Ron Capps credits credits his crew and their efforts for his
performance turnaround in the last two races. His recent semi-final
finish launched him into the No. 9 points position in the 2008 NHRA
POWERade Drag Racing Series point standings.

Capps is ready to defend his 2007 victory at this weekend’s NHRA
Midwest Nationals in St. Louis. He is the winningest Funny Car driver
at this track, with three triumphs (1997, 2005, 2007).
 
Last year at this time, Capps was enjoying a solid points lead when he
arrived in Madison, Ill., after pocketing two season victories. He left
Gateway with another win and an even heftier margin in the standings.
He continued to lead the pack through the next 10 events by as many as
154 markers until the Countdown to the Championship kicked in and the
team began to struggle. He ended the season in fourth place.

This year the NAPA team struggled through the first four events, but
now that crew chief Ed "Ace" McCulloch and the NAPA crew have tweaked
the NAPA Dodge back into contention, reaching the semifinal round in
the last two events, Capps and the crew are confident and comfortable.

Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson Pro Stock rider Andrew Hines couldn’t help but notice the trend in

Andrew Hines became the third Pro Stock Bike rider in 2008 to win from the No. 1 qualifying position. (Roger Richards Photos)

his
class. The two-time world champion from Brownsburg, Indiana realized
after the Houston final round, the key to winning an event was to
qualify No. 1. After all, the formula had worked for Matt Guidera and
Matt Smith, winners of the first two events on the ten race schedule.

Hines took his concerns to his father Byron Hines, one-half of the legendary Vance & Hines legend.

“I pointed out both of them won the event after qualifying No. 1,”
Hines recalled. “I said, ‘dad I want to qualify number one in Atlanta.”

Hines continued, “I swear that is what I told him and he said, ‘Okay make it happen.” 

The Hines brothers had better get used to that kind of input because
the elder Hines is beginning to step away more and more from the
operation and putting it into Andrew and Matt Hines’s hands.

With all the water seeping to the surface of Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park, it was a good time to be a Nitrofish.

Nitrofish-sponsored drag racers Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) and
Richie Stevens (Pro Stock) lead provisional qualifying at the NHRA
Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio.

The defending Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion Smith rode his way to a 7.059, 187.23.

The
Western Sydney International Dragway is hosting it’s final Group One
event of the 2007/2008 ANDRA Championship Drag Racing season this
weekend (2nd–3rd May) and will also see the return of the only female
to ever win a professional Top Alcohol event.

Debbie Reed from the Reed Racing team is set to make her first
Championship passes since December last year when she suffered her
first major accident of her professional Drag Racing career when an oil
line gave out on her 3500 horsepower Dragster causing fluid to pour
straight under her rear tyres at over 400 kph.

Luckily she was able to call on all of her skills as one of the
county’s leading female drivers and managed to keep her car from
hitting both the walls and the competitor in the other lane before it
spun and rolled onto its top.

Roger
Burgess heads into this weekend’s NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis,
Mo., with a valid question engrossing his thought process. The
successful businessman from Duluth, Ga., drives a supercharged 1963
Corvette on the Jegs ProMod series and in his first full season is
doing quite a job of it.

His mind continually asks, “How can you top the last outing?”

The soft-spoken Burgess has a clear set of objectives aimed at answering those questions.

Sunday's final results from the 12th annual O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals
presented by Castrol at Gateway International
Raceway.  The  race is the
seventh of 24 in the  NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series:
 

Top Fuel -- Rod Fuller, 4.525 seconds, 328.70 mph def. Tony Schumacher, 4.583 seconds, 325.45 mph.

Former IHRA Pro Stock and Pro Modified champion Tommy Mauney drove his
1963 Chevrolet Corvette past the twin-turbo 1957 Chevy of South
Carolina’s Annette Summer Sunday to win the Outlaw Pro Modified
showdown but rain brought an early end to other racing in the Holcomb
Motorsports Spring Civil Wars at Rockingham Dragway.

Because of rain on both Saturday and Sunday, only a handful of
champions were crowned in the Pro Tree Racers Association (PTRA)
categories including Chad Christy of China Grove, Bobby Houston Jr. of
Hickory and Jeff Knox of Goose Creek, S.C.

Christy, Houston and Knox all got free rides to their titles when their
final round opponents were guilty of foul starts.  Christy won the
Hedman Hedders 5.30 Index title, Houston won in the Hamburger’s Oil
Pans 6.0 Index class and Knox prevailed in the Hedman Hedders 7.0 Index.

UPDATED - The two positions have already been filled. 

Officials with the JEGS ProMod Challenge have announced a rare opportunity for
two racers to join the tour and run at this weekend's 12th annual O’Reilly NHRA
Midwest Nationals at Gateway International Raceway. The coveted spots will go to
the first two racers who contact officials at
JegsProMod@earthlink.net .

"We've got 24 spots at this race and we're
looking to fill the last two," series spokesman Woody Woodruff said. "It's a
last-minute deal but we're hoping a couple of racers can put something together
in a short amount of time and come and spend the weekend with us."

This weekend, May 2-4, native Australian Dave Grubnic and his team will have
primary sponsorship support on their 8,000-horsepower Kalitta Motorsports Top
Fuel dragster from the St. Louis Carpenters Union as the NHRA POWERade Drag
Racing Series rolls into Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from
downtown St. Louis, for the annual running of the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest
Nationals at Gateway Int’l Raceway.

“The St. Louis Carpenters Union has been supporting NHRA drag racing for many
years, and it’s an honor for me and our Kalitta Motorsports team to represent
them this weekend in St. Louis,” Grubnic, a 45-year old resident of Ennis,
Mont., said. “They’re going to bringing out a lot of guests to Gateway this
weekend, and we’re looking forward to meeting them and hopefully showing them a
great performance with our race car on the drag strip.”