The Gotham City Racing Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car Melanie Troxel drives will
have a sparkling new look for the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas.

The sparkle is courtesy of Simayof Diamond Cutters and Jewelers, a family-run
San Francisco-based diamond cutter and jeweler with four locations, including
one at the Grand Canal Shoppes located in the Venetian Hotel & Casino in Las
Vegas. Simayof is the jeweler of choice for Gotham City Racing co-owner Roger
Burgess and his wife Barbara.

Their long relationship now has evolved into this unique one-race partnership
with team co-owners Roger Burgess and Mike Ashley for the event at The Strip at
Las Vegas Motor Speedway, April 11-13.

"What more could a girl want . . . to race cars and be around fine jewelry?
It looks pretty good to me," said Troxel, who is in her first season of Funny
Car racing. "This is Simayof's home track so we want to do well for them and put
on a good show."

Troxel has four victories in Top Fuel, the second coming at Las Vegas in
2006, and she became only the fourth woman to qualify in nitro Funny Car in
February. Her husband, Tommy Johnson Jr., also drives a nitro Funny Car.

In his own going effort to help educate teen drivers on safe driving,
Doug Herbert will participate in East Lincoln High School’s Pre-Prom
Safety Program.

The program, organized by Officer Robert Milton of the Lincoln County
Sheriff’s Department, will advise teens on the importance of driving
safely and responsibly during prom season and beyond.

Herbert, who lost his sons Jon, 17, and James, 12, in an automobile
accident in January, will speak to the teens about BRAKES, the program
he is developing to educate teens on the importance of responsible
driving. Sergeant Trooper Barry of the North Carolina Highway Patrol
will also be addressing the students.

The NOPI Drag Racing Series website reports that last weekend’s
event at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce was cancelled due to inclement
weather.  However, of particular interest to NHRA competitors who will
be competing at the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals at the
facility on the weekend of April 24-27 was this inclusion: “…there was
a crack at the transition of the newly resurfaced track at this world
class facility that had the drag racers questioning the track’s
safety.  Some have expressed the opinion that maybe it was a good thing
the race was cancelled all together (sic.).” 

Our sources at NHRA report that the issue is already
being addressed and that there will be no problems during the Southern
Nationals.

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.’