Just to be in Southern California — home of Hollywood, Disneyland and the Tournament of Roses Parade — was magical enough for former NHRA Pro Stock standout Allen Johnson.
The hills of faraway east Tennessee were his home, but to stand on the very land where orange groves once blanketed the landscape, feeling a balmy breeze in the wintertime, and get to race his beloved hot rod was beyond breathtaking.
“The first memory I have of the event is looking up the track and seeing the snow-covered mountains, while you’ve got on a short-sleeve shirt. To a Tennessee boy, a country boy, that was pretty awesome,” Johnson said.
Opening the season with the Winternationals in Pomona, Calif., became an NHRA tradition in 1961 when Stock Eliminator winner “Dyno Don” Nicholson’s victory came with a gift certificate for a color-TV set and trophies were designed by model-kit company AMT.
Pomona was where the NHRA season always began – until 2021, when lingering restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic forced the sanctioning body to break with tradition and start the Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule with the Amalie Oil Gatornationals at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway.
Last year, NHRA drag racing was back in its familiar orbit, starting and ending the campaign at In-N-Out Burger Pomona (Calif.) Dragstrip.
However, Pomona’s return to the top of the series schedule was short-lived as Gainesville Raceway will kick off the 2023 campaign March 9-12 — a month later than its time-honored timeline — primarily for economic reasons.
The sanctioning body has been working with the Indianapolis-centric majority of race teams to reduce costs. And this year’s lineup of events to start the season (Gainesville, Phoenix, Pomona and Las Vegas) makes more sense than starting with preseason testing in Arizona, then beginning the season with races in California and Arizona, crisscrossing the country to Florida, only to slingshot back to Las Vegas and back east again to North Carolina’s zMAX Dragway.
Top Fuel racer Tony Schumacher said, “Gas prices were getting high and everyone said, ‘Man, we’re running these semis across the country. Can we start at a (more sensible, convenient location)? Just look at a map. Instead of bouncing back and forth, what’s a better (solution)?’ I think NHRA said, ‘We need to save some costs for these people.’
“We appreciate it,” Schumacher said. “It’s a lot of money moving down the road.”
Travel expenses dominate the budget. Schumacher vouched for that, singling out hotel fares as one of the biggest concerns: “Putting nine guys in hotel rooms — and they’re not putting nine guys in hotel rooms. They’re putting them in hotel rooms in a hotel that knows there’s a race coming so it’s jacked their prices up five times (the normal rate).”
Rising airfares and rental-car rates, as well as the price of food, add to the price tag of travel.
The timing and location of the season opener offers other advantages, according to the racers.
“We can test there (at Gainesville). We can’t test at Pomona,” said Schumacher, driver of the JCM Racing Top Fuel dragster, alluding to the noise curfews in place at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.
Past preseason testing sessions, organized by the Professional Racers Organization, the advocate for drag-racing team owners and drivers, have been at Arizona’s Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park the week before the Pomona opener.
Schumacher said past test sessions haven’t prepared teams properly for the Winternationals.
“You go the next week to a completely different place with a completely different starting line,” Schumacher said. “This year, most of us will be testing at Gainesville the week before (the race).”