SPEED has reached an agreement with Feld Motor Sports, Inc., to extend
its broadcast rights deal for the International Hot Rod Association
(IHRA) Nitro Jam series.

Australian Drag Racing’s favourite daughter, Debbie Reed, has added to her trophy cabinet by taking out the Top Alcohol bracket at Western Sydney International Dragway’s Boxing Day USA Showdown over the weekend (26th-28th December).

With this, she has also shot to the top of the National Championship
table becoming the first female in history to lead the professional
category.

The win is Debbie’s second in her Top Alcohol Dragster with the first
at the 2006 East Coast Nationals, however victory was just as sweet
second time around for the popular Queenslander.

Five nitro funny cars, 13 Top Doorslammers, nine Top Alcohol funny cars
and dragsters, five Pro Stock Motorcycles and 152 sportsman racers will
celebrate the beginning of 2009 in high octane style at Willowbank
Raceway this Friday and Saturday, January 2 and 3, for round one of the
ENZED International Nightfire New Year Series.

USA
Nitro Funny Car legend Gary Densham will be on hand alongside the
Australian stars of the sport to salute the New Year in their unique
way, with Densham and four Aussie Nitro Funny Cars set for a USA vs AUS
Showdown over the two days.

The Event will also host ANDRA Championship rounds for the Top
Doorslammer, Pro Stock Motorcycle and Top Alcohol categories, with the
Top Alcohol racers set for an extra challenge with their last
competitive hit-out taking place just two days ago in Sydney – handing
them a race against time to be ready for Friday’s qualifying.

The HangoverFest is a winter wonderland of drag racing at Cordova
Dragway Park, Cordova, Illinois and is on Thursday, January 1, 2009.
Cordova Dragway Park is one of very few race tracks in the northern
United States to race in the middle of the winter.

For the most part all out race cars are not the norm as mostly those
with street cars, trucks and motorcycles race and it’s a great chance
to see friends and wish them a great new year on what is traditionally
a day when people sit around at home. In addition, there will be a free
gift to the first 500 through the gates plus free aspirin for those who
might have partaken too much on New Year's Eve.

Drag
racing legend Jeg Coughlin Sr. will make a special appearance this
Saturday, Jan. 3, at the Murray's Speed & Custom Full Throttle Car
Show benefiting the Darrell Gwynn Foundation. The can't-miss event
takes place from 6-10 p.m. at the Sheehan Autoplex, 2800 North Federal
Highway, Lighthouse Point, Fla.

Coughlin will help his longtime friend Gwynn give away a special
wheelchair at the event, while taking time to sign autographs and pose
for pictures with the fans in attendance.

No Funny Car Experience and a Willingness to Learn Crowned Tobler in 2008 …

His experience was non-existent. His challenge was monumental.

Neither prevented Rahn Tobler, a world championship tuner from the Top Fuel ranks, from learning how to make a Funny Car work.

Tobler, the former tuner for four-time Top Fuel champion Shirley
Muldowney and later championship contender Doug Kalitta, not only
accepted a challenge from Cruz Pedregon late in 2007, but also made the
decision by his employer rank as a move of sheer genius.

The then past Funny Car world champion wanted Tobler to tune his Funny Car.

Fresh off his second straight and fifth overall world championship, Pro
Stock drag racer Jeg Coughlin Jr. is ready to trade in his 1,500-horsepower
JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt for a gravity-driven JEGS.com bobsled at the
fourth annual Whelen Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge, Jan. 2-4, in Lake
Placid, N.Y.

The charity event created by NASCAR veteran Bodine raises money for the
Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project, which designs and makes bobsleds exclusively
for Team USA. Prior to Bodine's involvement, U.S. bobsledders were
afterthoughts on the world stage, racing the castoff bobsleds from
their European counterparts. Now they routinely win medals at the
highest level of the sport, including the Olympic Games and World
Bobsled Championships.

"It's very exciting to return to this event," Coughlin said. "I've
thought about our return since last January and I'm thrilled that our
family business, JEGS Mail Order, is now involved in helping fund the
project. We're all very proud of our young American athletes and the
bobsled team has certainly come a long way since Geoff started this
deal back in the 1990s. They're gold medalists now and it's exciting to
be a part of something where we're really making a difference."

Roy Hill Drag Racing School Graduate Eric Gullett Presented With Unique Opportunity…

Life has its way of presenting unique opportunities and for Eric Gullett, fate need not ask a second time.

The low profile bracket racer from Chattanooga, Tenn., will begin
licensing procedures next month in hopes of becoming a nostalgia Funny
Car driver.

Gullett will make runs behind the wheel of Mitch King’s Fuel Altered.
If that goes well, he could easily end up behind the wheel of either
Henry Guttierrez’s restored Jungle Jim or Brand X AA/Funny Car entries.

The talk for now is that Gullett will become a back up driver for
either Army Armstrong or Mitch King in the event of a scheduling
conflict.

“We’ll be doing some match races and certainly be at the NHRA Hot Rod
Reunions,” Gullett added. “These cars back in the day were all about
showmanship and we want to give the fans their money’s worth. We want
to pay tribute and have fun doing it.”

It may well be an NHRA first.

It most certainly was a first for the young and highly talented pastry chef at Lowe's Motor Speedway's Speedway Club.

In early November, Jessica LeCronier, a fourth year student at Johnson
and Wales University, Charlotte campus and pastry chef at the Speedway
Club, was commissioned to create an exact replica of the recently
opened Zmax Dragway, home of the NHRA Carolina Nationals, in
gingerbread.

It may be snowing in Delaware, Ohio, but the hometown of JEGS Mail Order and five-time world champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. still managed
to send out road crews to change the city limit signs to reflect
Coughlin's latest title. Coughlin won his fourth Pro Stock championship
since the turn of the millennium, scoring titles in 2000, 2002, 2007,
and 2008, to go with his 1992 Super Gas crown.
 
"It's really quite an honor for the city to do this for us," Coughlin
said. "It never fails to put a smile on my face whenever I drive by one
of those signs because it allows you a moment to reflect on all the
good times we've had racing our JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt.