The thrill of claiming his first NHRA Pro Stock low qualifier award in 214 races
is still a sweet memory for Kenny Koretsky. 
 
It was just 10 days ago in
Las Vegas when Koretsky ended one of his career droughts with a 6.724-second
elapsed time that was one-thousandth of a second quicker than that of Jason
Line.
 
And it merely whetted his performance appetite.  He wants more –
like his first national-event victory. 
 
“Eddie (Guarnaccia) and I have
been racing together for 20 years and we want to get that first win,” Koretsky
said. “It felt great to qualify first, and we want to do it again.  We don’t
want to wait another 214 races.”

Driving a Top Fuel dragster shouldn’t be as easy as Spencer Massey is making the process look.

Spencer Massey has competed in two Top Fuel events and won both of them.

He earned his Top Fuel license just days before the IHRA season-opener
in San Antonio, Texas and drove his way to the winner’s circle during
that event. Three weeks later, he added a win at the IHRA Spring
Nationals in Rockingham, NC., to prove he’s no fluke.

“I’m having a ball,” Massey said. “We came all the way from Texas to
Rockingham and we keep getting the round wins. I’ve had my license for
three weeks and won two national events.”

Massey warns his success is nothing more than having the perfect combination of talent behind the Mitch King car.

Reigning series champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. has a fight on his hands in the
ultra-competitive Pro Stock class, and the 52-time national event winner
couldn't be happier. Coughlin will arrive at Atlanta Dragway in a tie for first
place in the factory hot rod class and he knows a strong performance at the race
he won in Y2K will put him all alone atop the POWERade standings. He also knows
his foes are waiting to pounce on any stumble he might make.

Coughlin excited about the Pro Stock championship battle being close. (Roger Richards Photos)

"It's the
nature of the beast this year," Coughlin said. "We've had four different winners
in the first five events and the guy that's won twice is third in the points. Go
figure. What you have is a very solid group of teams that have challenged every
weekend so we're all matched up pretty well. It's become a real driver's class
and that's exciting to me."

Frank Hawley wasn’t listed in the 1982 NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series media
guide.  He was, at the time, a rookie Funny Car driver from London, Ontario,
Canada.
 
A year later, however, the upstart from across the border had
guaranteed himself perpetual mentions in ensuing yearly updates.  How?  He
stunned the Funny Car field by winning the championship, ending the three-year
reign of Raymond Beadle and outlasting seasoned veterans Don Prudhomme, Billy
Meyer and Kenny Bernstein. 
 
For an encore, Hawley came back and
captured a second consecutive championship, winning four races and easily
outdistancing runner-up Mark Oswald, third-place Bernstein and a newcomer to the
Funny Car top 10, John Force.
 
Hawley’s ride was the fabled match-race
car the Chi-Town Hustler, owned by John Farkonas, Pat Minick and Austin Coil,
who also did the tuning.  Coil, as drag racing fans know, later went to work for
Force and earned 14 more – and counting – season titles.

The Drag Racing Association of Women will be holding their annual
auction at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL, on Saturday, June 7, 2008. 
There will be the usual silent and live auctions.

DRAW needs items for the live and silent auctions they host during the
2008 racing season. Those auctions include: the large annual silent and
live auction held at the Joliet, IL, spring race and a live auction
held at the September race in Ennis, TX.   Small silent auctions are
held throughout the race season. 

The range of items popular at these auctions include racing
collectibles, vehicle parts, custom or handmade treasurers, t-shirts,
team shirts, memorabilia items, anything autographed – in other words a
little bit of everything and anything.  If you have something you no
longer want, remember the old saying, “one man’s junk is another man’s
treasure.”  Don’t throw it out.  Give it to DRAW for the auctions.

J.W. Performance Transmissions, a provider of high-performance
transmissions and drivetrain components for drag racing and street
applications, has joined Bristol Dragway as  the title sponsor of the
May 2-4 Thunder Valley Southern Shootouts.

Tracy Winters, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for J.W.
Performance, says the bracket event in Thunder Valley gives her company
the perfect platform to reach the racers and performance enthusiasts
that depend on quality products to help their vehicles achieve their
best.

"With this event," she said, "we want to increase awareness about our
brand and what we have to offer.  We want to provide racers and
spectators with information about our products, so they can better
understand our dedication to creating top-of-the-line drivetrain
accessories."

A test session last week at deserted Raceway Park in Indianapolis may be
remembered later this year for providing the impetus that put Melanie Troxel and
the Gotham City Racing team into race-winning form.
 
Troxel, driving the
special Dream House for Medically Fragile Children Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car
she will run this weekend, and teammate Frank Hawley, at the controls of the
ProCare Rx Dodge R/T Funny Car, were among those making laps.  The results were
very encouraging.
 
Troxel, now approaching the sixth race of her first
NHRA POWERade Series Funny Car season, is very optimistic going into the Summit
Racing Equipment Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, April 25-27.
 
“Testing is
always good,” she said, “but there are times when you test and don’t feel like
you found anything.  But the test at Indy was one of those times when you get
excited about what you learned and you can’t wait to go to the next race to see
if it works.

RELATED STORY - HAGAN REMEMBERS VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE 

Matt Hagan captured his first nitro Funny Car title since stepping up from the Pro Modified ranks.

Matt Hagan learned a valuable lesson Sunday in Rockingham, North
Carolina. The former award-winning Pro Modified driver turned Nitro
Funny Car pilot realized a race is never over until it’s over.

Hagan struck the tires early in the Funny Car final round during the
IHRA Spring Nationals and while his chances of winning appeared slim at
the moment, something just wouldn’t allow him to give up. He quickly
pedaled the throttle in an attempt to get the car to hook up.

Then Hagan glanced out of the windshield to see his opponent, Paul Lee, also a first time finalist, go up in smoke at mid-track.

In
the late 1970s Tom McEwen was already “The Mongoose,” a fabled
character in the Funny Car category with a fan base of his own.

That’s when he met a dreamer.

McEwen remembers John Force as the guy whose car was always on fire.

“I can remember racing him at Sacramento Raceway at night,” McEwen
said. “Every time he would run his car would be on fire. They’d go out
in the field where the fire was and have to put it out.”

One day Force came by McEwen’s pit on a mission. He needed 10 rolls of
silver tape to make an unfixable body work. McEwen didn’t see the
request as an intrusion from a no-name upstart.

Force was Rudy Ruettiger, the drag strip his Notre Dame.

“He had to make one more run to get paid,” McEwen said. “He taped it up
so it looked like a body even though it was all burned under it and he
was able to make that last run to get some money to eat on the way home.

For the second time in as many events, Rockingham Dragway has played
host to the quickest nitrous Pro Modified run in drag racing history.