ESPN NHRA

POMONA, Calif. -- The 43rd Auto Club Finals are over, but the ripple effects of the concluding event on the NHRA POWERade schedule for 2007 will be ricocheting throughout Drag Racing Nation for quite a while to come.

Auto Club Raceway was the scene of some of the most memorable championship payoffs in the sport's history as the newly adopted Countdown to the Championship format helped provide the four professional categories with relentless, edge-of-your-seat storylines with scant predictability.

Consider:

• Of the four professional points leaders in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle at the top of the standings when eliminations began, only one captured the class championship -- barely.

• Of those four, only one survived the first round.

• Only one defending champion from 2006 successfully retained his crown. That same driver won the 2007 championship in almost as dramatic a fashion as he did last year.

• One class champion picked up his first career POWERade title by winning the final round against the only other racer with a shot at the championship.

In short, the NHRA has rarely ended a professional season with so much suspense unfolding simultaneously.

In Top Fuel, "Hot Rod" Fuller battled his way into the field on Saturday after two unsuccessful qualifying shots on Thursday and Friday. He needed to win his first-round matchup against Bob Vandergriff Jr. on Sunday to essentially close the door on Larry Dixon, Tony Schumacher and Brandon Bernstein. But Fuller smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle in Round 1, giving the win to Vandergriff and reviving the title hopes of the three other drivers clinging to their slim hopes of slipping past "Hot Rod."

Both Schumacher and Bernstein won in Round 2, but Dixon fell to J.R. Todd to end his championship hopes. Fuller helplessly waited, knowing that if either Schumacher or Bernstein went on to win the race, that driver would wear the POWERade crown.

"I'll just have to wait and hope for the best," said Fuller before the second round. "You hate to have your fate resting in someone else's hands, but all we can do is watch and hope".

Schumacher was about to take the issue into his hands. The reigning and four-time champion dusted Bernstein in the semi-finals, setting up a Top Fuel finale against Vandergriff that would determine the 2007 champion. If Schumacher won, he would clinch championship No. 5. If he lost, Fuller would escape with his first POWERade title.

It was here last year that Schumacher shocked the world with his final-round victory with a national record elapsed time that iced his fourth title. This year, no record was necessary, but a winlight against Vandergriff would be.

Schumacher's U.S. Army dragster was rock solid all day with tuner extraordinaire Alan Johnson delivering letter-perfect tuneups to his cool and collected driver. In the final, Schumacher was a full two-tenths quicker than Vandergriff, running low elapsed time of the race, 4.486 seconds, at a speed of 328.20 mph and rolling to his fourth straight NHRA POWERade Top Fuel title.

"I can't say enough about this team," said Schumacher after becoming the first Top Fuel driver in NHRA history to win four consecutive championships. "We never got down, even at the beginning of the year when we went through some struggles. I told everyone not to panic, especially with the new Countdown format. We went through the same situation last year, and again my guys proved how great they are when the championship is on the line."

Tony Pedregon squeaked into the Funny Car field, qualifying 16th and needing a first-round win in eliminations against No. 1 qualifier Jeff Arend to fight off Gary Scelzi and Robert Hight for the championship, with Ron Capps essentially out of the running.

Pedregon was unceremoniously edged by Arend in Round 1 -- and the waiting game began.

But as far as Scelzi was concerned, the wait was a short one, and it was Hight who made it that way. Hight's first-round victory over Scelzi knocked the four-time POWERade champion out of the tournament and gave Hight the final remaining shot at overtaking Pedregon for the title, but needing an event victory and a new e.t. record to do it -- ala Tony Schumacher in the '06 T/F title thriller.

Coincidentally, the existing Funny Car record, 4.659, was set by Pedregon earlier this year at the event in Phoenix, but the conditions in Pomona were significantly less favorable for a 4.60s pass. Plus, to set a new record, a driver would have to run a backup time within 10 percent of the new standard -- a lopsided long shot at best.

After disposing of Jerry Toliver in Round 2, Hight was on a mission with tuner Jimmy Prock pouring as much power into Hight's AAA Ford Mustang as he felt the track could handle. Two sub-record runs would be needed in the semifinals and the finals, along with two more winlights to tackle Pedregon from behind.

It was not to be.

Hight took down Mike Ashley in the semis, but when the scoreboards illuminated an elapsed time of 4.877, Hight's gallant attempt to beat the odds and win his first career championship was over. Robert's final-round victory over temporary teammate Phil Burkart Jr. -- pinch-hitting for injured team owner John Force -- was somewhat anti-climactic with the lion's share of the event glory directed at Pedregon.

"Winning this championship has a tremendous amount of meaning," said Pedrgeon. "When you look at the quality of the competition in this class, the guys like Robert [Hight] and Gary [Scelzi] and Ron [Capps], you have to give them all your respect. I'm really proud of my team and how much work they put into all this, and now we get to relax and enjoy it a little bit."

Pro Stock's Greg Anderson began Sunday in a scenario similar to the ones faced by the points leaders in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Get by the first round, add another winlight in Round 2, and keep the other Countdown contenders behind you. But Anderson suffered a first-round stumble just as Fuller had in Top Fuel and Pedregon had in Funny Car. It cost Fuller, Pedregon prevailed, but Anderson saw his fourth championship disappear.

The two teammates from Cagnazzi Racing -- Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Dave Connolly -- were waiting to capitalize on any misfortune befalling Anderson, and the question was, "Who would get past Anderson if the door was opened?" Unfortunately for Connolly, he slammed the door on himself before Anderson could open it for him. Connolly fouled out in a stunning redlight start against Mike Edwards in the first round -- one pair before Anderson suffered an uncanny holeshot loss to young Pro Stock phenom and former Sport Compact standout Justin Humphries.

Jeg Coughlin Jr. knew the numbers. A second-round win for the two-time POWERade champion would give him his third professional title. Come up short and Anderson would carry the day. And after taking out Larry Morgan in the opener, Coughlin sped past former teammate Richie Stevens Jr. in Round 2 to end the drama. Jeggie wasn't satisfied with just salting away his third Pro Stock crown. He ultimately dropped Humphries in the final round to put a profound punctuation mark on his championship season.

"What a feeling!" Coughlin said. "To win another championship for JEGS.com and all of our employees and fans is special. It's such a cool deal to win the first championship under the NHRA's new Countdown playoff system. It was a tough battle against the best racers in the world, but we got it done as a team and I couldn't be prouder of the entire Victor Cagnazzi Racing organization."

The quest for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Pro Stock Motorcycle championship ended in the second round of PSM eliminations when points leader and No. 1 qualifier Andrew Hines was victimized by a starting line miscue -- a malady that the three-time POWERade champion has fallen victim to more than once. His "Screamin' Eagle" Harley Davidson rolled across the starting line a full three-tenths of a second before the green light while facing Antron Brown, giving Hines a DQ and forcing him to hold his breath with Chip Ellis, Matt Smith and Peggy Llewellyn within mathematical distance of catching him in the Countdown for the Championship.

Smith stopped Llewellyn in Round 2, thus making it a three-way battle for the category honors. Ellis and Smith continued slicing their way through their own side of the ladder, and when each had won their semifinal matchups, Hines was no longer a factor.

The picture was clear. The winner of the race would also become the new POWERade champion.

In the final, Ellis was uncharacteristically late at the starting line and gave a huge reaction time advantage to Smith. But Smith not only took the unintended head start but parlayed it with a quicker elapsed time, beating Ellis to the stripe and collecting his first career NHRA world championship.

Smith, the son of former Pro Stock and Pro Modified superstar Rickie Smith, who is now a member of Matt's team , was elated following a harrowing day of do-or-die drag racing.

"I don't know if words can describe this feeling," Matt said. "I've had some big races before but nothing like this. My goodness, it was all or nothing there.

"This is pretty special, especially with my dad here helping us. We felt like we had such a great bike all year and we had times where we just couldn't punch it through when we probably should have won some races, but we never gave up and just kept fighting."

Bill Stephens covers NHRA for ESPN.com