Greg Anderson’s Dallas gym accident forced him to race Sunday at the NHRA Fall Nationals with a sore left wrist. As it turns out, that pain turned out to be a hairline fracture.

When in Egypt, you walk like an Egyptian.

Likewise when you’re racing with a Ford-sponsored team, you don’t come to the dance with a Chevrolet.

That being said, Daniel Wilkerson is competing this weekend with a Shelby Cobra Mustang loaned from teammate Bob Tasca III. Memphis marks the second event in 2009 for the second-generation Wilkerson, who ran Topeka with his father’s old Impala Funny Car body.

Robert Hight raced to the Funny Car qualifying lead Friday at the O’Reilly NHRA Mid-South Nationals.

Larry Dixon, Mike Edwards and Andrew Hines also led their categories at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event.

Hight, who barely made it into the NHRA Full Throttle Series Countdown to 1, has again made the most of his opportunity and followed up his back to back wins in Dallas and Charlotte, N.C. by leading qualifying at the Memphis Motorsports Park at the third event in the six-race championship playoffs.

Before breaking his 15-race winless drought this season, once-unconquerable Greg Anderson had learned to take it on the chin.
 
He kept his chin up after that Brainerd victory, even though he lost in the quarterfinals at Reading and the first round at Indianapolis and Charlotte for a disappointing start to the Countdown.
 
But at the O'Reilly Super Start Batteries Nationals near Dallas, the three-time Pro Stock champion took it on the chin -- and won the event.
 
That Saturday night, he prepared for final eliminations by going to the gym. Instead of working out, he got worked over -- by the chinning bar.
 
"My hand slipped off of it and I kind of tweaked the wrist and whacked me in the chin with the other side of the bar," Anderson said, calling the accident "stupidity . . . flat stupidity."

With the birth of his second child Penny Louise Hagan just hours after he arrived home last Sunday in Christiansburg, Va., from the Ennis, Texas, event of the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series, Matt Hagan is relaxed, ready and roaring to get back on track at this weekend's NHRA Mid-South Nationals at Memphis Motorsports Park.

Driving the Valvoline Engine Guarantee/shelor.com Dodge Funny Car, the contender for the 2009 Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award as an NHRA rookie-of-the-year frontrunner is aiming to win his first national event before the season is over in four events.

Though not a Countdown to 1 playoffs contender, he is hoping to be instrumental in helping his Don Schumacher Racing teammates Ron Capps and Jack Beckman earn the championship crown.

Veteran drag racer Doug Foley is bringing his racing school to Maple Grove Raceway Oct. 7-8.
 
The two-day driving school will feature both morning and afternoon Dragster Experience sessions, along with fantasy rides and licensing classes for various types of cars.

Being selected as the best of the best, is a distinguished honor in any sport. Earning this recognition with previous event wins this season in the Southern California Drag Racing Association (SCEDA) will provide a select few an opportunity to claim a winner takes all jackpot of $1,600.00 in the Pacific High Reach Shoot-Out held on October 17th at Autoclub Dragway in Fontana, Ca.

The Pacific High Reach Shoot-Out will include the 18 previous winners of SCEDA events in 2009. Racers who have won events in the Meziere Enterprises Electronics and Mickey Thompson Performance Tires and Wheels Non-Electronics categories are eligible for this event. Southern California bracket hitters, Rob Strong, Don Gatlin, Scott and John Joines, Jeff Interliccia and Dave Meziere are a few who are scheduled to line up for this season ending race of champions.

The NHRA has released another DVD in their line of forthcoming classic Diamond P drag racing footage.

Even on his weekend off from NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing, reining Funny Car Champion Cruz Pedregon has a need for quarter mile competition and he’ll be on the 1320 October 16-18 at Auto Club Famoso Raceway during the 18th California Hot Rod Reunion. The two-time NHRA Funny Car champion is calling this trip to the west coast a “Tribute to Joe Pisano” and will debut his 1978 Plymouth Arrow nostalgia Nitro Funny Car for the first time at the prestigious annual event.

Pisano, a drag racer and racing aftermarket pioneer, was instrumental in the careers of many drag racers and especially in the life of Pedregon. Joe P. as friends and competitors knew him, passed away in 1991. He helped Cruz in his early racing career and in fact introduced him to veteran top fuel and funny car team owner Larry Minor. In 1992, Pedregon won his first NHRA Funny Car Championship in a McDonald’s-sponsored Funny Car owned by Minor. Pedregon looked at this as an opportunity to pay a tribute to his longtime friend by asking Joe’s brother, Frank, if he could paint his nostalgia Funny Car similarly to one that Pisano raced in the late 70s. Hot Rod Reunion founder Steve Gibbs wanted to provide a place for racing friends to gather and share their stories shortly after the death of Joe Pisano.

The JEGS Top Dragster Shootout that was to run in conjunction with the recent JEGS NHRA Northern SPORTSnationals was rained out along with all of the other event activities on Saturday at National Trail Raceway.  Because the JEGS Northern SPORTSnationals event was the last race for the year in the Spitzer Race Cars Top Dragster Series, the special JEGS Top Dragster Shootout has been rescheduled for Saturday, April 24, 2010 at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis.

JEGS’ John Coughlin and Division Director Jay Hullinger also announced that JEGS has extended their sponsorship of the JEGS Top Dragster Shootout through 2010, ensuring that the popular Shootout will return as one of the many features of the JEGS NHRA Northern SPORTSnationals at National Trail Raceway, September 25, 2010.