PRECOCIOUS POWELL EMBARKS ON A QUEST FOR NHRA GLORY

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

What does it take to make a car go from 0 to 330 in less than five seconds?

Let Cristen Powell tell you.

''Under my left foot is the clutch pedal, which pretty much is in except during the run and on the burnout,'' she says. ''It's a centrifugal clutch, so when I let my foot off the clutch, it won't stall -- it creates a lot of heat in the clutch, so you don't want to do that. When I light the pre-stage light, which signals that I'm ready to go, I pull the fuel lever on with my left hand so that it's all the way on. I'll let my foot off the clutch pedal, and then I'll use my right hand to inch forward with the (hand) brake and light the stage light.

''As soon as the stage light is lit, that's when the three yellow lights come on simultaneously, and all I need to do is, as I let go of the brake with my right hand, I slam the throttle down with my right foot as hard as I can. Hopefully, I'll get to the end first. On the body, which is all in one piece, that's where the parachute levers are, I then grab the lever, the chute comes out, and I feel five Gs slamming me forward.''

Cristen Powell delivers this detailed assessment of her craft without appearing to take a breath. The 21-year-old is a ray of warmth and sunshine, despite the cold, wet day in Englishtown, N.J.

Standing underneath a tent next to a nondescript truck trailer, Powell shows a stranger her office. That office is the cockpit of a Funny Car that competes in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). This car is a mid-engine, low-slung machine with the stylized body of an American passenger car that is lowered on top of it.

The car has a supercharged, 10,000 horsepower engine mounted on a purpose-built tubular frame. It runs on anywhere from 15 to 20 gallons of a nitromethane-methanol mixture that the cars use as fuel. Each is expected to complete a quarter mile in less than five seconds, with a terminal velocity of more than 300 miles an hour. It is the fastest form of competitive auto racing outside of the pursuit of the land speed record.

Her car, like her trailer, are somewhat spartan in comparison to some of her competitors. The reason why her truck trailer is nondescript -- only long red and blue stripes distinguish it from others nearby -- speaks to Powell's situation heading into the 2000 NHRA season.

Cristen Powell, despite her intelligence, track record, and marketable smile, did not have a major sponsor going into the 2000 season.

''It's a bummer, but Pontiac helps us out, and so does Red Line Oil,'' she says. ''They're really cool to help us out when we didn't have a major sponsor. People think I'm marketable, but it's really hard to talk someone out of a million bucks. It's big business, and you have to show them that they're going to make money on you.''

She had begun 1999 without a ride after two seasons in Top Fuel Eliminator, but made several moves since then which may eventually put her back in the winners' circle.

''We decided to get my Funny Car license," she says. "I figured it would expand opportunities, because I would have twice as many cars to be able to drive.''

She also spent a good amount of time since then making herself aware of the business side of running a team. She found another pioneer in motor sports: a female owner.

''Helen Hoffman signed me after I lost my 1999 deal,'' she says. ''It's been incredible: she's the only female owner, I'm the only female driver, and we're on the same team.''

The 2000 season represented the first time Powell planned to run the entire 23-stop NHRA circuit. But it is not an elaborate operation: the one trailer, no hospitality section, no spare car on the plastic flooring that serves as the team's work area.

Powell may have had it easy early in her racing career. Ever since earning her drag racing license at the age of 16 (a week before earning her Oregon passenger car license), she ascended quickly to the professional ranks.

Indeed, in 1997, Cristen Powell was at the center of a great motor racing and human interest story that couldn't have been written any better had it not actually happened.

Then 17 -- she had only gotten her National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) license to run Top Fuel the year before -- Powell won her first NHRA event at the Summernationals in Englishtown, N.J.

All while missing her high school prom back in Oregon.

''The prom had the nerve of falling on a race weekend -- I mean, come on!'' she says, tongue planted firmly in cheek. ''And I'm so glad I did, because it was so unbelievable.''

A certain amount of celebrity followed. The friendly, loquacious Powell became an ambassador of sorts. She drove in the annual celebrity race at the Long Beach Grand Prix. She helped represent a chain of motor racing parks with stock and champ car racers. Her sponsor changed from a synthetic motor oil to a multinational athletic apparel company. She agreed to be photographed for an Annie Leibowitz book Women.

''I didn't know who Annie Leibowitz was until I went to do the photoshoot with her,'' she says. ''I had done some shooting before, and usually, they do Polaroids to check if the lighting and angles were right. But she went on shooting for two or three hours, and we were done.''

Leibowitz's photo of Powell -- helmetless, looking through the slit in her balaclava with smoke coming off the tires of her racer -- was one of the book's show-stopping photos.

"My dad (former drag racer Ryan Powell) went out and bought fifteen books, I think," she says with a chuckle. ''It was so incredible: I was highly complimented.''

Powell does not mind being a paragon of the modern women's sports revolution. Indeed, she plays many roles -- including that of a college student, studying psychology, sociology, and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon.

''I would call myself a feminist -- though I hate the word, since it has some negative connotations -- but we're not all raging mean women,'' she says. ''First, and foremost, I do this for me. But a major part of that is that I do it for women. Every time a little girl comes up and realizes that women can race, it makes me feel so good.'' 

It has not escaped Powell's notice that the NHRA is the most egalitarian of motorsports series. Today's NHRA has African American, female, and Latino competitors, unlike most of today's major series.

''It is so wonderful, and I think Frank, Cruz, and Tony (Pedregon) would say the same thing -- though I can only speak from a woman's perspective,'' Powell says. ''Most people are tricked into believing that they can't race, because you are a certain race or gender or age.''

And one of the pioneers who has made it easier for Powell and her peers to race is one of her role models, Shirley Muldowney.

''She came to an NHRA race, and I was so happy I got an opportunity to meet her,'' she says. ''We got along great, and we also did a match race together. What a compliment to race against The Woman in drag racing. She's unbelievable: I realize how hard it had to have been to be the only female to compete, and to win three championships. She is awesome.'' 

Powell's future in the sport does depend on her ability to win consistently, which at least in 2000, is difficult indeed. The competition level in the Funny Car ranks has increased with the addition of three or four teams to the ranks of those campaigning in most races. That, and a rule regarding the purity of the nitromethane that fules the cars, has led to close racing where one mistake can determine whether a driver qualifies for Sunday eliminations.

''I think people love to see a 300 mph run go up on the board,'' Powell says. ''But new rules have slowed down the cars a bit, which has almost taken care of the question, 'Should we slow down the nitro cars?' But the fans definitely love to come and see the competition as well; the rules keep a lot of people from losing traction, and it's turning out that more cars are nose-to-nose at the finish line.''

The competition is even tougher when the most dominant driver in drag racing -- John Force -- is in the Funny Car division. Without a major sponsor, Powell has struggled through the first half of the 2000 season, qualifying as high as eighth but only getting to the quarterfinals once.

She has clicked off a couple of runs clocked at more than 300 miles an hour, but knows that the bar may be raised soon by one or more teams -- and it is possible that it might be hers.

''I think it was easier to go from 270 to 300 than 300 to 330 -- but as for 400?'' Powell says. ''That's pretty darn fast, and there's a point where you're not going to have complete control of that car.''

Powell's skills as a ''pedaler'' -- one who can feel when the car is about to lose traction and compensate by lifting off the throttle for that microsecond needed to make the tires adhere to the racetrack -- is one indication that the sport is more than just aiming the car in the general direction of the finish line.

''There's a lot of steering that is going on, because the cars are not on rails; they do try to move left and right,'' Powell says. ''Also, there are certain things you have to correct, like tire shake. The pressure in the tires is like, five pounds a square inch, and the tread sometimes wants to ball up and start jumping over each other, since the tire turns half a turn after the wheel does. If you (pedal) too late, you lose traction and smoke the tires. But if you catch it early enough, you can actually salvage the run, which is a nice talent to have.''

Powell's track record and talents have put her into a unique position in today's women's sports revolution, but she insists that it is more than just her gender and her remarkable maturity.

''The highest compliment is when people, such as Helen Hoffman, hired me for my driving, not because I'm marketable,'' Powell says. ''It's what I strive for, because being marketable is not really a talent. I can get the car from Point A to Point B, and I'm definitely learning, and I have a lot of years ahead of me to do this.''