NHRA Top Fuel driver Rod Fuller was uninjured following a harrowing car fire to
his personal vehicle near his home in Las Vegas on March 31. Fuller was
traveling less than 45 mph at the time of the incident.

Fuller was returning from a short
trip in his 2001 Lamborghini Diablo when the car caught fire. The cause of the
accident is undetermined. He was less than one mile from his home in Southwestern Las Vegas at the time of the accident.
Fuller, a six-time NHRA Top Fuel winner, was not injured and will next compete
at the Ninth annual Summitracing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor
Speedway, April 11-13. Fuller won the fall NHRA Las Vegas race at LVMS last
October.

For the second time in Ashley Force’s young career the 25 year-old driver was less than a second

No
woman has ever won in the ultra-competitive Funny Car class in the 58
years of the NHRA and Force is the only woman to have ever reached the
final - a feat she has accomplished twice. (Roger Richards)

away from history.
She finished runner-up in Funny Car during the recently completed NHRA Springnationals in Houston, Texas.

“It wasn’t our day it was Del’s. It was still a real good day, I can’t
complain especially with all the ups and downs we have had this year it
was good to go some rounds,” said the 2007 winner of AOL’s Hottest
Athlete contest. “We were really pumped to be going rounds today and to
get to the final. The car went down the track every run. I wish we
would have won. Eventually we will get there.”

No woman has ever won in the ultra-competitive Funny Car class in the
58 years of the NHRA and Force is the only woman to have ever reached
the final - a feat she has accomplished twice – previously in Las Vegas
last October and today. She attributed her success to an entire JFR
team effort throughout the day.

There’s an old adage which suggests numbers don’t lie. In Mike Ashley’s case maybe they don’t tell

There
are wild rides and then there's a Mike Ashley wild ride. He might have
established a new record in Houston with the quickest 1,400 foot run in
1320 feet. (Roger Richards)

the whole story.
 
The two-time NHRA Pro Modified world champion from Long Island, New
York, wrestled a possessed race car all the way to the finish line
before losing a tough match opposite seasoned drag racer Tony Pontieri
during the quarter-finals of the NHRA Springnationals in Houston, Texas.
 
Wild rides are commonplace in Pro Modified and then there are those with Ashley behind the wheel.

The new Hadman chassis driven by Gary Scelzi couldn’t find the combination throughout the Houston

Capps believes the day may soon approach when a different track will call for a different chassis. (Roger Richards)

weekend, but in post-Gainesville testing, everything went perfect. At least that’s the report Ron Capps submitted.

Capps and Scelzi often test for one another on the weekends following
national events. The routine for Capps kept him running at a break-neck
pace throughout the day. He’d make a run, catch a scooter ride and hop
in the second flopper already in the lanes.

The experience reminded Capps of two years ago when he not only tested his car, but also Scelzi’s and Bazemore’s.

Ask veteran nitro tuner Rahn Tobler what the term “Toblerizing” means and he’ll smile and might

even chuckle a little. This was the phrase his driver Cruz Pedregon coined when he went to the top of Pomona qualifying.

Pedregon was describing the way Tobler had dismantled the car in the
off-season and dissected every nook and cranny of the Advance Auto
Park-sponsored flopper.

This is how Tobler describes the process.

“I think, hopefully, it means that we do things in an organized and
thoughtful way,” explained Tobler. “Certainly I'm only as good as the
people that I have around me.  Cruz has allowed me to get some really
good people to help me with this.  Last year when I came here at Indy,
I pretty much ran things the way they were when I got here.  When we
went to Memphis, which was our second race, I changed a couple of small
things around. 

While some may consider this “old news” – and we’ll readily admit that
this incident took place at the Gatornationals – repeated attempts to
get NHRA’s version of what took place resulted in unreturn phone
calls.  However, Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com cornered Dan Olson at
Houston, finally eliciting an answer to a simple question:  How did
Paul Smith’s Funny Car easily pass technical inspection at the Gators,
and was then allowed to run in the first qualifying session, only to
have officials insist upon major chassis alterations prior to the
second session?

In Smith’s words, “Everything was fine when we went through tech.  I
got here on Monday night because I wanted to get the bodies teched
because we hadn’t raced all year.  On Tuesday they teched the bodies,
and on Wednesday (the NHRA inspectors) came by (our pit area) and
teched the car.  Nobody said nothin’ about nothin’.

“This winter I got with Dan Olson and he told me, ‘Put two steering
columns in and put the Murf McKinney kit in the bottom, and change the
cross member from inch-and-an-eighth to inch-and-a-quarter,’ so that’s
what I did.  We came here, went through tech, and they said it was
fine.  I never knew anything was wrong until after the first session,
and then they come over here and said ‘You can’t run (any more) until
you cut (the steering box mount) out and change it.’

Here's a sampling of Monday's testing action at Houston Raceway Park.

HOUSTON TESTING GALLERY 

Semi-final finish in Houston goes long way to erase bad memory

ESPN2/Motel6 Vision

Tony Bartone refused to experience flashbacks during the recently
completed NHRA O’Reilly Springnationals in Houston, Texas. The
determination clearly overrode the memories from one race earlier in
Gainesville, Florida.

Tony Bartone's semi-final finish in Houston was a momentum-builder for the Canidae Pet Foods team. (Roger Richards)

Bartone’s car left the Houston Raceway Park starting line, then the
tires smoked and the car began to move around. Instinctively, Bartone
realized his first round opponent Bob Tasca III was having the same
traction problems.

Bartone, an accomplished Top Alcohol racer in both the dragsters and
Funny Cars, began pedaling. The front wheels hiked up and at one time
all four wheels came off the ground.

Still, Bartone drove to the win light, carding a 6.32 winning elapsed time.

Rules adjustments be damned. Defending world champion Matt Smith came to Houston intend on

Matt Smith raced the weekend fearless of rules reprimand. (Roger Richards)

running as quickly as he can and winning as much as he can. If he’s penalized on Monday, no big deal – he’s used to it.

“That's a fact,” Smith said. “I didn't care if they threw 10 pounds on
us, we wanted to come out here and show a point.  The weight definitely
slows us down but instead of griping and complaining and bitching and
crying we went to work and found some power instead of trying to get
weight added to it.  We did our job.”