Manzo Back in 1st Place, Booher Wins First National

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photos courtesy of David Smith

At the Carolina Nationals in Charlotte, Frank Manzo won for the third time in a row and the 103rd time in his unparalleled career to shoot from sixth to first in the national Top Alcohol Funny Car standings, and in Top Alcohol Dragster Brandon Booher won his first national event to keep alive a longshot bid for the national championship.

Manzo, who uncharacteristically stumbled through his first three national event starts this season without reaching a final, backed up his Brainerd and Indy victories with a dominant performance in Charlotte, qualifying No. 1 and running low e.t. of every round, including a final-round 5.59 against rival Mickey Ferro's 5.70.

Manzo, who red-lighted by just thousandths of a second on his most recent night run, in the final round of the New England Dragway regional in July, sat on the line in the first round for a .352 reaction time against John Headley, who was appearing in his first race after suffering a mild heart attack last month. "I've never seen the green light before," Manzo said. "Under the lights like that, I have to say it really was a beautiful shade of green." Following a 5.51 on a second-round single, he beat fourth-ranked Shane Westerfield, who red-lighted, in the semi's, and Ferro in the final.

Ferro, whose car now is tuned by Steve Boggs and who is sharing the car with pal Tony Bartone, topped Bill Naves with a 5.53 in the first round and Todd Veney with a 5.54 in the second round and singled in the semifinals. A wiring glitch in the final kept all his timers from working and slowed him from the mid-5.50s he'd been running to a 5.74. "I've still never beaten Frank in a national event final," said Ferro, who was competing for the first time since May, "but it's an honor just to race him. I hope I get one more chance at Maple Grove."

"It's unbelievable how this whole thing's turned around," said Manzo, who was knocked out in the quarterfinals at Gainesville and the Charlotte spring race and in the semi's at Norwalk. "The beginning of the year was tough, but now the more I try to slow the car down, the faster it goes. I'm not sure if we're going to run for the championship or not [yeah, right] or if we're going to Dallas [he entered the race yesterday], but this is definitely the last year I'll be in the car."

Booher also is making a last-minute schedule change and heading straight for Dallas from Charlotte after winning his first national event title with a 5.35 to 5.39 final-round decision over Gatornationals winner Rich McPhillips. "To me, the biggest thing about this is the performance of a converter car," he said. "People laughed at me when we started with this thing, and look how much success we've had this year."

Booher won three consecutive regional events this summer – Chicago, Cordova, and Columbus – and holds a commanding lead in the North Central Top Alcohol Dragster standings. A national title, unthinkable just a few months ago for a driver who until then had never won a Top Alcohol Dragster race, now is a possibility.

Booher qualified a strong fourth with a 5.37 and ran nothing but 5.30s in eliminations, including a 5.32 at 275.39 mph – the third-fastest speed ever recorded by a blown-alcohol car behind only national points leader Jim Whiteley's 277 and 276 last season. He took out Karen Stalba in the first round with a 5.35, four-time Charlotte runner-up Ken Perry with the 5.32 in round two, and No. 1 qualifier Jeff Veale in the semi's with a 5.33. His reaction times weren't outstanding, but that was by design.

"I've had a couple of -.00 red-lights this year, and I couldn't afford to push it, the way the car was running – especially in the first round, which was after dark on Saturday," said Booher, who is regularly in the .020s. "I made sure the light was on that time and only really pushed it in the semi's against Veale because he'd been cutting .030 lights and running 5.30s."

           

Like Manzo, Booher, now a career-high fifth in the national standings, will be in Dallas this weekend. "The crew is making a lot of sacrifices to be there, and we really don't have the money to do this, but you've got to go for it when your car's running like this," he said. "And if we win Dallas and Reading, who knows? Maybe we'll head west at the end of the year and really take a shot at this thing."