on the team that I did when we started, and they never gave up on me. Our team owner, Ken Black, has been nothing but supportive. I’m thankful that everybody just stood by me.”
The brainy Will holds a magna cum laude Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, but she finds that the drag strip out-thrills an Excel spreadsheet any day.
Excitement was the order of the day in Funny Car, as the (ever-excitable) John Force punched his way back from a near-fatal accident last fall to beat points leader Tim Wilkerson for his first win since being choppered off of the drag strip to a hospital in Dallas during the 2007 Fall Nationals.
He and his Austin Coil-led team struggled with an engine swap and warmup problems, but ultimate success moved him to 3rd in points behind Wilkerson and daughter Ashley Force (he beat her in the first round.)
“This is my best race win, here in
“We swapped motors in the pits after the semifinals, and then we fired it up again and it backfired, we fired it up again and it backfired, we changed the mags and fired it up again and it backfired. The cam was wrong in it, the timers were all screwed up, and I was telling the guys, ‘You go to work, and I’m starting to pray to Eric [Medlen],’ because that’s what you’ve got to do. Eric Medlen gets my heart right.”
Force later carried his Wally up into the stands to greet fans, at one point doing an unintended semi-flip over a fence that surely sent his rehab doctors into spasms.
Pro Stock is not known for wrecks, but fans and teams were still talking about a big one this weekend — Kenny Koretsky plowed his nearly-new Nitro Fish GXP into the wall during Saturday qualifications and flipped onto his roof, doing a NASCAR-style upside-down slide to the end of the track. Fortunately, he was unhurt, but the car needs some work before it can race again, probably at Englishtown.
Many big names struggled this weekend — Warren Johnson, Jason Line and Greg Anderson were all out in the first round.
Larry Morgan and Ron Krisher faced each other in the Pro Stock finals for the first time (they’ve each won two times in previous matchups) but today it was Krisher all the way.
“I can’t describe the emotions I went through today,” said Krisher. “We’ve won here in
“I lost confidence in my driving, but I got it back. I got my driving back and more confidence in my driving, and that’s what I needed. We drove good today; nobody beat us up front there. We took every round, and it had a lot to do with Tommy [Utt] and a lot of guys on this team. They’ve got to get this thing ready to go in 45 minutes every time, and there can’t be any mistakes, and they don’t make any.”
Continuing in the Midwest summer heat, the next race is the Route 66 Nationals near Chicago, IL June 6-8.
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.