MORRISON, Colo. — When John Force red-lit against Jack Beckman in Sunday’s semifinals of the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway, he might not have looked all that strong in his Castrol Ford Mustang Funny Car.
However, Force, who entered this race in 13th place in the standings but has been as far down the list as 20th (at Las Vegas, where he DNQd, and after the following race at Atlanta), is climbing through the ranks.
His first-round victory over Gary Scelzi put him in 10th place, just 36 points out of the desirable No. 8 position. Only the top eight at the end of next month’s Reading, Pa., race will be eligible to compete for the series championship. He improved to ninth place with the second-round victory over Tony Pedregon.
As for the red light, the struggling 14-time champion Force said he “just got jacked up. My fault.”
 
• Clay Millican lost traction early in the first round, giving opponent Tony Schumacher the easy victory and setting up a rematch from last year’s final round here. This time, Schumacher and his U.S. Army dragster beat J.R. Todd with a 4.840-second elapsed time at 310.55 miles per hour to Todd’s 5.267/230.72 in the Skull Shine dragster. Asked if the round-win made up for his defeat in last year’s final round, Schumacher said, “If we get to this year’s final and win, that’ll make up for last year’s final.”
 
• Morgan Lucas said his team is nothing if not bold. “God hates a coward,” he said. “And we’re trying not to be cowards. We’re testing things.” Indeed his Richard Hogan-led crew will have his red, white, and blue Lucas Oil Dragster looking radically different in the near future. For instance, the red and blue will be gone by next week’s race at Seattle. “We’re going to put a new mag (magnesium) body on the car, so don’t expect any paint,” Lucas said. They’re tinkering with other technical aspects of the car. “We’re going to try a Gibson injector later this year. Hopefully it’ll make my life better,” he said.
 
• Melanie Troxel, who had a banner year with Richard Hogan as her crew chief in 2006, had to forfeit him to Morgan Lucas’s team a few weeks ago. Although the change has seemed to perk up morale and momentum on Lucas’s side, it hasn’t hurt Troxel, either.
Car owner Forrest Lucas said he is “more than very pleased with the Melanie Troxel team” and the jobs her new crew chief, John Stewart, and car chief, Lance Larsen, are doing. And few could argue with that, considering Troxel waited out a rain delay Friday night and stormed back with a 4.610-second elapsed time at 322.42 mph in the Vietnam Veterans/POW MIA dragster to overtake Rod Fuller as the provisional top qualifier — and maintained her lead Saturday.
“We switched crew chiefs to fix (son Morgan’s) car and ended up improving hers,” Forrest Lucas said. “Being No. 1, I didn’t expect that up here. Everyone is always pessimistic about coming to Denver, and I was too. To come out with the No. 1 qualifier blows me away. I knew we had it in there, but the guys found it. It tickles me to death to know they can find it. I’ve been kind of bummed with our performance here lately. It’s certainly good to have something like this come out of it.”
Troxel said her season “has been kind of bizarre. We had a runner-up finish (at Phoenix) and a victory (at St. Louis). So, it seems like a better year than it is.” She said she and her team have been fortunate enough to break into the top-eight group that is eligible for the championship chase by the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis. She said that naturally she would like to move up in that order, just to enjoy some breathing room. “We're finally heading in the right direction.”
 
• Tony Bartone reassured everybody late Friday night after his frightening skid into the sand pit and rollover in the Lucas Oil Chevy Monte Carlo. And he said he found out first-hand why his car contains the safety restraints he was complaining about earlier in the day.
“I’m fine and nothing hurts,” he said. “My wrist is a little banged up and sore, but that’s it. Other than that, my hat’s off to NHRA. The safety inside the car is incredible. My body went through something that looked wild when you see it on TV. We were lucky and away we go.”
Bartone did hang onto the No. 9 position with an elapsed time of 5.058 seconds and a 290.94-mph speed. “We made a halfway decent pass,” he said. “The car went to about 1,100 feet, and people at the far end told me they saw red flames coming out of it, meaning the motor was going away. For nighttime qualifying, my job was to drive it to the finish line.
“I went to hit the parachute handles and wound up bending them in my hand,” Bartone said. “I went up to hit them again and they bent more. At that time I knew I was in trouble, so I went to the brakes. The car slid quite a ways and then turned sideways before it went into the sand trap and rolled a couple of times.”