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Jason Line was 15 when he started bracket racing on dragstrips, and he recalls it fondly as an enjoyable time, even though he had no idea where the sport would take him. After all, his family was located in Wright, Minnesota, best-known as a little town west of Cloquet and Carlton on Hwy. 210.
“Bracket racing was a lot of fun, and a good way to stay out of trouble,” said Line, who was speaking by telephone from the Summit Racing Team’s nerve center in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this week. Yes, Charlotte is a long way from Wright, but every step of the way from bracket racer to National Hot Rod Association Pro Stock champion was a logical one for Line.
“I think back to how much fun we had as a family back then,” Line said. “My dad raced a Monte Carlo, my mom raced a Chevelle, my sister raced a Chevy, and I raced a Buick; I was a Buick guy, but I was also a Chevy guy. My mom dropped my two brothers on their heads when they were little and they both race Fords. ”
They crowded the result sheets of every NHRA meet, often not losing until they ran into another Line. In 1993, Jason Line drove his 1970 Stage I Buick Gran Sport to victory after victory, until he had won the NHRA National Stock Eliminator championship. It was an incredible achievement, the only Buick in every race beating out hundreds of Chevies and a lot of Fords. “There were only about three or four Buicks in the whole country,” Line recalled. “But they were cool old cars, and we really overachieved.”
In stock categories, racers dial in their anticipated elapsed time, but if they go under it, they are disqualified. Because they are handicapped at the staggered starting lights, winners from different classes meet to determine the race winner, and it gets to be a mathematical equation to figure out how to win. Winning the national championship remains a source of intense pride for Jason Line.
That year, 1993, there was a special competition for elite racers, and Jason Line also won that. But not until after he had to create a part he needed to fix a piston. The rules call for parts to be “stock, or stock appearing,” and the available part barely resembled the stock part. So Line fixed it, artistically making it conform to stock appearance.
“The parts folks had fudged it, so we actually made it stock,” Line said. But after he won, all of the Chevy racers -- and all of the parts companies, which had Chevy parts by the thousands but precious few, if any, Buick parts, protested loudly. NHRA officials responded, tearing down and scrutinizing Line’s Buick engine at great length. When they found the part that had been altered to be identical to stock, they had an “Aha moment” and disqualified Line, taking away his championship.
“But we got it all fixed,” Line said. “NHRA and I made amends and we get along so well that my picture was on the cover of the new rule book. I went from being the bad guy to being the poster boy for legality.”
Jason can laugh about it all now, since it was 21 years ago, but at the time, he was perturbed enough to leave drag racing. He called it a hiatus, but it might have been everlasting. “I started running a dyno shop,” he said, but he wanted to be near the heart of racing, so he ended up in Charlotte, which just happens to be where a former NHL coach named Joe Gibbs runs one of the best-known NASCAR stock car race teams.
“Joe Gibbs racing hired me to run the dynamometer for his drivers, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart,” Line said. “It was a great experience.”
That went both ways. Labonte, benefitting from Line’s engineering brilliance, won two successive NASCAR point championships. At about that time, one of the guys at Joe Gibbs mentioned to Line that he’d heard another Northern Minnesotan had a drag-racing shop across town, so Jason investigated.
A Duluthian named Greg Anderson had a similarly circuitous route to Charlotte. He had belatedly gotten into the sport of drag-racing after being the chief mechanic for his dad’s used auto sales in Duluth, and he wound up getting hired by Warren Johnson, the Iron Ranger who lived in Fridley while creating NHRA Pro Stock championship Oldsmobiles. Johnson moved his team to Duluth, Ga., and Greg Anderson -- who had never driven a drag race car -- went along as crew chief. Several years later, Anderson fell in love with a woman from Charlotte, and, when Ken Black, his future father-in-law, offered to create his own race team for Anderson, there was no question where the newlyweds would settle.
After meeting, Line did some casual work for Anderson, who wanted to hire him. Jason said he couldn’t leave Joe Gibbs Racing and one of the best jobs in motorsports, and added that they only way he’d ever leave is he was offered the chance to drive his own race car. Next thing he knew, Ken Black had created an identical Pro Stock for Line, so he joined the team. Anderson hadn’t won any championships back then, but he won four of them in close order after Line came aboard. Then Line won two titles. The team switched to Camaros about three years ago, and struggled a bit in the hotly competitive Pro Stock segment, which is third behind Top Fuel and Funny Car in the NHRA scheme of pro racing.
“I call Top Fuel and Funny Car ‘Shock and Awe,’ ” said Line. “Pro Stock is more about finesse.”
In Pro Stock, 20-some racers fight so hard for the 16 qualifying slots that often they are all bunched within a tenth of a second. The ability to get a quick start on the lights becomes extremely critical. Anderson and Line were always competitive, but they didn’t win with their previous regularity.
This season looked like it would be promising, then Greg Anderson had to undergo heart surgery. While he’s come back, Line has carried the torch for the team. He won an early event, then he won three weeks ago. The season highlight came two weeks ago at Kent, Wash., when Line and Anderson met in the final round. Anderson had a slightly better elapsed time, from start to finish, but Line cut the starting lights infinitely closer to get a microscopic head start. When the finishing lights came on, it wasn’t so microscopic: Line had won by two-thousandths of a second.
“Greg was faster on the track,” said Line. “Two-thousandths of a second means that if you were at the finish line, you couldn’t tell which of us won. Usually I’m the one who comes off the line late. But the best thing is that going into the final, we were going into the final knowing that somebody on our team would win.”
The result of that race two weekends ago thrust Jason Line into a tie for second place in Pro Stock points, and vaulted Greg Anderson up into the top 10, going into this weekend’s Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway, where qualifying runs Friday and Saturday, and eliminations will be held Sunday. The finals will be carried by tape delay on ESPN-2 on Sunday night.
“It had been a while since we both were in the final,” Line said. “We’re on a little upswing now. We’ve found a couple of things, and we’re both going to be tough to beat from here on out. Greg hasn’t won yet this year, but he’s going to.”
And at Brainerd? “I have won a total of zero, at Brainerd,” said Line. “Greg has won two or three; he beat me in the final once. I’d like nothing better than to win at Brainerd, with all our family and friends there.”
Yes, Jason’s whole family from Wright will be at BIR. His dad, Lawrence, will be driving his 1985 Monte Carlo; his mom, Maxine, will drive her 1968 Chevelle; brothers Lance and Ben will both be driving 1969 Mustangs. Stephanie won’t be driving this weekend, but she will be supporting her husband, Johnny Dicalina in his Nova. She chose to stay home to raise their kids, who are age 10, 7, and 5, but when the 5-year-old goes off to school, Stephanie undoubtedly will wind up behind the wheel of her old drag racer.
“I haven’t raced for over a year,” said Lawrence Line, the family patriarch. “But I had open-heart surgery, and then I broke my ankle, and I’m over 70 now. Lance, married and with a daughter, moved to Cromwell where he runs a convenience store. Ben, who said he’s never get married, is not only married but he’s living in International Falls and working at Voyageur Park and has five kids.”
So it will be a family reunion of sorts at BIR this weekend for the whole Line clan, which brings back a lot of memories for Jason.
“Those were great times, back when we were all running stock,” Jason said. “We were all in different stock classes, but we all love cars and racing. My wife doesn’t understand my affliction, but she puts up with it, and I hope our kids will grow up loving racing the way I do.”

Seek Alternatives to Bring ‘Dog Days’ to Life

As the lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer envelop us in what is already a too-fast August, our sports attractions meander off into different directions. Sure, there’s still baseball, with the Huskies finishing their season last week, and the Twins trying to claw their way out of last place, and football has started its comparatively meaningless exhibition game slate this very week.
It’s also the perfect time for those other things, the things we take for granted, but are shared with us by nature, that can provide some very entertaining ways to spend an afternoon. That can include fishing, water-skiing, hiking, relaxing on a boat-ride during a calm afternoon, strolling through the incredible Rose Garden on 13th Av. E. and London Road, looking around for wildlife of any type, or just appreciating a mild late afternoon with a sunset. All of those can provide great enjoyment, and if you do them right, you can consider them participation sports.
Soon enough, we’ll be engulfed in the normal sports whirl again. The Vikings beat Oakland 10-6 last Friday night in their NFL exhibition opener, and the “Teddy Watch” officially began, as those of us impressed with rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater appreciated what was a cautious start.

But it’s also an interesting time for the Twins, with Joe Mauer finally returned from his lengthy bout with a strained oblique muscle. I was looking over some of their stats this season, and it was intriguing to consider a few manipulations as the Twins have tried to upgrade their team through this frustrating season.
For example, while pondering the effectiveness of dealing away promising players for untried younger prospects, we can offer a couple of little quizzes. First, what do Torii Hunter, Denard Span, Ben Revere, Carlos Gomez and Sam Fuld have in common?
Answer: All of them, in the last few years, played center field for the Twins before being dealt away, where they played impressively in center for various other teams. Hunter, aging gracefully, is now playing right field for the Detroit Tigers, while Gomez has turned into a game-breaking terror in center for the Milwaukee Brewers. Revere is hitting a strong .306 and leading off while patrolling center for the Philadelphia Phillies, while Span is also leading off and hitting a solid .289 as Washington’s center fielder, and Fuld, who seems almost like he was shipped to Minnesota to get his major league wings, is leading off and playing center for the Oakland Athletics.
Fuld started the season playing against the Twins for the A’s, then the A’s put him on waivers and the Twins pounced on him. He showed great upside potential, as well as speed and defensive skills in center for the Twins, but they ended up swapping him back to Oakland last week for left-handed pitcher Tommy Milone. The A’s might be the best team in baseball, and if not, they’re among them, and they didn’t hesitate to put the latest Twins center-fielder into the leadoff spot.
Next question: What do Aaron Hicks, Danny Santana, Chris Parmalee, Eduardo Escobar, Devin Mastroianni, and Sam Fuld have in common?
Answer:  All six of them have patrolled center field for the Twins this season. Hicks looked great at the start then simply stopped hitting and is now in the minors. Santana is a shortstop, but does a good job in center, and most of the others are infielders who were willing to go out to center and fill in. Of the whole crew, Fuld was the most impressive outfielder, and he’s gone.
Now, I’m not second-guessing, nor am I criticizing all the moves. But if you were to pick three of the departed lads -- let’s say, Hunter, Revere and Gomez -- you might be able to put together the best defensive outfield in Major League Baseball, with either Revere or Gomez in center, the other in left, and Hunter in right. You can’t assemble any three of the current Twins and find a combination of three that any other team would seek as an outfield.
There continues to be a few bright lights. One is the new big kid, Kennys Vargas, a giant left-handed hitter who leaped from Class AA to a trial run with the Twins without stopping for AAA ball. He got his first Major League hit with a ground-rule double that was the key to a 5-run rally at Chicago last week, then he socked a long 3-run home run -- his first homer in the bigs -- to lift the Twins from a frustrating 1-0 deficit in the sixth inning to a 3-1 victory. Nothing to this game!
 The story continues, seemingly like a summer rerun, that some of the young Twins brought up and forced into duty while they still should be refining their skills in AAA ball have now gained valuable trial-by-fire experience. That means by next season, they will come to training camp with a good idea of what it takes, as well as the necessary experience, to make the Major league team.
It still makes for an interesting last two months, as those young guys will finally get a chance to play alongside the recovered Joe Mauer, who made his return in Houston by doubling off the scoreboard facing, then breaking a 2-2 tie with a sharp single that beat Houston 4-2. Mauer could still reach .300 if he keeps hitting, already extending his injury-interrupted hitting streak up to 13 games in the first two games at Houston. When Mauer was inserted in the No. 3 spot in the batting order, the rest of the Twins hitters immediately seemed to be 3 inches taller. Just some more building blocks for next season. Regardless of who is playing center field.


Artificail Turf, or Grass?

Wade Municipal Stadium has been approved to get its infield resurfaced with artificial turf in time for next season. Pretty exciting, and we can only hope it doesn’t cause some college baseball coaches to be reluctant to sent their players to Duluth to play for the Huskies.
As I understand it, the entire infield except for the pitching mound will wear the blanket of artificial turf, meaning no infield dirt, and, we can only wonder, maybe no baselines of dirt. Artificial turf has the distinct advantage of draining much better and offering teams a far better chance to get in foul-weather games.
It also has a curious ability to grab a bouncing ball and create topspin on the first bounce, which causes the second hop to come up higher than on normal turf. Can that cause bad instincts for an infielder, who learns to stay up and field grounders, rather than the traditional style of getting down low to field those grounders. And, if a college team plays on natural turf, will it want its players to come to the Huskies and have their instincts altered by the artificial turf.
The Gophers TCF Bank football stadium, where the Vikings also will play this year and next, has artificial turf, but when an exhibition big-time soccer game was brought in last weekend, with Manchester City playing Olympiakos, great effort and expense went into peeling away the turf and bringing in tons of sod to unroll over it for a natural surface. Olympiakos tied the game 2-2 and won a shootout before a crowd claimed to be 34,047. Pretty good. Then it was time to pick up the sod and reinstall the artificial turf in time for the Vikings-Oakland game.
While that 34,000 was a pretty impressive turnout, consider than in the Big House, the University of Michigan’s cavernous football facility in Ann Arbor, the REAL Manchester powerhouse -- Manchester United -- beat Real Madrid 3-1 before 109,318 fans. That is a U.S. record for soccer, breaking the mark set at 101,799 in the 1984 Olympic final in the Rose Bowl.

John Gilbert has been writing sports for over 30 years. Formerly with the Star Tribune and WCCO. He currently hosts a daily radio show on KDAL AM.