Cory Mac has raced many race tracks, Route 66 Raceway is one of the few he's yet to win . (Roger Richards)

FRAM Top Fuel dragster driver Cory McClenathan has reached the winner's
circle at 16 different tracks over the course of his 17 years of
competition, but the most tenured driver in the class has yet to score
a victory or reach the final round at Route 66 Raceway.

This weekend he hopes to change that at the Route 66 NHRA Nationals,
the 10th stop on the 24-race NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series schedule.
It also marks the beginning of the second half of the 18-race regular
season, leading up to the Countdown to the Championship, which begins
following the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis.
 
McClenathan is No. 5 in the Top Fuel point standings following a solid
semifinal finish in Topeka last Sunday, where he qualified No. 2, the
sixth time he's entered eliminations in the top half of the 16-car
field. McClenathan's Don Schumacher Racing entry has been the picture
of consistency for much of the 2008 season and he looks to continue
that trend this weekend at the Route 66 Nationals.

After having one of his most consistent showings last weekend in
Topeka, Bob Tasca III looks to continue his move up the NHRA POWERade
championship points ladder this weekend in the Route 66 NHRA Nationals.

“With how we qualified and ran in Topeka, we were able to jump back up
into the top 10 in points,” said Tasca. “We lost on a holeshot to Gary
Scelzi in the second round, but overall for us, it was a great weekend.
My team won the Full Throttle award for the first time this year and we
earned our best qualifying position of the season.

“I think Chicago is going to be great for us,” said Tasca. “I’ve never
felt as confident driving a car as I do now. Chris [Cunningham, crew
chief] and the guys on the team continue to give me a car that
consistently goes down the track, and the value of that for a rookie
driver is immeasurable. I have more confidence now than at any point in
the season as a rookie driver, and I think my team has more confidence
now than they have ever this season. Being at the halfway point until
the countdown begins, I don’t think we feel the pressure because of the
preparation and the level of focus that we bring to every race,
regardless of where we are in the points.”

Ron Capps, the Funny Car runner-up to his Don Schumacher Racing
teammate Gary Scelzi in last year's Route 66 NHRA Nationals and the
winner of the 2005 fall event here, is ready for a second victory this
weekend at the driver-friendly Route 66 Raceway.

Driving the NAPA AUTO PARTS Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car, Capps has
jumped up in the last few races from outside of the top 10 into sixth
place in the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car rankings.
He's focused on staying high in the standings when the Countdown to the
Championship kicks in for the top 10 following the U.S. Nationals in
Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend.

"Like I talked about last week in my blog on www.napaautoparts.com ,"
said Capps, who also was runner-up here in the 2002 fall event, "we are
getting into the part of the schedule where adversity is going to be
thrown at all of the teams, with the triple-digit track temperatures we
expect at all these tracks coming up. You look at Englishtown, N.J.,
and Norwalk, Ohio, after Chicago, and they're all places we expect to
have to run in the heat.

Chris Rivas has had more than his share of testing time this season. (Roger Richards Photo)

Chris Rivas, rider of the G2 Motorsports/Drag Specialties/S&S Cycle
V-Twin Pro Stock Motorcycle (PSM), is looking forward to this weekend's
Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals confident many of the
problems the team suffered this season were resolved during a late May
test session.

"It was valuable time spent on the track and we'll apply what we learned and be a very competitive team," said the 41-year-old Fresno, Calif., native. "We improved our short track times, and now I'm looking toward Chicago."

Route 66 Raceway here has been a good track for Rivas and the G2 Motorsports/Drag Specialties/S&S CycleV-Twin motorcycle. Last year, Rivas entered race day in the fifth qualifying position and advanced to the second round. The G2 Motorsports/Drag Specialties/S&S Cycle V-Twin won the event in 2005.

In recent weeks, Duck Tape Racing has been fire, consistently lighting
win lights at a variety of venues.  Teammates Matt Zapp and Michael
Beard both scored heads-up Index class wins two weeks ago with Zapp's
Racers for Christ Super Street Shootout victory at Norwalk Raceway
Park's NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event and Beard's 7.0 Index
win at Piedmont Dragway's Triad Thunder Series.  Over Memorial Weekend,
Beard accomplished the unthinkable by double-entering and running
himself in the finals of the Sunday $10K at the World Footbrake
Challenge II, hosted by Bristol Dragway.

Wayne Butler and the newly incorporated 1320 Motorsports Race Team are
headed to Joliet, Illinois this weekend for the Torco Racing Fuels
Route 66 NHRA National event.  The Team is coming off a career season
where they finished in the Top 10 in the Lucas Oil Division 3 points
standings and ran career best numbers 5.78 at 248 MPH.

In 2008, with backing from Midwest Generation of Chicago, a subsidiary
of Edison International and one of the largest independent power
producers in the Midwest, United States, the Team is hoping to pick up
right where they left off at the end of last year.  Midwest Generation
owns and operates six electric power generating facilities in Illinois
and supervises operation of a plant in western Pennsylvania.

The three Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car teams scored a win, a
runner-up and a semifinal finish at the 2007 Route 66 NHRA Nationals.
"Fast" Jack Beckman was the semifinalist while Gary Scelzi and Ron
Capps were the winner and runner-up, respectively. For Beckman, in his
first full Funny Car season in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, it
was a strong performance.

This year, with a full NHRA tour and four victories in six final rounds
behind him and entering his 50th pro event of his career, the driver of
the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T is more
experienced and probably even hungrier to surpass his teammates. He'd
like to take home a victory at this weekend's event at the outstanding
Route 66 Raceway, where he lost the semis in '07 to Capps.

"It's all going to depend on the weather," said Beckman, who is 11th in
the point standings, just 11 markers out of the coveted top 10. "It is
one of the best race tracks that NHRA has out there.

Courtney Force is ready to get summer started. Unlike most college
students Force will not be reclining poolside but rather accelerating
beyond speeds of 260 mph in the BrandSource sponsored A Fuel dragster
she shares with her sister Brittany. The 8th annual TORCO Race Fuels
Nationals at Route 66 Raceway outside Chicago, which runs June 6-8,
will be a new experience for the young driver from Yorba Linda,
California.

“I’m excited to be going to Chicago. I’ve been there when I was little
and I am excited that it is one of the newer facilities,” said the
19-year old sophomore at Santiago Canyon College. It will be a new
challenge for me to race there.”

The A Fueler owned by Jerry Darien has qualified for all four NHRA
national events the sisters Force have entered but it has yet to
advance beyond the first round. This is a problem Courtney Force is
hoping to correct this weekend and she is drawing on her father’s
recent success in Topeka.

Justin Humphreys will be racing this "borrowed" Mopar again this
weekend. The car is the same Mopar formerly driven by Richie Stevens.

The first thing most NHRA Pro Stock drivers do when they drive a
different car is go into test mode.  The more runs he makes, the more
familiar he becomes with the car’s idiosyncrasies.
 
“No two cars are alike,” any racer or crew chief will tell you – not
even if they came off the same mold on the same day.  And there’s no
need to get into the myriad parts and intricate pieces that make it
work.
 
Thrust into a situation last week that forced him to sit in a totally
different race car for the first time and attempt to qualify for an
event, Justin Humphreys responded like the veteran driver he is.

After earning a runner-up finish last year, Division 7 racer Dwight
Downing will be among the favorites to claim the Super Street title
during the 24th annual JEGS Allstars, which will be held during the
upcoming Torco Race Fuels Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.
Downing, of Glendale, Ariz., has qualified for the prestigious event
for a second-straight season, and will be eying the $4,500 top prize
when action gets underway on Saturday, June 7. In addition to the
individual honors, the 64 Allstars contestants, representing the best
racers in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series from each of NHRA’s
seven geographic divisions, will be battling for a share of more than
$100,000, including a $20,000 bonus for the team that accumulates the
most round wins. Drivers qualify for the JEGS Allstars team following a
year-long battle within their home division.
 
Downing, a former Division 7 champion and the winner of the 2000 NHRA
national event at Heartland Park Topeka, is off to another solid start
in 2008. He recently won the Lucas Oil Series event in Tucson, Ariz.,
and is the current leader in the Division 7 standings.