If there was a defining race for the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va., Jim Halsey and Khalid Al-Balooshi made sure they earned the title.

As burnout smoke lingered in the air above their potent Pro Nitrous
doorslammers the finalists provided those in attendance, the majority
of whom entered on a free ticket, with enough excitement that they’d
have willingly paid $100 apiece to see the run.

“I was telling my guys that it was 10:30 P.M., and there wasn’t an
empty seat in house,” Halsey said. “It was the coolest thing to race in
front of that many people. I’ve never raced in front of that large of a
crowd.”

Larry Dixon and Spencer Massey both fell to lesser funded teams in the
first round of eliminations in the FRAM Autolite Nationals at

Mike
Strasburg keeps paces with Morgan Lucas in the Sonoma quarter-finals.
Lucas smoked the tires, fell behind, enabling Strasburg to advance to
the semis. (Bob Pelligrini)

Infineon
Raceway.

Dixon, in the Al-Anabi dragster, was headed to an easy victory over
Mike Strasburg until he struck the tires around the 300 foot mark.
Strasburg's 3.949 second, 275.96 mph run was the second slowest of all
the first round winners. Massey, in the U.S. Smokeless dragster, struck
his tires at almost the exact same spot during his run against Joe
Hartley, who posted the slowest run of the session – 4.175 second,
249.90 mph.

Vance & Hines Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson V-Rod Pro Stock Motorcycle teammates Eddie Krawiec and Andrew
Hines met in the final round of the 22nd FRAM Autolite Nationals at
Infineon Raceway, where it was all Hines from start to finish.

Line cut a .007 light on the way to a 6.972 second, 189.82 mph run over Krawiec.

“It's such an honor to race your teammate in the final and to be able
to win with your buddy over there,” said Hines. “We fight back and
forth in everything we do, whether its qualifying, racing each other,
at the shop on reaction timers; we're very competitive. When we go up
there somebody is going to come out of there with a double oh light,
whether its red or green. In Denver I was double oh eight red and he
was on his game with a double oh one green.”

Greg
Anderson raced to the No. 1 qualifying position in Pro Stock Saturday
at the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals with a track record performance of
6.571 seconds at 210.11 mph in his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP.

With the qualifying effort Anderson became the fourth driver in his
category to secure a position in the Countdown to 1, NHRA’s playoffs.
It was his fourth No. 1 of the season, 73rd of his career and his sixth
at Infineon Raceway.

Mike Janis covered the Virginia Motorsports Park eighth-mile in rapid
fashion, his 3.762-second, 203.22 mile per hour run putting him atop
the Pro Extreme field. More importantly, his rapid pace moved his car
out of harm’s way.

Jason Scruggs took delivery of his spare race car just a few minutes after 4 am Saturday morning, the final

Mark Walter/Dragstory.com

day of the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va.

Ten hours later he was leading the Pro Extreme division.

The defending ADRL Pro Extreme champion crashed his primary race car, a
new 1967 Camaro from Garrett Race Cars during Friday practice, and
after discussions with his crew, called a fellow farming friend Matt
Hutchison to deliver his championship-winning Dodge Stratus.

Extreme 10.5 driver Chuck Ulsch came to
Virginia with one mission in mind. He wanted to be the first to run a
3-second lap in ADRL competition. He came closer Friday night to the
historic run than any one of the other sixteen contestants competing at
the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va.

Ulsch drove Gil Mobley’s brand new Vanishing Point Race Cars 1968
Camaro to a 4.010 elapsed time at 195.73 miles per hour to claim the
provisional No. 1 qualifying position. He will have two more sessions
to improve his position in less advantageous conditions on Saturday.

Extreme 10.5 hitter Billy Glidden participated in last weekend’s
NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal drag racing and his main purpose
was to exorcise some of the combination demons that have tormented his
combination for most of 2009.

Did the testing work in a favorable manner for Glidden?

“Don’t know yet,” Glidden said. “I don’t have a new rod or piston in
either of my engines. I usually take a drain pan full of them and throw
them in a barrel. I dumped the barrel and picked through them to come
up with the pistons for these engines.

Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines, running the '09 V-Rod, paced a 21-bike field through two rounds of
qualifying for the FRAM Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway.  Matt
Guidera, racing a Buell, was the most noted driver outside the top 12.

Krawiec's is hopeful his 6.973, 190.49 mph run will hold up through the
final two rounds of qualifying. Despite six consecutive final round
appears, Krawiec has yet to sit on the pole come race day.

“With the headwind, there is some elapsed time left on the table,”
Krawiec said. “I happened to make one of the best runs of the session
and the bike went straight as a string. I didn’t move around and from
that I knew that big e.t.’s usually come up on the board. I just think
it’s about making really good runs and that’s what we’ve been doing
lately.

After two rounds of qualifying NHRA rookie Matt Hagan is all smiles. The Virginia cattle farmer sits atop the NHRA Fram Autolite Nationals Funny Car field in his shelor.com Dodge with an impressive 4.068, 307.51 mph run.

Under near perfect conditions on a stellar track surface, Hagan pulled
out a steady, straight run of 4.068 seconds at a top speed 307.51 mph,
the quickest and fastest run of his career, to claim his first
provisional No. 1. In today’s first pass, he was No. 4 with a
4.213/287.78.

Two more rounds of qualifying on Saturday will determine the 16-car field for Sunday's eliminations.