Kurt Johnson's most valuable lesson this year could be the meaning of a typo. (Roger Richards)

The first few days of this week proved to be rather interesting for Pro
Stock standout Kurt Johnson.  On Monday, KJ headed over to his daughter
Erin’s school in Buford, GA to take part in Career Day.  As expected,
the second-generation racer was fully prepared, dressed in his ACDelco
crew shirt and bringing his helmet, firesuit, HANS device and a
Goodyear slick to use as props, as well as a video from one of his
qualifying runs.

However, upon arriving at Ivy Creek Elementary School in Buford, Kurt
was unable to find the location for this event, and eventually asked a
teacher for assistance.  Much to his surprise, he was informed that
Career Day had in fact been scheduled for Tuesday, and that there was a
typo in the e-mail sent to parents requesting their participation. 
Fortunately, he was able to return the next day, and spoke to eight
different sets of fourth graders about his POWERade Drag Racing Series
career, fielding numerous questions from the enthusiastic students.

"The thing about drag racing," Ashley Force said after an historic
victory in the April 27 Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta, Ga., one
that made her the first female winner in NHRA Funny Car history, "is
that you can go from hero to zero very quickly."
 
As if to add emphasis to her observation, after three consecutive trips
to the final round, the 25-year-old daughter of drag racing icon John
Force was upset in her very first race the following week at Madison,
Ill.  As a result, she dropped from first to second place in the driver
standings behind veteran Tim Wilkerson.
 
When racing for the NHRA POWERade championship resumes this week at the
eighth annual O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway, the
graduate of Cal State-Fullerton will try to put that stumble behind her
and return her Castrol GTX® Ford Mustang to the dominant position it
previously occupied.
 
"For about 40 minutes I was in a pretty crappy mood," she said of
losing so early two weeks ago at Gateway International Raceway, "but
you always get over it.  Seeing dad win his 1,000th round and (teammate
Mike) Neff go the finals (in the Old Spice Mustang) completely brought
me out of my funk.

Jamie
Hancock isn’t just the reigning ADRL Pro Nitrous World Champion. He’s
the new face of Outlaw Clothing Company. With a history of quick and
consistent passes in his 2004 Chevy Corvette and the youth and
mainstream marketability it takes to promote a street wear brand like
Outlaw Clothing, Hancock is the perfect fit for the budding new company.

“For a young guy like me, this is a great opportunity,” said Hancock,
who spent last weekend battling it out with the best of the best in
ADRL Pro Nitrous competition. “Getting any sort of marketing partner
for a drag racing team is a bit of a struggle and for a young,
relatively new racer it’s even harder. Outlaw Clothing came to me and
said they were looking to work with younger drivers to help build their
brand – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

Dick
Loehr, a Lansing, Mich.-based Funny Car racer in the 1960s who later
competed in Pro Stock, died May 13 after a 10-year battle with prostate
cancer. An engineer by trade, Loehr used his job connections to get
sponsorship and assistance for his racing operations. In 1967, Loehr
fielded the Max Curtis Ford Stampede Mustang, which was fitted with a
427 SOHC engine before a 392 Chrysler Hemi. The car was replaced by a
new Mustang in 1969. In 1970, he moved to Pro Stock, where he
campaigned Mavericks until he left the sport after the 1972 season.

As the Lucas Oil Drag Racing series rolls into Houston Raceway Park
this weekend Comp eliminator racers will continue to earn a stake in
one of the largest Comp eliminator purses in NHRA drag racing history.

Comp racers have the opportunity to compete at three of six races in
the South Central division to qualify to run for a $25,000.00 season
ending purse at the seventh and final race of the year in the division,
at Noble Oklahoma in October.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster
drivers, Kate and Diana Harker have been selected along with sixteen other young
women drivers across multiple arenas of motorsport for consideration of the Lyn
St James ‘Project Podium’ Scholarship Grant. Each applicant will be reviewed by
a volunteer panel of motorsports and business professionals with recipients
being announced late-May.

The 25 year old identical twins
applied for the scholarship program which aims to help young women drivers
achieve their goals of reaching the top spot on the podium, winning races and
championships and moving onto the top levels of their chosen motorsports.

“This is a wonderful opportunity
that Lyn St James and the ‘Women in the Winners Circle Foundation’ is providing
for young females in Motorsports, really giving them the chance to develop their
skills both as professional drivers and savvy business women ” comments
Kate

Cory McClenathan will represent Don Schumacher Racing and the NHRA Thursday
evening, May 15, at the 6th annual 2008 Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)
Muscle Team event at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, which is open to the
public. The driver of the FRAM Top Fuel dragster in the NHRA POWERade Drag
Racing Series will lend his support to help provide opportunities for local
children living with neuromuscular disease to interact with some of their
favorite athletes.

Muscle Team® 2008 pairs children with neuromuscular
diseases and celebrity athletes as “buddies” for the evening. In addition to
mingling with athletes in an intimate setting, the evening will include live
entertainment, food and silent and live auctions. Other athletes scheduled to
participate include NASCAR luminaries Matt Kenseth, Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle,
and others.

According to the organizers, this is not a formal, sit-down,
black-tie affair; rather, it is an interactive, casual and fun evening where
guests have access to their favorite professional athletes. Professional
athletes and celebrities will put their muscle behind the fight against
neuromuscular disease. By playing on the same team and shooting for one very
special goal, they are expected to score big and raise funds to help children in
the Greater Charlotte area who are living with a neuromuscular
disease.

For FRAM Top Fuel dragster driver Cory McClenathan Bristol Dragway has been
feast or famine. The feast came when he won $200,000 in the Top Fuel-vs.-Funny
Car Invitational "Showdown" in 1999. The famine came when his dragster was
destroyed in a spectacular accident in 2006.
 
McClenathan will be looking
to turn things around with his first victory at Bristol Dragway this weekend at
the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, the eighth stop on the 24 race NHRA POWERade
Drag Racing Series tour.
 
The driver of the second Don Schumacher Racing
Top Fuel dragster this year enters the Bristol event No. 5 in the Top Fuel point
standings with one win (Las Vegas) and one runner-up (Atlanta).

Hernandez scored his 100th round win in NHRA Pro Modified en route to beating Tony Pontieri in the final round. (Roger Richards)

Josh Hernandez's victorious final-round pass against Tony Pontieri at the
recently-completed O'Reilly Midwest Nationals in St. Louis marked his 100th
elimination round in the JEGS ProMod Challenge. The win capped a weekend where
Hernandez improved many of his long-established class records, including most
wins (14), most top qualifiers (10), and best overall race day record
(77-23).

"One hundred rounds? The first word that comes to mind is 'wow,'
" said Hernandez, driver of the Team Rage Camaro sponsored by Interlinc Mortgage
and Tommy Lipar Racing. "I don't really stop to look at the numbers very often
but when you hear something like that or look at the stats on JegsProMod.com, it
is mind-boggling.

"Credit (team owner) Tommy Lipar, who is my wife
Amber's uncle. When he put this team together he said if we were gonna do this
thing then we needed to do it right. We want for nothing and our success is the
result of many, many people, but none of it would have happened without Tommy."