Pete Berner’s weekend didn’t quite turn out as expected.

In what was possibly the closest drag race in IHRA Elite Motorsports
Pro Stock history, Berner succumbed to eventual winner Dean Goforth in
the first round by a margin of victory that didn’t even register on the
scoreboard, an incredible .0000 seconds at the line.

That equates to zero inches at the finish between the No. 2 qualifier
and the 13th man on the charts. While the first round loss was
definitely a disappointment for the two-time champ, he wasn’t all that
upset.

After all, that is just the kind of year it has been in IHRA Elite Motorsports Pro Stock this season.

Ron Capps returns "home" this weekend for the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway. Born and raised in San Luis Obispo,
Calif., the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Funny Car points
leader always enjoys this final leg of the three-race Western Swing.

"Sonoma for me is like coming home to race," said Capps, a five-time
season titlist in the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Funny Car. "I lived up in
the Bay area, went to school there, met my wife Shelley there and got
married there. And when I was going to school I was teaching
racquetball at a couple of health clubs in the Bay Area and played in
tournaments all over Northern California.

"I have a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while, and every year they
pop up at this race. It's just a great feeling. My parents always come
up and it's a wonderful place to race."

Pro Stock driver Jason Line, Top Fuel world champion Tony Schumacher, and two-time world champion Larry Dixon were the latest drivers to clinch a spot in the Countdown to 1 playoffs, which will begin Sept. 17-20 at the second annual NHRA Carolinas Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, NC, just five races away. Defending Pro Stock world champion Jeg Coughlin was the first driver to clinch a spot in the Countdown playoffs after his second round finish in Norwalk. Below is a list of drivers who have secured their spot in the Countdown playoffs.

Top Fuel pilot Antron Brown is so close he can taste it. He won in Denver. He won in Seattle.

Now the points leader and sophomore dragster driver looks to do
something that only six drivers in NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing
history have ever done—sweep the Western Swing. With a victory at this
weekend’s FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma,
Calif., Brown would join a list that includes Top Fuel greats Joe
Amato, Tony Schumacher, Cory McClenathan and Larry Dixon, along with
Funny Car legend John Force and three-time Pro Stock world champion
Greg Anderson.

Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Karen Stoffer will throw out the ceremonial
first pitch before the Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins game on
Wednesday, July 22, at 12:35 p.m. at the Oakland Coliseum.

Tim Wilkerson believes he has aged quite a bit in the last few seasons.

The increased aging a result of being a throwback to the old days when
professional nitro racers used to tune and drive their race cars in
national event competition.

Wilkerson performs the demanding regimen not out of reverence for the old school but out of financial necessity.

NMRA Digital

There
are weekends where a racer struggles through adversity and then there
are those like the one NMRA Turbonetics Pro Outlaw racer Dan Millen
experienced this past weekend at the NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl.

“Extremely struggling weekend,” said, Millen who won the Pro Outlaw title.

Millen started the weekend battling issues and finished on an equally troubling crescendo.

Courtney Force, the youngest daughter of NHRA Funny Car racer John
Force, will always have soft spot in her heart for Pacific Raceways in
Kent, Wash., as it is now the site of her first NHRA national event
win.  The 21-year-old Force wheeled her Jerry Darien-tuned Top Alcohol
Dragster to the winner’s circle at the NHRA Northwest Nationals over
the weekend.  Top Alcohol Funny Car racer Doug Gordon shared the
winner’s circle with Force, notching his first national event win of
the year.

Jim Oddy, crew chief for Joshua Hernandez and his National
Guard-sponsored 1957 Chevy ADRL Pro Extreme entry, obviously wants to

Crew
chief Jim Oddy (left) celebrates with team owners Dave and Gidget Wood
after their National Guard-backed car won the National Guard ADRL Pro
Extreme race July 3, at Heartland Park Topeka, in Kansas.

win
the July 24-25, ADRL NATIONALGUARD.com U.S. Drags II for his sponsor,
his team owner and his crew. But there’s a measure of personal pride
involved, too.

That’s because Oddy, now in his 50th year as a drag racer, also was a
National Guard Soldier in the mid- through late-1960s, and to win the
National Guard race with the National Guard team would be
“unbelievable,” he says.