Tony Schumacher will be the first to admit Raceway Park has gotten the best of him over the years. (Roger Richards)

Very few opponents get the best of NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony
Schumacher on a regular basis. The one opponent who has performed this
act on a regular basis is not a racer or a car.

Old Bridge Township Raceway Park beats Schumacher year in and year out like a drum.

“Man, that track flat out gives me a headache every year,” said the
Chicago-area resident as he prepared for the Lucas Oil SuperNationals
here this weekend.

Schumacher has won five world championships and 45 career victories, yet can’t seem to get out of his own way at Raceway Park.

Doug
Herbert has a wealth of memories related to his sons and Englishtown. (Roger Richards)

There’s not a day that passes when NHRA Top Fuel driver Doug Herbert
doesn’t reflect on his sons, Jon and James, who were killed earlier
this year in an automobile accident. They often traveled to races with
him and because of that, some events bring back memories more than
others.

This weekend’s event in Englishtown is one of those where the memories are strong.

“Every time we came to Old Bridge,” said Herbert, “James wanted to go
to the motocross track. He competed in motocross, and always wanted to
go watch those guys.”

NHRA has announced that limited tickets are available for the Quarter
Mile Club, an innovative new luxury suite package available to fans
attending the Auto Club NHRA Finals, Nov. 13-16, at the historic Auto
Club Raceway at Pomona.

Due to soaring travel costs Matt Moore from Lenco Transmissions will
not be attending the Rocky Mountain Nationals or the Mopar Canadian
Nationals. For all IHRA racers competing at the Rocky Mountain
Nationals and Mopar Canadian Nationals there will be no Lenco
Transmission service available but a limited number of popular parts
will be available through Canadian Lenco Dealer Atchison Machine
located  at Alcohol Funny Car racer Rob Atchison’s pit area.

After months of grading and
preparation, crews on Monday evening will begin pouring the 3,000 cubic
yards of concrete for the four-lane, quarter-mile dragstrip at zMax
Dragway @ Concord.

The "Bellagio of dragstrips" will be only the third track in
the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series to feature a concrete quarter-mile
racing surface and the only four-lane track on the national circuit.

During a recent visit, NHRA competitors, including 14-time
NHRA Funny Car world champion John Force, raved about plans to
construct zMax Dragway's quarter-mile entirely of concrete.

Tom Hammonds will race in this weekend’s NHRA Lucas Oil SuperNationals
in Englishtown, N.J. and take the rest of the summer off in an effort
to procure primary sponsorship. The former NBA basketball star turned
Pro Stock racer hopes to return by the NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on
Labor Day weekend.

"We have decided to take a break because we need to regroup and get our
priorities in order as far as our team is concerned," says Tom
Hammonds, president and driver for THE. "Our number one priority right
now, like every other team, is to look for primary sponsorship for our
race team." 

Hammonds has funded the team without a primary sponsor for two seasons,
and it has taken a toll on the team's performance. He said the lack of
primary sponsorship forced him to concentrate on other primary duties,
which compromised his performance on the track.  Hammonds has qualified
only twice this season.

Sometimes drag racing provides a second chance. Former Top Alcohol
Dragster champion Steve Torrence gets that second chance this weekend
in Englishtown, NJ. His last stint was in 2006 as a teammate to J.R.
Todd.

Torrence makes a return to Dexter Tuttle’s team as a replacement for
Alan Bradshaw, who was fired from the team after a dispute with crew
chief Tony Shortall.

Torrence spent much of this week being fitted for the cockpit of the dragster.

"I've fallen into a team that has been working together for awhile
now," Torrence said. "They have great chemistry together and we were
all cutting up, laughing and joking around while they fitted me to the
car. Dexter's theory is that with all the hard work the team puts in,
everyone should also be able to have some fun too. That philosophy is a
good fit for the way I like to race.

The drag racing community knows Ed Hoover as the winner of the first sanctioned Pro Modified

Meet Ed Hoover, former diesel mechanic and avid do-it-yourself airplane pilot.

national
event. Two little know factoids about the Columbia, SC.-based driver
for construction magnate Paul Trussell is that he once earned a living
as a diesel mechanic and in his spare time flies airplanes he
constructs.

“I learned in my teenage years that if I was going to support my racing
habit that I needed to open a business of my own,” Hoover said. “That’s
the first thing I did right out of high school. I did it for about
fifteen years and we had ten employees.”

Hoover juggled his racing and work until he admitted, “I found someone with more money than I had.”

(Roger Richards)

ProCare Rx nitro Funny Car driver Melanie Troxel is prepared to continue her
steady march toward making the NHRA POWERade Countdown to the Championship this
weekend as she competes in the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge
Township Raceway. On the heels of a history-making No. 1 qualifying effort in
Chicago where she became the first woman to take the top spot in Funny Car
competition, Troxel is anxious to continue blasting her way to the top in her
Brian Corradi-tuned Dodge Charger R/T.
 
"It was definitely a great thing
to be number one in Chicago, and while I understand and appreciate the
milestone, making the Countdown is really what we're all about right now,"
Troxel said. "Qualifying number one is wonderful, but it doesn't represent
race-day conditions. Our goal as a team has been to be top-5 in any given race,
and we're doing well with that.
 
"We're basically where we need to be
right now, and the team is peaking at a great time. We've seen improvement in
our performance over the last several weeks, and this weekend, we're going to go
out and give it all we have to keep things moving," she said.

Roger Richards Photo

Chip Ellis is getting the hang of riding a Suzuki. This weekend he’ll
get the opportunity to ride the quickest motorcycle in the history of
the NHRA’s Pro Stock division.

Ellis will mount the same bike that Angelle Sampey (as a member of Don
Schumacher Racing for the U.S. Army) rode to a historic NHRA
national-record elapsed time of 6.871 seconds during eliminations at
last year's Englishtown event.

"I think it's going to be a positive weekend for us," said Ellis. "As
long as the air is good I think we'll go really fast in Englishtown.