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Sullivan Climbs Back On His Horse After December crash in Bradenton, Funny Car driver John Sullivan debuts new car in Rockingham By Mike Perry | IHRA.com  After a December wreck in Bradenton that destroyed his Funny Car, John Sullivan did not wait too long to get back in the saddle. And the results were all he could have asked for.In his first quarter mile pass since the accident that send him careening down the drag strip in nothing but a roll cage, Sullivan, driving a new Trans Am, was able to slip into the #5 spot after the first round of qualifying at the IHRA Spring Nationals at Rockingham Dragway. “If you wreck a car, I can now say from experience that you should get right back in the car,” Sullivan said. “Two weeks after my wreck we borrowed a car from Gary Freeman, put our motor in it and went to a race over in Georgia and finished runner up. That was an eighth mile race so this was the first quarter mile pass I’ve made. But you need to get back into one as soon as you can so you don’t have too much time to think about it. You get back in and go back into your routine. If you wait awhile it will start messing with your brain a little bit.” An accident like Sullivan’s can mess with the brain. Sullivan hit the wall full-tilt…causing the body to fly off and break apart. “We came down to a Division 2 race just to make a run,” he said. “I was in the left-hand lane and I staged maybe a tad crooked. There was a lot of sand on the track. I left the starting line and had the best 60-foot time, best 330 time. The car veered to the left just a little bit…not enough to correct it real bad. At the 1/8 mile mark it took a right-hand turn like somebody had turned the car. I couldn’t do anything except grab the straps and say ‘This isn’t going to be good.’ I went right into the wall. The body went over the wall and I ricocheted back down the track upside down and went through the quarter mile in the cage upside down. The carbon fiber ejector head, a $3,000 ejector head, I watched it in slow motion grinding down because it was dragging on the asphalt. After I hit the wall I had a good time. It was like a ride at the fair.” When he came to Rockingham for the Spring Nationals, Sullivan wanted to redeem himself in his crews’ eyes. His 5.900 pass at 235.56 mph went a long way towards making him feel better about himself as a driver. “I was more worried about wrecking a new car and letting the crew down,” he said of the accident. “You really don’t have to worry about that with these guys but I knew I had to do my job yesterday. With all my 25 years of racing I knew I had to reach back and pull it off to make these guys proud. We were excited with a 5.90. We could have run an .85 with the car but we had a few small problems. (Crew Chief) Tommy (Payne) is going to adjust some things and it’ll be fine.” Before the pass he was more concerned with focusing on what was in front of him as opposed to dwelling on his past. “It was a little bit nerve-wracking and everyone was asking me if I was okay because I was kind of quiet…but I was just getting mentally ready to make the run,” Sullivan said. “This being a new car that had never been down the race track, and we have never owned a new race car, I was a little concerned about getting it down with no problems.” Sullivan was able to get down the track with no problems because he came to Rockingham with a certain mindset. “The biggest thing you can have is confidence,” he said. “I got confidence and so does my crew. I’ve done the best driving in my 25 year career over the last three years and I have a great car. That gives you as much confidence as you can have as a driver. I told Tommy we were going to go out and put up a good run and I have that run under me. I have a good crew and a good run under my belt. It is all behind me now.” And after he made the successful pass that confidence has grown. “We looked at what we did yesterday and know we can run with these boys,” Sullivan said. “Jimmy Rector came up to me and gave me a big thumbs up. We don’t want to be a car that just makes it through one run and is done, and we have the confidence now that we can compete. That’s what you need.”
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