Robo Racer

Parker Avenue has been very good to Kevin McClelland. Parker Avenue is the official name for what is usually referred to as Pomona, the site of the NHRA Winternationals and World Finals. For Kevin, that particular 1,320-foot strip is more like his home. Not only did Kevin take everybody's money at the beginning of the season, besting a huge Super Gas field, but he came back at the season-ending World Finals and did it again.

Behind the wheel of his friend Tim Moore's 502ci, pump-gas-powered Brogie roadster, Kevin systemically eliminated the competition to take the final. And that wasn't easy. On the way to this win, he faced no less than the reigning Super Gas World Champ, the newly crowned '97 S/G World Champion, and several multiple national-event winners that were part of the 105 car field. This was no gimme.

Super Gas racing is hardly the easiest way to win a national event winner's trophy. While it may look easy, the fact is there are multiple factors that involve winning that all must be done as close to perfection as possible. Super Gas is just a quicker form of bracket racing. The dial-in is 9.90. Run quicker and you lose, run slower and there's a good chance you'll lose. You also have to win at the starting line with an excellent reaction time. React slowly and you'll be walkin' home.

With 105 first-round cars at 9:20 a.m. Friday, NHRA just pairs the cars by luck of the draw. After the first round, a ladder is constructed and the cars are paired by how close they were to a perfect 9.900 in the first round. The weather was a big factor in the first round, and Kevin faced Ed Sigmon, who has competed in various forms of Super Gas racing since the early '80s. Kevin took a stab at the delay box and the throttle stop and won with a double breakout 9.833 to Sigmon's deeper 9.820. Not only was this way under the dial-in, but Kevin's light was a slow-for-him 0.435. It would be his worst light of the weekend. "It was so close," Kevin said, "that I never lifted." This 0.067-second-under run put Kevin in the 52nd qualifying spot, giving him the tough side of the ladder for the rest of the race.

The second round was also held on Friday. In the dark after 6:00 p.m., Kevin cut a killer 0.407 light against Greg Ventura's Camaro and took the win with a 9.909, jumping on the brakes in the lights to 136.98 mph from the previous run's WOT 144-mph blast. Ventura should have won this race since he cut a perfect 0.400 light, but he broke out with a 9.884 at 148.53 mph. "He went by me at the first mph light, and I just let him go," Kevin recalled. "I knew I cut a decent light, so I let him take the win and figured he'd break out." Saturday saw only one round of competition at an early 8:45 a.m. Kevin had the car set up fast intentionally so he could use it to his advantage at the other end to lift before the finish, if necessary. Kevin was up against Dwight Strickland's '78 Pinto, which had pulled off a perfect 0.400 light in the first round. Kevin reacted with a 0.404 light to Strickland's 0.420 and let Strickland go by him at the other end. Strickland broke out with a way-under 9.823 at 137.48, while Kevin broke out the least with a 9.892 at 131.11. Said Kevin, "He told me, 'Nice dump job. I'm gonna have to have my brakes checked after that one!'"

Bracket racing is all about knowing what's going on at both ends of the racetrack, as well as setting up the car. Kevin rarely dials the car in to run exactly 9.90. Generally he'll set the car to run 0.002 second quicker (9.898). Kevin has learned that "you have to own one end of the track or the other. If you own both, it's very hard to be beat. If you kill the Tree and the guy gets around you, then you know he's running too quick. The trick is to judge how much to lift to not break out by that 0.002 second."

Each round actually starts in the pits where he sets up the throttle-stop time in the delay box (see the "Super Gas Hardware" sidebar). Once he sets the timer and pulls into the staging area, Kevin adjusts the delay for the trans brake based on the light conditions. For example, in the race against Strickland, the ambient light was full of glare, making it difficult to see the Tree. Kevin took all the delay (usually 0.005 second for a Pro Tree) out of the box. His reaction time was a 0.404. By the next round, the light had softened, so Kevin put delay back into the box to prevent redlighting, pulling a 0.412 light against Vineyard.

By round five, he faced Aaron Marcum, a formidable driver who finished Third in Super Gas points in 1996. "This was the only race all weekend where I took the win light," Kevin said. "Everybody usually goes conservative after the fourth or fifth round at national races. I've seen it many times. Rarely does anyone try and cut tight lights, usually 0.420 to 0.430 lights. I plan on being in the four-ohs. That's my advantage." Marcum cut a 0.432 light to Kevin's 0.416. Kevin knew he had the advantage, so he only back-pedalled slightly to run his 9.928 to Marcum's slower 9.938.

The semifinal run staged Kevin against Mike Ferderer, the '93 Super Gas World Champion and winner of the '97 Pennzoil Nationals in Memphis, Tennessee. Again with a patented 0.409 light, Kevin left on Ferderer winning with a 9.915 to his opponent's 9.920. That took Kevin and the bright orange roadster to the final round against the new '97 NHRA Super Gas World Champion Mike Henderson.

The light was fading as the final round began. Kevin adjusted his trans-brake delay in the box and again went through the same burnout and staging procedure that had brought him this far. The Tree flashed and Henderson cut a great 0.416 light running a slightly slow 9.938 at a blazing 149.35 mph. But Kevin's light was even better with yet another zero right after the four--a 0.406 running a closer 9.912 with an on-the-brakes 132.74 mph.

This account makes it sound as if winning is easy. Kevin has been seriously bracket racing only since 1988. But he hits the practice Tree all the time to stay sharp, and he hones his skills with his '57 Chevy when he's not driving the roadster. All this experience helps win races; there's nothing better than an average reaction time for seven rounds of racing than a 0.411 light. If you drop the best and worst lights, his average drops to a killer 0.409. Don't think that's a fluke. In winning the Winternationals earlier in the year, Kevin's average reaction time for seven rounds was a slightly slower 0.417! With consistent reaction times like these, it's easy to see why we called this story "Robo Racer." He's a machine on the lights. CHP