Photo Courtesy of Bob Johnson
Guess who had more national event wins than anyone in Top Alcohol Funny Car last year? It's not Frank Manzo, who won the NHRA championship for the sixth straight year, like you'd probably think; it's rival Tony Bartone, who pushed Manzo harder than he's been pushed in years.
In 10 starts at the wheel of Rick Jackson's Center Pointe Collision Mustang, Bartone reached the final round seven times and won six. "For the first three-quarters of the season, we were number 1," says Bartone, who, as late as September, was further ahead of the third-place driver than the third-place driver was to the guy in 29th place. "You can't look at that as anything but positive."
Unless you're Bartone. Then you can wonder why a car that racked up a 31-4 win-loss record in national competition, which, theoretically, should be harder than divisional racing, won just twice in seven divisional starts. "We were weak, to say the least, at the divisional level," Bartone says. "What are you going to do? It was Murphy's Law all year."
It continued last weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Bartone was upset in the final by Top Alcohol Funny Car rookie Annie Whiteley. Bartone had low e.t. of both qualifying sessions and every round of eliminations until the final, where he appears to have lost for a reason that he'd never lost a race before: because of the wind.
"I know how that sounds," Bartone says. "If somebody ever told me that, I'd probably look at him kind of funny, but the wind was blowing so hard that it really did have a lot to do with the car getting out of the groove. On paper, we had the car to beat all weekend, but the wind was blowing across the track from right to left in the final, I was in the left lane, and the car left with the front end in the air. The gusts were so strong that they pushed the car a foot and a half to the left, the left rear tire got out of the groove, the car got a little stupid, and Annie Whiteley spanked our asses."
It's one of the few times in recent years that the 33-time national event champ hasn't prevailed in Vegas. Why? "Two words come to mind: 'Steve' and 'Boggs,' " Bartone says of his longtime crew chief. I've been doing this for 20 years, and since 1993 or 1994, it's been with Steve. When you've got him, you're always going to have one of the fastest ponies in the park. He understands the totality of it. He knows the engines, knows the tracks, knows the chassis, knows the setups, and knows how to make power when you get into a little altitude, like at Vegas."
Bartone swept both national events at the desert track last year. He also won the season opener in Pomona, both Texas races, and Chicago. His only runner-up in seven final round appearances came in Topeka, where he lost to his nemesis, Manzo. "You know what it takes to beat Frank Manzo?" asks Bartone, who won the 1996 championship and finished second to Manzo in 1997, 1999, and 2011. "I'll tell you: nothing short of perfection. Frank builds the engines, tunes them, and drives the car, and, obviously, he does it very well."
Bartone is one of the few drivers in history to hold his own against Manzo, going 10-10 in 20 head-to-head battles over their careers - the exact same record that Manzo had against Pat Austin. He also has three national event victories in Top Alcohol Dragster (all in 2003) and one in nitro Funny Car, over Ron Capps in Seattle in 2008, his last of five years driving for "Big Jim" Dunn.
"It doesn't matter if I'm going 260 mph, 270, or 320-plus, I love racing," says Bartone, 55, who has lost about 50 pounds in the last few years and is in the best shape of his life. "I don't know how long I'm going to do this, but I can tell you that there's no end in sight. I still love it, and I'm content where I'm at. Rick, Boggs, and the guys on Rick's team are the best group I've ever raced with. It just works. I still love the power, love the cars, and love driving fast. I got goose bumps when I just said that - no [kidding]."
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