National Hot Rod Association

Head and Capps are both on the short list of drivers who have scored wins in both Top Fuel and Funny Car on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing tour, and both were winless all last year and in their last five finals. Capps last scored in St. Louis in mid-2007, Head at Memphis in 1997 (in Top Fuel). Head's last Funny Car win was at Brainerd, Minn., in 1985.

It was a disappointing conclusion to what had been a great weekend for Toyota drivers at the first Winternationals completed on a Tuesday since 1978. Head, one of the last of a dwindling breed of drivers versatile enough to serve as their own crew chief, wheeled the Ohio-based Head Racing Toyota to within a single round of victory, and Del Worsham got within a thousandth of a second of low e.t. at the wheel of the Al-Anabi/Alan Johnson Racing Toyota.

"I'm old," joked Head, who has been racing fuel cars for more than a quarter of a century. "I don't even want to drive this thing anymore. If I could find a good, young driver with a little money to keep this thing going, they could drive it. I got out here for this race and thought, do I have to crawl in this thing again?"

Yet age has never slowed Head, 60, and it didn't at this event. His reaction times in the early rounds not only were enough to keep him in the race – they were the reason he lasted so long.

In the quarterfinals, when every other driver had a reaction time in the .100s, Head shot off the starting line with a .054. He made the second-quickest run of eliminations to that point, 4.09, but 26-year-old Ashley Force-Hood was even quicker, with a 4.05. Her .137 reaction time left her behind the Head Racing Toyota from start to finish, but she almost advanced the same way Head had survived the previous round: by default, due to an opponent's boundary infraction. Just after crossing the finish line ahead of Force-Hood, Head brushed the wall, which would have automatically disqualified him had it happened before the stripe.

In the semifinals, Head put away veteran Gary Densham, who has been competing at the Winternationals since the mid-1970s and who announced that this event might be his last on tour. A round earlier, Densham had upset Worsham, who was coming off of the fastest run in 1,000-foot history (310.47 mph) in Sunday's opening round of eliminations.

Worsham nearly didn't make it to the line in time to face Densham in their quarterfinal matchup when his engine refused to fire. With the clock ticking down, Densham did his burnout, backed up, and pulled toward the line. At the last second, Worsham's engine came to life and he rushed through an abbreviated burnout while Densham, who could have forced the issue by rolling into the pre-stage beam, waited patiently. They left together, but Densham prevailed on the top end, 4.12 to 4.27.

TOYOTA FUNNNY CAR RESULTS, POMONA, CALIF.

JIM HEAD, Head Racing
R1 WIN (.068 sec) 6.653 sec/96.58 mph
R2 WIN (.054 sec) 4.095 sec/305.98 mph
R3 WIN (.114 sec) 4.108 sec/299.73 mph
R4 LOSS (.141 sec) no time recorded/no speed recorded

DEL WORSHAM, Al-Anabi/Alan Johnson Racing
R1 WIN (.113 sec) 4.193 sec/310.41 mph
R2 LOSS (.116 sec) 4.279 sec/no speed recorded

CRUZ PEDREGON, Advance Auto Parts
R1 LOSS (.072 sec) 4.618 sec/232.71 mph

JEFF AREND, DHL/Kalitta Motorsports
R1 LOSS (.092 sec) 4.736 sec/188.25 mph

In Top Fuel, Antron Brown raced his Toyota-supported Matco Tools dragster into the final, but narrowly lost out to Doug Kalitta in an ultra-close head to head. Brown stopped the clocks at 3.847sec, but Kalitta beat it by just 0.025sec.

Brown had been fast all weekend, taking the top spot in Saturday’s one and only qualifying round and posting the second quickest 1,000ft time in history – a 3.778sec, 312.78mph pass – in his semifinal win over Brandon Bernstein.

“This was a really awesome weekend for our Matco Tools crew,” said Brown, who leaves California second in the Top Fuel points. “You can’t complain when you go to the final round. To qualify No. 1 and run that awesome 3.77 and get to the final round, we couldn’t ask for much more. It was a great start to the season.”

The next race in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series is the Arizona Nationals in Phoenix, Feb, 20-22.