EVENT NEWS EVENT NOTEBOOK POINTS AFTER EVENT ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS FINAL ROUND RESULTS			EVENT GALLERY

SUNDAY NOTEBOOK - THE PEDREGON SHOW CONTINUES, SCHUMACHER STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS AND A DOUBLE-UP CAGNAZZI DAY

AGGRESSIVE NATURE – Cruz Pedregon’s team picked a good weekend to get aggressive.

Pedregon admitted that his championship-winning crew chief Rahn Tobler had approached much of the 2008 season from a cautious standpoint, focusing on just getting the car from one end of the track to the other under power.

After all, a team can’t win a race if they smoke the tires at the hit, neither can it win if the other teams are successfully leaving nothing on the table.

Tobler, who tuned Top Fuel legend Shirley Muldowney to world championships, decided to clear the table on Saturday during the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond.

Pedregon ran a 4.08 during Friday’s quick evening session and while the run was his second quickest since the implementation of 1,000-foot race course, he entered Saturday in the twelfth position.

Being that far back sent a strong message to the driver and his tuner. The tuner took it more to heart.

“I think Rahn had been conservative for much of the year just trying to get the car down the track,” Pedregon explained. “I think that he got frustrated after ending up twelfth on our second best run. I think he wanted to get aggressive at that point. When he did that, we went to the top of the qualifying list.”

A 4.026 in the first round of eliminations confirmed this team is no longer in “cruise” control.

“He’s good at reading the track and a really good strategy guy,” Pedregon said of Tobler. “If he was in the NFL, he would be a good game coach. He has a good knack for the track temperature. He understands the nitro motor.”

It is nothing short of amazing, according to Pedregon, when Tobler joined his team last year, the tuner was unsure if he could tune a flopper.

“For him to find his rhythm this early in a Funny Car [says a lot],” said Pedregon. “In the beginning when I brought him on, he said to me, ‘Do you realize that I’ve never tuned a Funny Car before?”

“I told him that it was still a nitro motor and a five disc clutch and the strategy is the same. He believed he could do it after plenty of assurances of those around him. He’s the right man for the job and has the right personality for the job. I’m pretty high strung and demanding and … <chuckle> he’s the right man for the job.

“He’s right for the car and he’s not an ego guy. When the car doesn’t perform, he doesn’t point the finger. Some of these crew chiefs want to blame someone and I haven’t been the most tolerant of that. I feel like a person has to be accountable and that’s all Rahn has been.”

Tobler will keep the team owner and driver in check. After the semi-finals, Tobler asked the boss why he had the clutch out so long against Tim Wilkerson.

“I told him I wasn’t ready to stage and he let me know next time to not have my foot off the clutch,” Pedregon admitted. “He’s not afraid to tell me what he feels and I think that works for me. I let him know in the beginning that this was a partnership and not a boss/employee relationship. I let him know we needed each other and that I knew he could do great things with his experience. I let him know at the start that he had what it takes. It’s come to fruition.”

Pedregon knows with victories such as this Tobler’s already high stock will get even higher. With such success also comes those wishing to raid the personnel.

“From an owner’s standpoint, it’s like when you win the Super Bowl, you have people wanting to hire him away from you,” Pedregon said. “I let him know there were team owners out here who could outspend me and sure enough they tried to hire him away a few races ago. All of the sponsors stepped up to the plate and I’m paying him a boatload of money.

“I told him that he could go somewhere else and make more money but I think you have a winning situation here. I let him know that I would go to battle and be the driver he needed. I realize that he’s the guy I needed. These cars are still cars but humans make them go down the track.”

The Richmond victory marked Pedregon’s 24th in 58 career final rounds and his first of the season.

“I don’t think I am going to sleep tonight because I am enjoying this so much,” Pedregon said. “I told my crew after the first round win to enjoy the moment. I know how hard it is to win one round.”

BROKEN RECORD – Yes, Tony Schumacher won again.

Yes, he won the first round for the 24th consecutive time.

No, he didn’t clinch the championship.

Huh?

Schumacher won Don Schumacher Racing’s 121st national event by stopping Hillary Will, the second place runner who trails by 212 points.

Technically that’s still not enough to seal the deal. Fourteen wins in seventeen final rounds and the deal still wasn’t sealed.

“There’s pressure, if I would have lost to Antron in the second round than we would have been only five rounds out,” Schumacher said, when asked if he’s still under pressure or relaxed. “That’s just not enough for the last two races. We’ve proven that we can come back from that much and we didn’t want to be on the other end of that. We’ve gone too far this season to set a record for losing the largest points lead.”

If his competition thinks he’s relaxing any, they’re greatly mistaken. He’s focused but the level of urgency isn’t producing as much stress as the last two seasons where he claimed championships on the last run of each respective season.

“It is easier,” Schumacher said. “It’s easy to get vulnerable and relaxed and get beat like we did in Dallas. We want to finish out with A.J. on a winning note, it would not be good to lead like we have and lose in the end. I want to close the deal and leave nothing on the table.”

Schumacher hasn’t exactly been the example of success at Virginia Motorsports Park and for the record this weekend’s triumph marked his first victory at the facility.

The successful driver is convinced this victory was made possible in qualifying.

“The third run in qualifying when we went up there and smoked the tires might have been the key to this whole race,” Schumacher said. “From that we learned that when the car is not backed up straight we can get ourselves in trouble. We learned a large lesson from that.”

When the car left the line it snapped the wheels to the right and when he had to steer to the left, the end result was smoke billowing off of the tires. Schumacher knows if the groove is narrow, the car has to be completely straight.

“That might have won the race for us,” Schumacher continued. “You might have gotten ourselves in trouble if we didn’t catch onto that early. Even in the final round I felt like we left a little on the table.”

STILL IN THE FIGHT - It definitely wasn’t easy, but Dave Connolly emerged with the Virginia Nationals Pro Stock championship for the second consecutive year Sunday at Virginia Motorsports Park. And he did so by defeating Cagnazzi Racing teammate Jeg Coughlin, who happens to be the reigning series titleholder and current point leader.

The victory sent Connolly, driving a special red and white Lucas Oil/Charter Communications Chevy Cobalt at this event, from sixth to third in points with 2,397. He trails runner-up Kurt Johnson by three and Coughlin by 77 with two races remaining.

Not only did Connolly have to defeat tough competitors Greg Stanfield, Johnson and Greg Anderson to get to Coughlin, but his team had to change a motor after the first round.

“When I came to the track today I knew it was going to be a tough first round,” said Connolly. “We beat him by a one-thousandth (of a second) at Memphis two weeks ago and it was tight again. It was a good win for us and it was the tightest run we had.”

The nose of Connolly’s Chevy Cobalt was mere inches ahead of Stanfield at the finish line when the engine broke. The winning margin was a miniscule two 10-thousandths of a second – 6.583 seconds at 208.59 mph to 6.597 at 208.94 mph. Stanfield left first with a .022-second reaction time to Connolly’s .036.

“By the time we pulled into the pits and knew the engine was broken to the time we fired it up it was 24 minutes. Everybody was cooking and we felt like a Top Fuel team,” Connolly added. “That was pretty incredible.”

That performance, he noted, may have contributed to his .001-second reaction time against Johnson’s .047 in the quarterfinals. “When your guys are working that hard for you, you definitely want to make sure you’re on your A game,” Connolly said, “and it panned out for us.”

Connolly’s hit the finish line in 6.588 seconds to Johnson’s quicker 6.567 with a winning margin of seven-thousandths.

“In my opinion, every round, it didn’t matter if it was in the first or the finals, it was a championship driver pulling up next to me. Other than Kurt, and honestly, he’s deserved to win championships, they’ve all been world champions. That just means they know how to win and we were just fortunate enough to turn on the win light.”

Connolly’s easiest decision came in the semifinals when Anderson fouled out. “You’ve got to have a little luck in this class and we definitely had a little bit with us today.”

The win was the fourth in Connolly’s abbreviated 18-race season thus far. After starting the campaign five events after the rest of the contenders, he advanced to eight final rounds. He was sixth at the end of the regular season.

There are eight rounds remaining and he is four rounds behind Coughlin, so he’s still a title contender with races at Las Vegas (Oct. 31-Nov. 2) and Pomona, Calif. (Nov. 13-16) remaining.

BEING A PAYNE - Veteran racer Jay Payne became the seventh winner of the JEGS ProMod Challenge season Sunday by beating first-time finalist Scott Ray in the money round of the third annual Virginia NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park.

It was the first win of the season for the 2006 series champion and it stole some of the attention away from a nip-and-tuck championship battle between reigning titlist Josh Hernandez and Tony Pontieri, who are now just 20 points apart in the JEGS points with one race left.

"This is our first final this year so it feels great to be back in the heat of the action," Payne said. "I know I can't catch Hernandez and Pontieri and that is a little discouraging but it doesn't take anything away from this win.

"We have been on the bad side of the luck game but we seemed to be on the right end of it this weekend and we managed to get to the winner's circle. Our car wasn't running as well as we would have liked so our two holeshot wins were key today."

Starting eliminations Saturday night as an afterthought after qualifying in the No. 14 position, Payne posted a huge holeshot upset against first-round opponent Scott Cannon Jr. that instantly made his Valvoline team contenders for the race title.

By Sunday morning, tuner Brad Anderson had figured out the perfect set-up for their Camaro and Payne was able to outrun quarterfinal opponent Tommy Gray, 5.963 to 6.031. Mike Knowles was his next victim, which set-up a big finale with Ray.

The race was decided at the starting line when Payne left in .051 seconds to Ray's regrettably late .209 start. Even though he was outrun by almost a tenth of a second, Payne's huge head start delivered a very comfortable win, with his 6.058 beating Ray's 5.960.

"My team is great and is a big part of all the success we've had," said Payne, who is third in the points. "Between the crew, my wife Shelly, and my kids always being here for support, I have it made. I'm a lucky guy."

The 16-car field was the quickest in history, ranging from Hernandez's 5.900 to Mike Janis' 6.033. Hernandez's top-qualifying run was the quickest in history but he didn't back it up for an official record, meaning he couldn't collect the 20 bonus points that go with setting a national mark. That honor consequently fell to Pontieri, who backed up his 5.905-second run in the second round of qualifying.

After Hernandez lost in the first session of eliminations and Pontieri advanced, the door was open for Pontieri to take the point lead outright at this event. But he faltered in Round 2 and had to settle for closing the gap on Hernandez to 20 points, or the equivalent of one round of action.

The final stop of the 10-race JEGS ProMod Challenge occurs Oct. 30-Nov. 2 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

BECKMAN’S SEVENTH FINAL - Jack Beckman is determined to remain a championship player. He landed in his seventh final round of the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season and in doing so moved closer to the No. 1 spot in the Funny Car points.

With this strong result, Beckman moves to 51 markers behind No. 1 Tim Wilkerson in Countdown points, with two events remaining in the season. Cruz Pedregon jumped to third, 18 points back of Beckman, with Tony Pedregon and Robert Hight 40 and 41 points, respectively, behind.

"With one exception, a great day," said Beckman, who is competing in only his second full season in the Funny Car class. "We were 20 points away from it being a perfect weekend.

“Interesting deal. This Countdown deal is just shaping up to be like a novel. We closed 21 points on Wilkerson, Cruz closed 20 and change on us. It's going to be unbelievable.

"I said it's going to come down to Pomona. I don't know if it's going to come down to the final round in Pomona, but it's amazing. At the rate we're going we'll lose by nine points, so we have to find a way to make up another half round on Wilky by the end of the season."

NO GRAY AREA - Johnny Gray enjoyed one of the best races in his short Pro Stock career by reaching the semi-finals.

In qualifying Gray made four strong runs, improving with each one. He ran a 6.573 at 209.14 mph to qualify in the No. 11 qualifying spot.

“We had a good weekend,” said Gray. “We did well in qualifying. Our 6.57 was the quickest and fastest I’ve ever gone in a Pro Stock. We ran 209 mph and somebody asked me if I knew how fast it was. You know I couldn’t tell you because once you go 325 mph in a Funny Car, everything else is slow. It was kind of comical because my wife Terry isn’t her and when I called her to tell her she was all excited, and then I told her it was only good for 11th.”

Gray had an equally good race day by stopping V. Gaines and soon-to-be partner Allen Johnson with holeshot wins. His day ended at the hands of Jeg Coughlin Jr.

“We’re certainly getting better as time goes on,” expressed Gray. “We won some good races today. The track was awesome, the conditions were great, our motor ran good. Craig (Hankinson, crew chief) called good shots, the guys did a good job and even the driver did okay. Craig felt the clutch was a little soft in the second round so he left it alone for the semi’s thinking the track would come around to it, but the track got slippery. When I shifted into first gear it started to spin and when I got to third it was still spinning, so I got out of it. We thought the track would be better than it was, but that’s the way it goes. We made good runs all weekend and have nothing to hang our heads about.”

OUT OF CONTENTION - Losing a first round race is always tough, but when it takes you out of championship contention, the sting is magnified.

FRAM Top Fuel dragster driver Cory McClenathan lost a crucial first round race in eliminations that put the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Top Fuel championship out of reach for the 17-year Top Fuel veteran, who dropped from No. 2 to No. 4 in the Countdown to 1 points chase.

No. 4 qualifier McClenathan was matched up against No. 13 Morgan Lucas in the opening round. McClenathan left the starting line first with a .068 to .095 reaction time (.000 is perfect), but tire shake forced him to pedal the throttle early in the run, slowing him to a 3.970-second elapsed time at 307.37 mph. Lucas drove past him to take the win with a 3.881/309.77.

"It was do or die today as far as trying to catch Tony Schumacher," said McClenathan, who began the day 169 points behind Schumacher and is now 249 back. "You might as well crown the champion; that's the way we all feel.

"We had a very consistent race car all weekend and then for some reason it went out there and shook the tires hard and I had to pedal it. I didn't think it was going to make it and it was just a judgment call I had to make. It's just one of those unfortunate things and it killed us in the points.

"We weren't counting Tony out by any means, but if he would have made a mistake it was mathematically still possible for us to catch him. Now we're going to be racing for second or third place. The FRAM guys have done a great job this year. This team has been together one year and we're still this good in points. That's a good team."

ALMOST AGAIN - Ron Capps has apparently perfected the art of scoring a semi-final finish with his fifth of the season. The late round finish moved him into the seventh spot in the championship standings.

En route to the semifinal, he disposed of John Force Racing's Mike Neff in the opener with a strong 4.085-second run at 300.93 mph, then dismissed another JFR team member, Robert Hight, in the second round with another solid 4.088/299.00.

In the end, DSR teammate Jack Beckman got the best of him in a pedal-fest.

"It was a great day for the DSR team, even though we lost," said Capps. "We had such a big amount of damage in our clutch area between rounds. We had Scelzi's guys, Toliver's guys over here helping our NAPA guys. We barely made it up to the semifinal. In the win over Robert Hight it destroyed a lot of parts in the clutch area. Ace (crew chief Ed McCulloch) and the NAPA crew were thrashing to get up there, and because of that he wasn't able to set the clutch the way he wanted. We had such a great consistent car early in the day.

"It smoked the tires and I looked over and Jack was smoking them, too. And I thought, Oh, come on, and I got back on it and Jack had a little bit more momentum than I did and I tried to chase him down, but he got the win.

Capps is all but eliminated from championship contention with two races left to go in the season.

"All in all, it was a terrific day. In the big picture, moving up three spots in one day was phenomenal. It's what this NAPA team is all about. We haven't shown our true colors so far this year. It's been a struggle for us.


"We're focused on moving up in the POWERade points as much as we can this year and concentrating on next year."

BEST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH - Del Worsham summed it up both succinctly and eloquently after the first round in Richmond, when he said "Well, there's the last couple of years all packaged-up with a ribbon and a bow on it, right there."

He had just made his quickest run ever to the 1,000-foot finish line (and, therefore, the quickest run of his career) by posting a stellar 4.050 in the opening stanza, on a beautiful Sunday morning. The lap would've beaten Tommy Johnson, Melanie Troxel, Tim Wilkerson, Tony Pedregon, and Ron Capps, who all won their match-ups. Coming into this event, a 4.050 would have even been the quickest run ever to 1,000 feet, but here, on this day and on this record-smashing weekend, it lost. Jack Beckman, running in the left lane, clicked through the lights with a 4.048 to defeat Worsham by a fender.

"You can't even be mad or anything," Worsham said. "You just look back over the last couple of years and remember all those races we lost by a few thousandths or even 10-thousandths of a second, and this one ranks right up there with all of them. We run our best lap of the season, and really one of our best laps ever, and we still get beat. That's just the way this deal has gone lately."

SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT - Justin Humphreys and crew chief Frank Gugliotta were scratching their heads Sunday after Humphreys' opening round Pro Stock loss to Allen.

Humphreys had the better reaction time, .032 to .048-second, but his RaceRedi Motorsports Pontiac GXP couldn't hold the advantage and Johnson drove away to the win in 6.575 seconds at 209.01 mph. Humphreys wasn't far behind with his 6.602 at 207.94.

"There's something wrong with our car . . . and we don't know what is," Humphreys said. "Something may be bound up in the car. We changed everything on it Saturday night, trying to cure the problem, but it made no difference. We are planning to stay here Monday and test."

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SATUDAY NOTEBOOK - A REALLY QUICK DAY AT THE RACES -- AND FAST TOO!

CRUZ IN CONTROL – Cruz Pedregon made a historic run at Virginia Motorsports Park to put him atop the Richmond field.

Pedregon and crew chief Rahn Tobler decided before the event that it was time to go-for-broke in their quest for the 2008 POWERade title and accordingly the duo uncorked a candidate for NHRA's top pass of the year.

Together they posted the quickest elapsed time of drag racing's 1,000-foot era when he blasted down track Saturday afternoon with a 4.041-second pass at 306.88 mph that earned his team the No. 1 qualifying position heading into Sunday's eliminations.

"It's funny because you say it doesn't mean much to be No. 1 qualifier when you don't get it but it feels awfully good when you do get it done," Pedregon said. "The crew guys love it and right now we can definitely use the points. The reality is you can flip a coin to try and guess who's going to win this race because we're all so close, but for now we're on top of the heap and we can go to sleep tonight knowing we've got a great race car on our hands."

Make no bones about it; Pedregon had to fight for that top spot. Three other Funny Car teams ran 4.041s during time trials with Cruz and his brother Tony Pedregon joining Friday leader Mike Neff at the top of the timing sheet. The tie-breaker is top speed, giving Cruz the top spot (306.88 mph), Tony the No. 2 position (305.22 mph), and Neff the third slot (304.80 mph).

Pedregon posted his 4.041 in Saturday's first session and had to watch anxiously as the other top drivers in the class tried to take his top ranking away in Round 4. But no one had enough steam to unseat the 1992 world champion.

"I felt like Swiss cheese after dodging all those bullets," Pedregon said. "I saw Melanie (Troxel) run a 4.047 so I knew the track was there. Then Tony matched our number and I had to look at the speed to see if he had moved around us. But somehow we managed to stay on top.

"It's a real credit to Rahn and the crew. Our usual method is to stay within ourselves and try to walk before we run at each track, but we all know the championship is right there within our grasp and with three races left, we figured we'd have some fun and get after it. It's time to go head to head with these guys and take them out."

At the start of the race, Cruz was sixth in the points, 115 off leader Tim Wilkerson. He already made up six points with the bonus he earned in qualifying while Wilkerson struggled a little bit.

“Every point counts and that is almost half of a round,” Pedregon said. “[NHRA] announcer Bob Frey did a good job of keeping us abreast of the points, but the ladder kept changing. I think when it comes down to it you can flip a coin because all of these cars are so close.”

Pedregon's first-round opponent is 16th-ranked Tony Bartone, who went 4.157 at 287.90 mph, while Wilkerson is an underdog to Ashley Force, who out-qualified the point leader by a 4.048- to 4.079-second margin.

STILL DOMINATING FIRST ROUND – There used to be a day when the Top Fuel competition could at least count on a token first round loss from five-time world champion Tony Schumacher.

To be exact that day was 23 races ago, September 2007 in Memphis, Tenn., the last time the U.S. Army-sponsored driver lost a first round.

Once upon a time, he never got a break.

Now those breaks are falling Schumacher’s way. Case in point, he’s smoked the tires twice in the first round and managed to recover better than his competition.

“We smoked the tires in a couple of races, but our opponents did too and we were able to capitalize on those opportunities,” Schumacher said. “We just didn’t get those breaks before. It’s been a better year than last year, just want the same outcome.”

Schumacher’s 3.771-second pass from Friday was never challenged during the last two qualifying sessions and as a result he banked his seventh pole of the season and the 54th of his career.

On paper his first round match up looks like a formality, an assumption Schumacher warns against.

Schumacher’s opening round match up will be with 16th-place qualifier, Scott Palmer. This will be their first eliminations meeting of the year.

“He got in the show so he’s more than capable of taking anyone out,” added the Chicago-area resident. “We’ve got to go up to the line and do our normal deal. Again, this is all about taking care of our own business and not worrying about others.”

The “others” include Cory McClenathan, Antron Brown and Larry Dixon, who trail Schumacher in the Top Fuel standings. Schumacher arrived at VMP leading McClenathan by 166 points.

“Palmer is the only guy we’re concerned with,” he added. “We can’t get caught scoreboard watching. That can be a recipe for disaster.”

Schumacher is attempting to capture his fifth consecutive world title and the sixth of his career. To clinch another POWERade trophy tomorrow, he would have to have a 237-point lead on the second-place driver following the race.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “To be honest, the cards really have to fall right for that to take place. Our goal is to win the event and then we’ll see where we’re at with the points. Check back with me late Sunday afternoon.”

KING OF THE HILL – Greg Anderson has been in some knock-down drag out Pro Stock battles before, but this weekend takes the proverbial cake. The downtrodden Anderson picked the perfect time to peak in the 2008 season.

“I’m very happy with the car and we really struggled in the hot and humid conditions,” Anderson admitted. “We ran really well when the conditions were cooler, but when it heated up we got a little bit lost. I think it’s playing good back into our hand, but everyone else seems to have gotten a good handle on it too.

The final day of qualifying for the third annual Virginia NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park yielded the quickest Pro Stock field in NHRA history, from Greg Anderson’s track-record elapsed time of 6.554 seconds as No. 1 qualifier to Steve Speiss’ 6.590 E.T. in the 16th position. This was also the first Pro Stock field to have all 16 qualifiers in the 6.50s. Anderson was awarded his sixth No. 1 qualifier of the season when he drove his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to a 6.554 e.t. at 210.21 mph to edge points leader Jeg Coughlin Jr. out for the top spot based on speed.

“No one is going to have an advantage on Sunday,” Anderson continued. “You are going to have to go out there and find a way to drive your car better than the guy in the other lane. I haven’t been on top of my game lately but I’m working on it. It’s been my Achilles heel and I need to go out there and just concentrate on winning. I’ve gotta get the fun back in it.”

Anderson admitted that he’s equated happiness in racing with winning a race.

“I have to stop thinking like that,” Anderson said. “It shouldn’t be that way. My life probably isn’t going to end if I lose a race tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world. I have to stop thinking I can’t have fun if I don’t win a race and then maybe the fun will come back. I have come to the conclusion that I worry too much.”

With three of the six Countdown races completed, a tight championship race is developing in Pro Stock with Coughlin leading fellow Chevy driver Kurt Johnson by 32 points, Anderson’s teammate Jason Line by 55 points, and Anderson by 63 points. Anderson, a three-time NHRA POWERade champ from 2003-05, has finished second in the standings the last two years and is anxious for a return to the podium.

Anderson is only down three rounds leading into the final three events of the season. That deficit is not insurmountable.

“I’ve always told myself I don’t come to a race worrying about points, I want to come to the race to win,” Anderson said. “Not winning since Denver is a long time to me. Regardless of I have to get my winning groove back. If I can’t win a race, I don’t deserve the championship. If I can win a race the points come after that.”

NEVER SAY NEVER – Funny how 24 hours can change a situation.

Following Friday’s second session, defending NHRA World Champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. was No. 13, outside of the provisional 12 carried into Saturday’s final sessions.

No problem for the thirteen-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion as he went all the way to the No. 2 spot, losing the top spot on speed to nemesis Greg Anderson.

Coughlin's 6.554 elapsed time at 209.10 mph also set a Virginia Motorsports Park elapsed time record.

The 38-year-old Coughlin was considerably happier at the end of Saturday's action than he was Friday evening when his disagreeable JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt left him stranded. According to Coughlin, the team "changed everything but the paint and the driver" overnight and the dividends were obvious.

"I was rolling up there hoping something else didn't go wrong but that feeling went away real quick when I did the burnout," Coughlin said of his run of record. "I could just feel how sharp the motor was. She was raring to go. There was a crispness to the sound it was making that I hadn't heard in a couple of races.

"As I was charging down the track, clicking through the gears, I knew it was flying. I was just waiting for the finish line to get there so I could hear what we had run. I knew it was going to be a big number and I was right.


"What a job by the entire team. There was a lot of hustling behind the scenes to make me look good out there. Carl Foltz told me he was on to something and I think I just felt what he was talking about."

Coughlin will open against No. 15 qualifier John Nobile, who went 6.590 at 208.97 mph, which was a career-best pass for the native New Yorker.

QUICK COMPANY – If you didn’t bring your A+ game to Dinwiddie in qualifying, chances are you were going to be a spectator on Sunday at the NHRA Virginia Nationals.

Ranging from top qualifier Greg Anderson's 6.554 to No. 16 qualifier Steve Spiess' 6.590, the event marked the quickest field of Pro Stock cars ever assembled.

"It's an honor just to be in this field, let alone to be the No. 2 qualifier," Coughlin said. "We were No. 1 after that round but Greg managed to equal our ET in the fourth session and he got the No. 1 spot on speed, but that takes nothing away from our effort.

"Being in the quickest field ever tells me that all 16 cars are going to be tough and all 16 teams are going to bed tonight thinking they've got a car that can win this race. It's gonna be on the drivers again tomorrow and I like our chances."

Four of the seven non-qualifiers in Pro Stock turned in the quickest runs of their career. Twelve of the sixteen qualifiers turned in their personal bests just to gain a berth and three turned in their best performance of 2008.

The four who didn’t notch personal bests laid down their best runs of the season.

WORLD RECORD HOT POTATO - After showing a tiny bit of vulnerability in the first two rounds of professional qualifying, point leader and defending JEGS ProMod Challenge champion Josh Hernandez returned to form early Saturday afternoon and posted the quickest pass in Pro Mod history, a stunning 5.900 at 242.71 mph, to earn the Ohio Crankshaft Low Qualifier Award.

Hernandez had the opportunity to gain an extra 20 points in his championship battle with Tony Pontieri if he could have backed up the record with a run of 5.959 seconds but lost in the first round to past IHRA champion Mike Janis.

Pontieri, who improved to 5.905 in Round 3, backed up his run to make it official.

Both Hernandez and Pontieri's runs were quicker than the previous elapsed time record of 5.912 seconds set in March of 2007 in Gainesville, Fla.

BATTLE READY - Jack Beckman posted a career-best (racing to 1000 feet) 4.059-second pass at 300.06 mph in Friday's second session.

His other laps under nearly ideal conditions both days included a stellar out-of-the box run of 4.080/298.47 in the first session, his career-best at the time and good for No. 1 at that point. Today, he followed up with another solid 4.062/300.33 lap and a 4.069/301.54, the fifth quickest of that final round.

"(Crew chiefs) Johnny (West) and Tommy (DeLago) are disappointed," said Beckman following the final pass. "They wanted to run a 4.04 on the last run. These are nitro Funny Cars and we're talking about a 20-thousandths-of-a-second difference. (Tony Pedregon's 4.041/305.22 was the quickest of that round, and the top three qualifiers hold 4.041-second elapsed times). I wouldn't trade this Valvoline/MTS Dodge for any car on the grounds right now. We've gone down both lanes all four sessions within two hundredths of a second. We're going to be so tough tomorrow.

"Any time you put nitro in the fuel tank anything can happen. If betting was legal, the Valvoline/MTS Dodge would be a good bet right now."

Beckman faces non-Countdown-contender Del Worsham in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday. Until strong performances in the last qualifying session resulted in a shuffling of the standings, there was a point where it looked like he might face points leader Tim Wilkerson in Sunday's opening stanza.

"We really wanted that match-up with Wilkerson," said Beckman, who is now tied in second with Tony Pedregon in Countdown points. "That's not to say that we were sure that we were going to beat him, but, at this point in the game, as far as Tim is in front of us (71 markers after qualifying), we wanted to race him first round and control our own destiny.

"It is what it is. We just need to go out and win rounds. It's frustrating when you have somebody like Tim who has been so dominant and we have to depend on him going out early. But, since we have no control, we'll be fine; we'll just focus on our lane."

HOW’D THAT WORK OUT FOR YA? - Dave Connolly was No. 1 after Friday qualifying, and even improved with a quarter-mile run of 6.561 seconds Saturday.

What did that get him?

For the driver of the Cagnazzi Racing Lucas Oil/Charter Communications Chevy Cobalt the end result was the fifth spot in the sixteen car grid.

Yes, it was that quick in Richmond.

He meets Greg Stanfield (No. 12, 6.578 seconds) in a repeat of the opening round at Memphis two weeks ago. It is their fifth meeting this year, with Connolly holding a 3-1 edge, including a victory in the title round at Bristol, Tenn., in May, and at Memphis.

This is the fourth of six Countdown to the Championship races and Connolly needs to win rounds -- preferably four -- on Sunday to keep his title aspirations. He is sixth with 2,183 points, 94 behind pacesetter and Cagnazzi Racing teammate Jeg Coughlin.

Asked what happened on Connolly's final quarter-mile lap, crew chief Tommy Utt smiled and said: "The driver said go for it, and I agreed. So we did, but instead of blowing the scoreboard down (with a No. 1 time), we almost ran over the Christmas Tree (when the car made a move to the left). We didn't quite have a handle on it."

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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - MYTHICAL RECORDS  FALL BY THE WAYSIDE; CHAMPIONSHIP COUNTING

SIMPLY MAGNIFICENT – If the NHRA recognized 1,000-foot runs in the record book, Tony Schumacher could have a few more markers in his champion points bank following his 3.771-second pass at 317.05 mph during the second qualifying session. The run represented the quickest and fastest any drag racing vehicle has covered the 1,000 course since July’s implementation.

“Just fantastic,” Schumacher said. “That’s how you want to start off a race weekend. The conditions were certainly perfect to put up that kind of a run. I knew we were really hauling the mail, I can tell you that.”

If the run holds, which it likely will, Schumacher will have his third straight pole at VMP and his seventh of the season. He’s looking for his 54th career pole.

“We can use every point that we can get in an effort to distance ourselves from our competition in the standings,” he added. “Nothing has been decided as yet when it comes to the championship.”

Schumacher entered the 22nd race of the year holding a 166-point lead over second-place, Cory McClenathan, in the Top Fuel standings. Should he manage to leave VMP on Sunday with a 237-point advantage over the second-place driver, he would clinch his fifth consecutive world title.

“We’re not going to look that far ahead,” he said. “We want to go out tomorrow and get in a couple of good runs, while securing the pole. Only then will we look ahead to race day. And, we’ll only look as far as our first-round opponent.”

NOT OVER YET - Since leaving Memphis Motorsports Park two weeks ago, Schumacher has been inundated with calls and e-mails about him winning a fifth consecutive world championship.

After securing his 13th victory of the season at the O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals, it seems most folks have already crowned Schumacher the 2008 Top Fuel world champion.

“To be honest, I wish people would stop doing that,” said the Chicago-area resident. “We haven’t clinched a thing. There are a number of other drivers still mathematically alive. Until the NHRA and POWERade hands out that big trophy, nothing has been decided.

“I will give you the fact that we have a decent lead right now,” he added. “But, that advantage can be reduced pretty quickly if we don’t perform well in Virginia. Our mindset will be the same as always – we want to win the race. That’s what our soldiers expect us to do.”

Should Schumacher pocket his sixth career title, which would be a Top Fuel record, he would tie Joe Amato with five career championships.

“We’re not in the business of counting points,” he said. “Like I’ve said, we’re going to go qualify and then take it a round at a time. If on Sunday afternoon it ends up that we’re the champs, then we can start the celebration. Right now, nothing is in the bag by any means.”

OUGHT TO SEAL THE DEAL – As the voting for the NHRA’s Rookie of the Year winds down, Mike Neff felt the need to add another marker in his favor towards earning the award. The freshman driver for John Force Racing rewrote the mythical 1000 foot record book with an amazing 4.041 second blast.

If his time holds up it will be his second number one effort of the season. Neff is the only rookie to record a No. 1 qualifier this season.

Friday’s session was a display of high horsepower performance primarily by his JFR teammates.

Teammate Ashley Force was the first driver to record a 1000 foot time in the 4.04s passing teammate Robert Hight holder of the fourth quickest 1000 passes before she flew past him with a 4.048 second run. Force was joined in the 4.04 second club by former John Force Racing driver Tony Pedregon who covered 1000 feet in 4.049 seconds

Neff saw Force’s epic run and he knew that his crew chief John Medlen was planning on pushing the envelope.

“I thought when Ashley ran that 4.04 I thought ’Wow that is a huge run.’ I knew Medlen was trying and if it all went perfect that it might be close. For us to do that that was a lot of fun. It was awesome,” said the rookie. “Just to get them (all four JFR Mustangs) all in the top 12 that is our main goal. That was just a great night of qualifying. It has been a long time since you have seen this many cars run this good and breaking the records at 1000 feet. That is all fun and exciting stuff.”

NEEDS A TURNAROUND – You remember the story of Dave Connolly, the driver who lost his sponsor and was force to sit out the first five races only to blaze his way back into championship contention at 5th in the points.

He fell into a slump at the first part of the championship phase of the Countdown and if the first day of qualifying in Richmond is any indication, he just might be back.

Connolly drove his way to a 6.574 elapsed time at 209.07 miles per hour for the provisional lead in qualifying.

“Today was a pretty incredible day,” Connolly said. “The air was even in both sessions and that’s what you hope for in all four sessions. So far we’ve gotten two out of the way and we are still on the pole.”

Not a bad kick off for this weekend’s partnership between his usual major sponsor Charter Communications and Lucas Oil, whose colors he’s got the Victor Cagnazzi Cobalt wrapped in.

“I’d love nothing more than to stick this car in the winner’s circle,” Connolly added. “We are struggling a bit in Countdown and we’re a little behind. We need those extra points for qualifying and really need to go four rounds in eliminations. It’s a critical weekend and I’m glad we hit the ground running.”

He stands 94 points behind leader and teammate Jeg Coughlin Jr., and ranks sixth in the standings.

“Our worst enemy has been ourselves,” Connolly admitted. “I’ve dropped the ball and shot myself in the foot because we’ve had a great car. I have big shoulders and hopefully I can change it.”

Connolly is aware just how close the competition is in Pro Stock. He’s reminded just how close each round. Just last race in Memphis, Tenn., he stopped Dallas winner Greg Stanfield in the first round by thousandths of a second.

“It doesn’t matter who you race it is so close in this class,” Connolly said. “It’s all on the starting line. You have to make the right calls and have luck on your side.”

PONTIERI LAYS DOWN TIME - Pulling out all the stops in an attempt to catch point leader Josh Hernandez and win his first JEGS ProMod Challenge championship, second-ranked racer Tony Pontieri earned provisional low qualifier honors Friday evening during the third annual Virginia NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park.
 
Entering the weekend 59 points behind Hernandez, Pontieri crushed both ends of the existing VMP track records set one year ago by Hernandez when he powered his Quality Plus Compressors '57 Bel Air to a stout 5.947 at 242.84 mph. Should the time hold through Saturday's final time trial, Pontieri will slightly close the gap on Hernandez and will become the favorite to win the race Sunday. Hernandez qualified a distant 12th with a best of 6.019 at 241.32 mph in the Team Rage Camaro.
 
"Since we ran that 5.94 in Round 1, I really didn't think it would stick through the night session but it did," Pontieri said. "We've got nothing to lose at this point so we're going for it. Josh is a big hitter and he was going for a big number tonight like a lot of the guys were. I think maybe we all thought it was a little better than it might have been in the end. It was like, if it stuck, it was going to be good. Otherwise, you were sideways.
 
"This is an exciting weekend. A lot of the heavyweights from the IHRA and ADRL are here and it's neat to see how we measure up against them. It's good to keep a JEGS ProMod Challenge regular on top. We're protecting our turf."
 
Racing in his first JEGS ProMod Challenge event of the season, IHRA point leader Kenny Lang fit right in on the NHRA side with a 5.961 at 239.44 mph that placed him second. Fellow IHRA pro Scott Cannon Jr. was next with a 5.962 at 241.37 mph, while ADRL regular Mike Castellana came in fourth with a 5.963 at 237.84 mph.
 
Castellana's run was the first five-second NOS-assisted pass at a sanctioned event in drag racing history. His previous mark of 6.000 was the best prior to Friday's pass.  

DEBUT TO REMEMBER - Noted IHRA Pro Modified runner Tommy D'Aprile made his debut Friday on the Jegs Pro Modified Challenge driving Mel Bush's radical 1962 Bel Air. The debut is one he'll likely remember for a long time.

On the first run, he popped the supercharger early in the run.

The evening run provided some tense moments as D'Aprile cracked a fuel tank and the leaking methanol doused the car. D'Aprile lifted and then the car became engulfed in flames. He was able to escape without injury while the car suffered some burns. The team expects to return on Saturday.

NOT AN IDEAL START - Considering the way he's been running lately, Pro Stock point leader Jeg Coughlin Jr. was more than a little surprised to end the first day of qualifying in 13th place on the provisional race day grid. It left the 53-time national event winner with one overriding thought -- "Thank God for Saturday qualifying."

Coughlin was eighth after an opening-round pass of 6.609 seconds at 207.75 mph. He slowed slightly to a 6.621 at 207.27 mph in a round where most of his peers improved.

"We're struggling with either an engine problem or an electrical problem, we're just not sure at this point," Coughlin said. "But I can assure you we'll figure it out before tomorrow morning. We've got two more engines in the trailer and all the electrical parts you could ever need so we'll do the whole shuffle, go through the entire car, and fix it.

"We're running the same combination we've been using. It gave us some trouble in Memphis but the guys have been on it for two weeks since then and they were sure they had it figured out. Sometimes, you can't explain this stuff."

Entering this weekend 32 points ahead in the POWERade points standings with three races left, Coughlin knows there is little margin for error. But his many years of experience have him feeling confident despite the slower-than-normal start.

"There is zero panic on this team," Coughlin said. "We've all been through this before and anyone in drag racing knows these things come and go. They give us four qualifying rounds for a reason and I'd expect, quite frankly, that tomorrow morning's run will be the best of the weekend, according to what the weathermen are telling us.

"We'll be fine. You always want to start strong but it's not the end of the world when you don't. There's lost left to do this weekend."

Temperatures should be in the high 60s in Saturday's opening session of qualifying, which is scheduled for noon.

HEAD SCRATCHIN’ – You know the field is tough when you run your career quickest and still cannot crack into the qualified field. That’s what happened to Bob Tasca III as he landed 13th with a 4.090 elapsed time.

Tasca’s time would have been in the top half at any other event.

“That 4.090 was the quickest run that I’ve ever had in a Funny Car,” said Tasca. “While the No. 1 qualifier ran a 4.04, you can’t run a 4.04 without knowing how to run a 4.09 first. We’ve been struggling lately on Friday night, but I wouldn’t call tonight’s 4.09 run struggling. There are only two-hundredths of one second that separate us from being up in the fifth position, and we’re very excited about our run.”

Even though they were the 13th quickest on the day, Tasca and his team were able to gather some valuable data from some great conditions that they'll be able to use on Saturday as one of six teams competing for the final four spots available for Sunday’s 3rd annual Virginia NHRA Nationals.

“We just missed being in the top 12 and you rack your brain a little bit to think that a 4.090 didn’t get us into the field, but that’s one thing that makes this class so exciting. Anyone can win on any given day,” said Tasca. “This is not uncommon territory for us going into Saturday after missing it by just a hair on Friday, but in the last two races we’ve showed significant improvement on Friday nights. We’ll take this data and improve on it. When you’re one of the cars in that first pair down the track, you’re at a huge disadvantage from the other drivers back in the field because when you run later, you know what you have to do to run quicker than the people that ran ahead of you. But I’m very happy with the 4.09 and with the data that we got today.

“I don’t think tomorrow’s conditions will be much different than what we saw today and I think we’ll see some great times tomorrow," said Tasca. "To go into Saturday having already run a 4.09 versus some of the other drivers that were a little bit slower or smoked the tires, I think that our team is in a really good spot for Saturday qualifying."

STOPPING IN - T.J. Zizzo made an unscheduled stop this weekend at the Virginia NHRA Nationals.

"We got home from Memphis and turned the car around like it was the second round of eliminations," Zizzo said. "No one was ready for the season to end."

Tony Zizzo, team owner agreed. He made several productive phone calls. The support from Peak and Herculiner sealed the deal.

"We wanted to build on our momentum from Indy and Memphis," Zizzo, Sr. said. "I'm glad our partners feel the same way."

"We're in the peak of the PEAK Antifreeze season," T.J. said. "As soon as we got the word from Brian Bohlander at Old World Industries I sent a text message to the team. Everyone was packed and ready to go."

"We've got a better shot at winning the racing if we're there than if we're sitting at home watching it on ESPN," Zizzo joked.

"We didn't want our season to end the way it did in Memphis," T.J said of the team's first round tire smoking loss to Doug Kalitta. "We've got a great team and these guys deserve another round win before the winter gets here."

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