A Long Season Has Left Ormsby a Wreck : Drag Racing: Despite destroying two cars in crashes, the season-long top fuel points leader is still on top entering final weekend at Pomona.

By SHAV GLICK

Oct. 28, 1989 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Gary Ormsby started the 1989 National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel drag racing season by winning the Winternationals at Pomona and the Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla.

Ormsby, 47, an automobile dealer from Auburn, Calif., never relinquished the lead through 18 rounds of the championship series and comes to this weekend’s season-ending Winston World Finals at the Fairplex in Pomona with a 572-point lead over defending champion Joe Amato of Old Forge, Pa.

Sound like a routine wire-to-wire run for the $150,000 champion’s bonus?

Far from it.

Ormsby has destroyed two cars in hair-raising accidents, pulled one out of mothballs for two races and taken early delivery on a 1990 model to finish his topsy-turvy season.

And if that weren’t enough, his personal street car was totaled in an intersection accident in front of his new dealership in Auburn.

So, when someone says, “You’d have to crash not to win the championship,” Ormsby doesn’t laugh.

Points come easily in NHRA competition and the 572-point margin--13,828 to 13,256--isn’t as wide as it might appear.

To put it in perspective, if Ormsby lost in the first round Sunday, Amato could win by reaching the final round, and if Ormsby lost in the second round, Amato could win by winning the event. But if Ormsby reaches the semifinals, he has it clinched, sort of. Amato could possibly squeeze it out if he won and also set a national elapsed-time record, which would give him an additional 200 points.

Ormsby started the season with a new 300-inch red, white and green chassis from Al Swindahl, designed especially for the multistage, high-gear-only transmission that became popular in 1988.

“It was a beauty,” Ormsby said. “It did everything we wanted and we won four races. Then we had that upside-downer at Sonoma (Sears Point Raceway), where we went through the (timing) lights upside down at 282 m.p.h.”

A rear wing strut had collapsed during the second-round run of the California Nationals, causing the dragster to flip over on its top at full speed. It was the first time Ormsby had crashed in 23 years of drag racing.

Ormsby said he doesn’t need to look at the films of the fiery crash, which have become a staple on sports TV shows, to know what happened because he remained conscious through the whole thing. Surprisingly, he suffered no more than bruised knees and facial scratches.

To finish the final eight races of the season, Ormsby bought a car from Larry Minor, the potato farming magnate from Hemet who had a spare after dropping Frank Hawley from his team.

That car lasted through two races, then Ormsby crashed again, during the Northstar Nationals at Brainerd, Minn., destroying a second $50,000 chassis.

“The car did a wheel stand, and I stayed on (the throttle) too long, and when it came down it slammed into the wall,” he said. “I guess I was going about 140, but it wiped it out.

“I didn’t get hurt in that one, either. Funny thing, I got hurt worse when I was going about 10 m.p.h. making a left-turn in a brand new (Toyota) Supra when a guy ran a red light and T-boned me. I got cut up pretty good and broke some ribs.”

After the Brainerd crash, crew chief Lee Beard went back to the shop and dusted off the 1988 car, one that had done no favors for Ormsby the previous season, when he not only failed to win, but never even reached the final round in 16 races.

“There were so many technological developments between 1988 and 1989 that the old car was practically obsolete, but we had no other choice,” Ormsby said. “We put in a hurry-up call to Swindahl for the 1990 car, but it wasn’t near ready.

“We had learned a lot from our ’89 car, though, and Beard put the same combinations in the old one, as near as he could.”

Ormsby didn’t win in the old car, but he did set top speed at both the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis and the Keystone Nationals at Mohnton, Pa., where he ran an NHRA record 291.63. Unfortunately for Ormsby, the practice of awarding points for top speed was discontinued this season.

“Under the old scoring, we’d have another 500 points because we broke the record twice this year,” he said.

The second time was in the 1990 car, which he drove in the last three events. Ormsby defeated Darrell Gwynn in the final round of the Chief Auto Parts Nationals on the super-fast concrete Texas Motorplex strip near Dallas where he ran a record 294.88 m.p.h. in 4.919 seconds.

The car is still unpainted, except for the sponsor’s name, on the bare aluminum.

“It’s not pretty, that’s for sure, but if it runs as fast here as it did at Dallas, I’ll be happy,” Ormsby said.

And if no one breaks his speed record today or Sunday, Ormsby’s name is likely to stay on the books for a long time because 1990 rules are designed to reduce speeds about 10 m.p.h. through use of a lower gear ratio.

“I’m glad we’re finishing up at Pomona because we usually run good here,” Ormsby said. He has won twice, in the 1984 and 1989 Winternationals, and lost in the final round twice in 1985, in both the Winternationals and the World Finals.

Ormsby ran a 5.053 at 290.32 m.p.h. during Friday’s second round of qualifying. He is third quickest with two rounds today.

The two other professional championships have already been clinched, Bruce Larson of Dauphin, Pa., having won in funny cars with an Olds Cutlass, and Bob Glidden of Whiteland, Ind., in pro stocks in a Ford Probe. Larson’s title was his first, Glidden’s his 10th, including the last five in a row.

Coincidentally, Ormsby, Larson and Glidden all won the Winternationals last February and were pacesetters the entire season, but neither Larson nor Glidden had a stormy season like Ormsby’s.

Mark Oswald, the 1984 funny car champion, set a Fairplex track record of 5.280 seconds Friday, breaking Kenny Bernstein’s year-old mark of 5.295. Bernstein, last year’s NHRA champion, was second fastest at 5.329.

Ormsby, Amato and six other drivers--Dick LaHaie, Gwynn, Frank Bradley, Lori Johns, Eddie Hill and Dennis Forcelle--will participate in a shoot-out for $50,000 today in the fifth annual NHRA Top Fuel Classic at Fairplex during final qualification runs.

The special end-of-season competition is for the eight top-fuel drivers who have earned the most points during the season.

It had been pretty much an Amato benefit race in the past. The two-time champion won the 1985 inaugural, lost to Don Garlits in the 1986 final, and won the last two years.

“Winning the championship is foremost on our minds, but you can’t help but think about that 50 grand,” Ormsby said. “It would go a long ways toward paying some of the extra bills we had this season.”

The first-round pairings: Ormsby vs. Bradley, Amato vs. Johns, LaHaie vs. Hill and Gwynn vs. Forcelle.

It could wind up a youth vs. age confrontation. Johns is 23 and Gwynn 27. All the others are past 40.