On track for VICTORY.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

LESS THAN 6 SECONDS It's like watching a single play of a football game, Duck fans, so you'd better not go to the bathroom. You can see how Brian Hough did at the U.S. Nationals when ESPN2 replays this weekend's event next Sunday, Sept. 10, at 11 a.m. and Sept. 14 at the same time. He'll also be at the Fall Classic at the Woodburn Dragstrip on Sept. 16 and 17.

There's nothing funny about driving a Top Alcohol Funny Car. In fact, it can kill you.

But that hasn't stopped Junction City's Brian Hough from racing one. In fact, he's on the verge of becoming the nation's top TAFC driver.

"It's a rush," says Hough (pronounced "Howg," with a hard "g').

The 33-year-old Hough runs OTI West Coast Steel Fabricators in Eugene, the company his father began in 1979. Hough's "rush" is not only about the possibility of becoming No. 1 in America, he's talking about what it's like to fly down a racetrack going 100 mph faster than a commercial jetliner on takeoff.

The nation's second-ranked TAFC driver, Hough is competing at the U.S. Nationals of the National Hod Rod Association this Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis.

In funny car talk, Hough is known as a "leaver." That means he's quick off the starting line, as in leaving the other guy in the dust.

"You step down on the pedal, and you don't let up until you're done," says Hough, who strikes you as anything but a drag racer with his clean-cut looks, responsible manner and determined gaze.

And if you're one of the best, you're done in less than 6 seconds, about the time it takes to say a prayer. And that's probably not a bad idea when you're driving a $100,000 chunk of metal filled to the brim with methanol at almost 260 mph.

"You don't have time to think," says Hough, who's been racing his father-in-law's 2002 Pontiac Firebird TAFC since 2004 - from Pomona and Sonoma, Calif., to Seattle and Las Vegas, and everywhere in between. "You only have time to do it."

If he wins this weekend, he'll take the top spot as the national point leader for the NHRA's 2006 TAFC season. Not bad for a guy who grew up playing soccer at Junction City High School, and who never even saw a racetrack until the day he and his father took their rig up to the Woodburn Dragstrip 11 years ago.

So how did all this come about?

Hough, who is one of only two Top Alcohol Funny Car (a class of drag racing) drivers from Oregon on the NHRA circuit, began racing at age 22 when his parents, Steve and Rosa Hough, bought a Top Alcohol Funny Car in 1995.

"It's just something he always wanted to do," Hough says of his father, who had always been passionate about "street cars."

The elder Hough sent his son off to Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School in Gainesville, Fla., to take a three-day course. After a few lessons, Brian Hough got behind the wheel and "took a pass" at 230 mph." That was a rush," he says.

He was hooked.

After that initial race in Woodburn, Hough raced his father's car for three years, winning the NHRA's Division 6 (Northwest) championship in 1997. When his parents parked their car in 1998 after losing their sponsor, Hough took a break from racing. In 1999, he married Mindy Goddard, daughter of Jerry, a former drag racing champion.

In 2001, Hough returned to racing and switched to a Top Alcohol Dragster owned by a friend, Mike Johnson of Shelton, Wash. Hough became one of only nine drivers ever to win national events in both alcohol classes when he won two national events in 2001.

After another brief layoff in which his son, Dylan, was born, Hough took up drag racing again when Jerry Goddard asked him if he would drive his new car.

"If I buy a funny car, will you treat it like your own?" Hough says his father-in-law asked him.

He was in.

And after a successful season in 2005, this season has been even better. Hough - whose fastest time is 5.55 seconds at 259 mph (the world record is 5.51 at 261 mph) - and his team have won six times this year, including taking top honors in two national events and winning three Division 6 events. They've also won twice in Woodburn at "national open" events.

Hough's team includes his wife, who helps him with tune-up decisions and reading tracks; Jerry Goddard; and Dylan, all of 3 years old now. Dylan wants to be a "junior dragster" when he turns 8. "He knows all the car part names," Hough says. Other team members are Brian Kuhnhenn, Dave Hull, Ross Bullinger, Dave Bullinger and Mark Carruba.

So what's the key to being a successful drag racer?

"Just the more you do it," Hough says. When the season starts up each year in February, and you haven't been in a car for a while and you head down that track going nearly 260 mph again, "your brain's only going 150 mph," he says. On the second run, your brain is maybe up to 200 mph.

"And by the time you make the third run, your brain's back to 260 mph," he says.

As the season rolls on, and you're racing two or three times a month, "your brain stays at 260. It's natural. Just like riding a bicycle."

And naturally dangerous. After bursting to such high speeds in such a flash of time, dragsters come to a halt after their parachutes deploy. And what if they don't? Well, just like a skydiver, that is not a good thing, says Hough, who recalls watching a female drag racer die in Sonoma in the late 1990s when that very thing happened to her, sending her to her death as her car ran off the track.

As for himself, Hough has had only one really scary moment, when his engine blew up in 1997 during a race in Woodburn.

"Oil was everywhere and I couldn't see anything," he says. The car flew next to the wall and finally came to a stop.

And what about practicing drag racing to sharpen your skills and lessen the chances of a fatal accident?

"You don't practice," Hough says. "There's no way to practice, and it's too expensive."

An average race costs about $1,000 to produce, when you take everything into account, Hough says.

And there are no places in Lane County, or any county in America for that matter, where you can practice driving your dragster for 1,320 feet in 5.7 seconds. Not unless you own your own racetrack.

The key to winning is in the preparation, Hough says: making sure you've got the right clutch setting, the right tire pressure, etc., depending on the track you're running. And, it doesn't hurt to have a quick reaction time when that light goes green, and some good, old intestinal fortitude to go along with it.

Top Alcohol Funny Cars run on methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, as opposed to the nitromethane that professional drag racers burn in their funny cars and Top Fuel dragsters. The difference? Speed. Top Fuel dragsters are the fastest accelerating vehicles in the world, according to the NHRA Web site. They can hit speeds of 335 mph and do a quarter-mile track in 4.4 seconds. Professional funny cars come close to the same speeds.

Top Alcohol Dragsters and Top Alcohol Funny Car drivers are known as "sportsmen" rather than professionals in the NHRA ranks because they aren't doing it for the money. In fact, only the top two finishers at a national TAFC event take home any cash, with winners usually making $5,000 and runner-ups making $2,500, Hough says. And only a few TAFC racers might break even on the season, he says.

A few of the top TAFC racers in the nation have major sponsors such as Valvoline, Hough says. And that's his goal for next season, to get a major sponsor, especially if he comes out on top Monday.

As of now, Hough's team is sponsored by several small businesses. And whatever they can't come up with, he says, Jerry Goddard covers the rest. Hough keeps his prized car in his Junction City garage, where he and crew members strip it down in between races.

"And then we put it back together and get ready for the next race."