PETERSBURG, Va. — At this time last year, the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac GTOs of Jason Line and Greg Anderson stole the National Hot Rod Ass’n Pro Stock show at Virginia Motorsports Park.
 Anderson recorded the Pro Stock class’s first 6.5-second pass, and Line set the national elapsed-time record with a 6.558-second run, posted top speed of the meet (209.75), and won the race en route to the series championship. That gave Line his first title and the team its fourth straight.
This year, Line’s hopes of a repeat championship fizzled with a first-round loss to Max Naylor, while Anderson’s car suddenly quit on him at about half-track in the opening round because an ignition wire popped loose.
Anderson already had clinched a berth in the Final Four, but Line said he was especially disappointed because he might have had a shot at it with Allen Johnson’s opening-round defeat. That, coupled with Jeg Coughlin’s first-round victory, knocked him out of contention.
“I’m a little numb and definitely disappointed at the early loss,” Line said. “We thought that our Summit Racing Pontiac could run with these guys, but today we came out with the short straw. We’ll go on to Las Vegas and Pomona and try to help Greg win his fourth championship.”

 • Funny Car contender Robert Hight apologized Sunday to a television crew at Virginia Motorsports Park that he isn’t as engaging and entertaining as his father-in-law, John Force. That’s debatable, but he proved in the Torco Racing Fuels Nationals that he can carry the John Force Racing organization’s banner capably by himself.
With the boss recovering at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas from injuries he received in a Sept. 23 crash and sister-in-law Ashley Force sitting out because safety upgrades to her car have not been completed, Hight was the lone JFR driver at this final event before the Coundown to One cutoff.
Force forfeited his No. 4 spot to Ron Capps, putting three Don Schumacher Racing cars (including those of Jack Beckman and Gary Scelzi) behind leader Tony Pedregon and Hight.
Hight lost to Capps in the first round, and Hight will go for the $500,000 payout as the No. 3 seed.
“Our job was to get one of these Ford Mustangs in the Countdown to One for Auto Club, Castrol and Ford,” Force said from Dallas. “Robert will carry that banner for us in the last two races. He and (crew chief) Jimmy Prock earned the right to race for the championship.”

 • For the fifth time in six races, Tony Schumacher was a first-round loser in the U.S. Army Dragster.
Eliminating him was Morgan Lucas, who had been Schumacher’s victim 13 of their 15 previous meetings.
“I don’t really know what happened, but it seemed that we were down on power almost right from the start,” Schumacher said. “The car I had today was definitely not the one I had yesterday.”
No, the day before, he was glib after grabbing the No. 1 qualifying position, joking about Brandon Bernstein and Bob Vandergriff going head-to-head in the opening round for the last available Countdown spot.
“If you could write the script, you would put Vandergriff and Bernstein together in round one,” Schumacher said Saturday. “That’s going to be huge.
“Those two guys need to go to bed early and do their push-ups because this is a round that could define their careers. Me? I’m going to go smoke a cigar.”

• Of the eight still-eligible Countdown drivers in the Top Fuel class, only three — Larry Dixon, Brandon Bernstein and Doug Herbert — advanced past the opening round.
Dixon, who retained his point lead despite a second-round loss to eventual winner Doug Kalitta, already had clinched a spot in the Countdown to One. The order of the final four in this category was the same as when the race began: Dixon, Rod Fuller, Tony Schumacher and Bernstein.
Three of the “bottom four” sealed their fates early in the day. Bob Vandergriff lost his “monster match-up” with Bernstein in the opener, Whit Bazemore lost to eventual runner-up Melanie Troxel and J.R. Todd saw his chances go up in tire smoke against Cory McClenathan, who earned his 400th round-win.

 • The scene was set for the $100,000-to-win Technicoat Top Fuel Showdown that’ll take place Oct. 27 during the ACDelco Nationals at The Strip @ Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The line-up includes Larry Dixon, Cory McClenathan, Tony Schumacher, Rod Fuller, Melanie Troxel, Brandon Bernstein, J.R. Todd, and Dave Grubnic.

 • Dave Connolly’s victory, his eighth of the year, represented a historic fifth-straight victory. Only Ronnie Sox, Bob Glidden and Greg Anderson have done the same.
The 24-year-old from Elyria, Ohio, said, “To pick up our fifth [straight] win and put us in that elite group with those guys is incredible. It is something I never even dreamed of. I just wanted to race Pro Stock and here we are getting put on a list that is only four people long.
 “Our Chevy Cobalt is mean,” he said. “All the guys at Cagnazzi Racing are doing a good job, and we were able to get my teammate, Jeg Coughlin, into the final four, too. It is incredible what [sponsor] Evan Knoll and Victor [Cagnazzi] have put together.”