5 Questions with an NHRA champ

Question: What happened in that season finale at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, Calif.?

Answer: Going into the finals, Rick White had 332 points and I had 273. But he got disqualified for hitting a cone in the first round of qualifying, and I got to the semifinals that weekend. I wound up winning the championship by nine points (351-342).

Question: How surprised were you that you and your "Nitro Thunder" racing team were able to come away with the title?

Answer: In all honesty, I didn't think I had much chance of catching him. My chances weren't very good at all going into that last weekend. The odds were definitely against me. He would have to not qualify — something goofy like that would have to happen for me to win it, and it's kind of funny that that's what happened.

Question: Did you feel sorry for White after he ran into bad luck that final weekend?

Answer: No. I mean, he's a real nice guy, but it's still nice to win. In the third race of the season at Sacramento, we broke the track record with an elapsed time of 5.69 seconds, but I got disqualified for hitting a cone. He came in that last week and pulled up and was joking around, giving me a bad time about hitting the cone, and then he went out and did the same thing.

Question: What were some of the other 2009 season highlights for the "Utah Sheriff and His Posse"?

Answer: We qualified No. 1 in three of the season's four races. We had an ET of 5.65 at the March Meet in Bakersfield, which is my fastest time ever, and we won that race. And we set the track record, a 5.88, at Rocky Mountain Raceways in June.

Question: You won a GoodGuys Series national nostalgia racing championship in 2006. What did you win for taking the NHRA title?

Answer: We got a real big trophy and a real nice coat — and bragging rights, the most important part. But racing is a team sport, and I couldn't have won without my crew chief and crew members: Rayce Muchmore, Steve Watson, Steve Macklyn, Bob Eames, Mike Lockman, Jason Mott, Steve Tyrrell, my dad Jack Harris (the team's founder and also a former GoodGuys national champion), Harry Dubach, Greg Layton, and my kids, Kaden Harris and Carissa Harris.