Results from the 2nd Annual Ohio Crankshaft No Box Nationals at Bunker Hill Dragway.
 

What a difference a year can make. After struggling through 2008, in what would easily be considered his toughest season in two decades,
Quain Stott is back in the groove that led him to much of the success
he has enjoyed during his career. After spending most of 2008 in a
research and development mode, Stott is back to his winning ways - as
both a driver and a tuner.

"I was just being hard-headed," Stott admits about the 2008 season.
"The stuff we had figured out on paper should have made the car faster.
It just wouldn't work in racing conditions."

With
six races completed and three remaining in the Get Screened America Pro
Mod Challenge presented by ProCare Rx to qualify for the $35,000 Matco
Tools Pro Mod Clash, the field is quickly defining itself.
 
Beginning at the NHRA Gatornationals in March, drivers have earned
points for the "race-within-a-race" which pits the top Pro Mods against
each other with the chance to race for a $25,000 top prize when the
Clash is contested Oct. 29 - Nov. 1 at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals.
 
The NHRA SuperNationals at Englishtown, N.J. last weekend saw only a
slight change in the lineup with the qualified drivers jockeying for
position. Raymond Commisso's victory launched him from a tie in eighth
to a solid fourth, and Danny Rowe's runner-up performance moved him
from fifth to third.

NHRA is partnering with Auto Club Speedway in Fontana to offer one hot
ticket for motorsports fans in Southern California. The SoCal Speed
Pass will provide a reserved seat and pit pass to the Automobile Club
of Southern California NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona on
Nov. 15 and a reserved seat and pit pass to the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Series race at Auto Club Speedway on Oct. 11.

The SoCal Speed Pass, available for the low price of $95, will save
fans $80 off the retail value of both tickets while supplies last. The
SoCal Speed Pass offer expires on Sept. 11.

Drag racing entrepreneur George Howard has leased Holly Springs
Motorsports Park and has planned something unheard of in the sport ---
free car and driver entry to all of his bracket races at the popular
northwest Mississippi eighth-mile track.

Howard, of GHR (George Howard Racing) in Birmingham, Alabama, the
“father” of the Million Dollar Drag Race, to be held in October 2009 in
Memphis, will gear Holly Springs to weekly bracket races and special
events featuring everything from Pro Mods to big-time motorcycle races
and nearly everything in between. Howard said the track will be open
from Friday through Sunday every week through the 2009 season and will
include test’n’tune sessions, Midnight Madness shows and heads-up and
ORSCA events. The track will be NHRA-sanctioned, and will field a team
at the NHRA Division 2 bracket finals.

It’s four days after Kenny Koretsky was photographed holding the race winner’s trophy following the NHRA SuperNationals in Englishtown, N.J., and the veteran businessman/team owner/driver hasn’t stopped smiling.

No
surprise here because this was his first victory of any kind in NHRA’s
nitromethane-fueled categories (Top Fuel and Funny Car) or Pro Stock
Car in more than three decades of trying.  It came from two-time Full
Throttle Series champion Tony Pedregon, who drove the vibrant Nitro
Fish Impala to the Funny Car win.

That was quite a happy ending
for the first collaboration between Pedregon and Koretsky’s Nitro Fish
brand – and there could be more.

When most people think of Father's Day, they think of dads taking their
sons fishing, or daughters to a picnic, or families honoring their
patriarch.

When it comes to the Force family, in the past Father's Day has been a
time of strapping in, firing up and blasting down the drag strip. This
year, for the first time in many, many years, Father's Day won't be at
a racetrack. There will be no autograph signings, no team meetings, no
media interviews and no special moment in a nitro-filled atmosphere for
John Force and his daughters, Ashley, Brittany and Courtney.

This year, John Force will be out on a boat with his sponsors and his
son-in-law, Robert Hight, while the girls will be in Las Vegas with
their mother, celebrating Courtney's 21st birthday. Not much different
than in years past, before the girls became drivers.

As the youngest, Courtney had the toughest time understanding the revolving door that was and still is her father's life.

Could the NHRA make a concerted effort to return to quarter-mile racing at certain tracks in 2010? Certain venues with longer, smoother
shutdowns areas could return to 1320 feet (a quarter-mile) while
several of the land-locked facilities would remain at 1,000 feet.

If the NHRA does adopt a multi-length format, sources have indicated
the sanctioning body would continue with their data gathering testing
in an effort to slow the nitro cars down by “knocking some speed” off
of the runs. This would enable the sanctioning body a full return to
1320.

This weekend's 7th annual Holley National Hot Rod Reunion at Beech Bend
Park in Bowling Green, Ky., is a three-day festival of speed, hot
rods and American automotive enthusiasm. Produced by the Wally Parks
NHRA Motorsports Museum, presented by the Automobile Club of Southern
California and located in Pomona, Calif., the Reunion is part of the
museum’s “living history” philosophy, which works to bring to life the
sights, sounds and people who made history in the early days of drag
racing, land speed racing and the golden age of American car culture.

Unique among motorsports events, the Reunion honors some of the top
names in hot rodding from the past and features a fabulous array of
cool drag cars, street rods and customs of the historic and present-day
hot rod eras.