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.

Last season Eddie Krawiec showed the NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle
community that he could win a Full Throttle Drag Racing Series world championship title in an unconventional manner.

This year, he’s showing the two-wheel set how to win it in more of a dominating fashion.

Krawiec, the former dragstrip manager at Old Bridge Township Raceway
Park in Englishtown, N.J. turned hotshot Pro Stock Motorcycle world
champion, emerged from deep in the top 10 last season in the Countdown
to 1 to win the Full Throttle Series season crown. He did it without
winning a race, leaving fans, drag racing historians and his motorcycle
peers scratching their collective heads. How did he do that?

It's been nearly one year since media members were given an intimate
tour of a nearly completed zMAX Dragway. On that day, they learned
first hand what many fans and competitors would learn later, that
Speedway Motorsports Chairman Bruton Smith had been true to his word
and delivered the Bellagio of drag strips.

Since the Speedway Motorsports development team put the finishing
touches on the one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art, four-lane drag strip,
the stock car capital of the world has been introduced to one big
straight-line success after another.

Top Fuel racer Doug Kalitta will debut Red Line Oil sponsorship this
weekend at the NHRA Fram Autolite Nationals in Sonoma, Ca., as a celebration
of the company’s 30th anniversary. The thundering 8,000-horsepower,
300-mph Top Fuel Dragster will wear Red Line Oil colors at an event
staged just across the bay from the facility where Red Line Oil is made.

"Infineon Raceway is our home track, so it’s the perfect place to
celebrate our 30th anniversary,” said Tim Kerrigan, president of Red
Line Oil. “This year Kalitta Motorsports is celebrating its 50th
Anniversary, so we’re especially proud to be a part of that. Our
employees, customers, and dealers feel that Doug Kalitta is an
incredible driver with a fantastic record in Sonoma, so he’s the
perfect person to represent our products. It should be a great weekend.”

Matt Hagan never made it past the staging lanes during the second qualifying session for the NHRA 

Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways on Friday because his parachutes suddenly dropped to the ground.

The next day, crew chief Tommy DeLago said the problem, the best he
could tell, was centered in the automatic shut-off system mandated by
the NHRA. DeLago is quick to admit the system definitely adds to the
safety of the race car. He just doesn't know what else would have
caused the chutes to deploy other than a fault with the system.

“It’s a spec system only available from one company,” explained Graham
Light, NHRA Vice President of Competition. “It senses the manifold
burst panel. When the panel opens up, it breaks the wire connection
sending a signal to the device and it simultaneously deploys the
parachutes and shuts the fuel and ignition off.”

Jason Fiorito, President of Pacific Raceways, is surprisingly candid, as track operators go.

He admits what once was a premier facility, originally constructed by
Dan Fiorito, Jr. and his brother Joe, does not currently come close to
being called premier. However, he firmly believes that in time, and
that doesn't mean tomorrow or even next year, Pacific Raceways has the
potential to become not just a premier drag racing facility, but a
premier motorsports facility with two drag strips, a road race course,
a karting track and a 5/16th's mile short track.

As is the case with most track operators, the money spent on a facility
isn't always apparent. Fiorito says his family has spent three million
dollars in improvements, of which only $750,000 can be quickly noted by
those in attendance – the new permanent grandstands. The remainder of
the money was spent on the current track surface to meet NHRA standards.

Shannon Davis, chief designer and owner of Davis Technologies, has
agreed to increase his involvement with Mike Janis Racing Inc. by
entering into a one-race associate sponsorship with Janis for next
weekend’s ADRL NATIONALGUARD.com U.S. Drags II at Virginia Motorsports
Park.

“We couldn’t be happier to have Davis Technologies joining our family
of sponsors,” said team owner and driver Mike Janis. “One of the first
things we did when we decided to run ADRL was call Davis Technologies.
We knew we would be allowed to use one of Davis Technologies’ devices
in the ADRL, but had no idea how it worked or how to use it. Shannon
came to our test sessions and walked us through the ins and outs of his
units and he has been a great help all season. You couldn’t ask for
better product support from a performance company.”