THE WINS OF THE FATHER; Brandon Bernstein has big, fireproof shoes to fill.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

The most amazing thing about Brandon Bernstein is not that he won a division 7 championship in a Top Alcohol Dragster in his first try, nor that he's now strapping himself into his dad's 6000-hp Top Fuel car for the 2003 NHRA season. Nor even that he says, without hesitation, he is going for the championship. The most amazing thing is that he was so calm about it before the season started.

Shouldn't he be panicking? Freaking out? Doesn't he feel any pressure?

``Not really,'' he said, as if someone had just asked him if he wanted fries with that.

For those who don't measure everything in quarter-miles, or who are out of the reach of most beer advertising, Brandon Bernstein is the son of Kenny Bernstein, the latter being the King of Speed, the first guy to go 300 mph in the quarter-mile. The guy who won six NHRA pro championships, four in Funny Car and two in Top Fuel, and the only guy ever to win championships in both categories.

But Kenny Bernstein was not just a great racer, he was a great businessman/racer, a pioneer in bringing big-money sponsorship to drag racing. His 20-plus-year association with Budweiser is one of the longest-running team/sponsorships in motorsports, and it has brought corporate America into the pits in a big way. It has made NHRA drag racing just as viable an option as sponsoring a major golf tournament or a football bowl game. It has paralleled the rise of NASCAR as a big-money enterprise. Bernstein was the first to treat sponsorship maintenance with the same meticulous detail and energy that racers had previously reserved only for clutch packs and nitro mixtures.

Kenny Bernstein is still the team owner; the only difference is that Brandon will now drive. Brandon taking Kenny's seat in the race car is something like Genghis Khan telling his boy to go take over the European operations or like John Wayne Jr. taking over the local ranch. This is not just a job transfer. There are tens of thousands of Bernstein fans, a drag racing fan base second only to the inimitable John Force in size and enthusiasm.