If you’re looking to beat Pro Nitrous front runner Mike Castellana and believe that distracting the Westbury,
N.Y.-based veteran is the best plan, you might want to try something
else. Amidst a weekend filled with distractions and a near crash on
Friday at the ADRL Dragstock in Rockingham, N.C., Castellana not only
won, but did so in grand fashion.

Castellana beat teammate Burton Auxier in the final round of a race
where he made clean sweep of the competition beginning in qualifying.

What distractions?

The oddest thing happened in the Extreme Pro Stock final round in the ADRL Dragstock event at
Rockingham Dragway. Two cars burned out, rolled to a stop. Then as they
backed up, both cars swapped lanes as if their actions were
choreographed.

And, they were.

Doug Kirk and Brian Gahm understand that drag racing purists might have
opinions regarding their actions and that’s fine. They could care less.

On a run where points were as meaningless as who won the race, the
veteran Pro Stock racers and longtime friends deemed putting on a show
for the capacity crowd to be of greater importance.

Jason Hamstra believed running a Lenco transmission with a torque converter was something cool to do long
before the Pro Extreme competition did. Saturday evening, during the
ADRL Dragstock event, Hamstra provided an excellent case for why a Pro
Modified style car can win without having a clutch-equipped
transmission.

Hamstra defeated ADRL newcomer Ken Walsh to win his second career Pro Extreme national event title.

“We just tried to make consistent laps and the car is really fast,”
Hamstra said of his clean sweep victory from the pole position. “It
goes down the race track every time.”

Finding a way to pack masses of race fans into his Rockingham Dragway has always been a challenge
for owner and operator Steve Earwood. Every year the ADRL’s Dragstock
event rolls into town, he thinks back to his first year as owner of the
track and wonders how in the world he reached this point.

Seeing full grandstands represents a milestone for Earwood and he
shares the sentiment of the late IHRA founder Larry Carrier who once
stated publicly that the most beautiful drag strip is a full one.

Earwood’s initial experiences with Rockingham Dragway were not beautiful.

Earwood was worn out just from the myriad of hoops he jumped through to get the financing to purchase the facility.

Two-time
champion Larry Dixon blew away the Top Fuel field Saturday to earn the
No. 1 quaifying position for Sunday’s NHRA Carolinas Nationals, the
first race in NHRA’s six-race playoff, the Countdown to 1.

The other provisional No. 1 qualifiers at the 19th of 24 races in the
NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series were Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car),
Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) and Hector Arana (Pro Stock Motorcycle).

The NHRA Carolinas Nationals is the first race in NHRA’s six-race
playoff and it is the first of a four-races-in-four-weeks blitz that
includes stops in Dallas, Memphis and Richmond to begin the Countdown
to 1.

Billy Glidden plans to experiment on Saturday at the ADRL Dragstock event in Rockingham, N.C. The defending
Extreme 10.5 champion has bolted an experimental engine between the
fenders of his Mickey Thompson Tires & Wheels-sponsored Pontiac GTO.

“We’ve spent a lot of time on the engine we are working with,” Glidden
said Saturday morning as he made adjustments to the 440-inch power
plant. “We are trying everything we possibly can to keep up with the
cars that are really running fast.

Heavy rain and less than favorable conditions have forced Saturday’s
action at the Amalie Oil North American Nationals to be cancelled.

Racing will get back underway first thing Sunday morning.

“With the current conditions and the timeframe we have to work with it
has created a perfect storm and there is simply no way to get the track
race ready and safe in the allotted amount of time,” said Skooter
Peaco, Vice President of Race Operations. “While we are certainly
disappointed to have to scrap Saturday’s event, we were pleased to see
so many people try and wait out the rain.

With another day of racing still to be run, the backside of Rickie
Smith’s eighteen wheeler leaving Rockingham Dragway told the story Saturday morning.

Smith, the legendary doorslammer driver from King, N.C., and crew chief
for the Al-Anabi/Awesome Motorsports, parted company with the operation
Friday evening.

Smith was already planned to part ways with the operation, just not this quickly.

“I told Shannon [Jenkins] and Mike [Castellana] that I planned to
fulfill my obligation until the end of the season,” said Smith, while
driving home. “I didn’t think there were any problems but I guess it
got back to the Sheik.”

Bennie McDonald described his emotions following the first qualifying
session at the ADRL Dragstock event as both happy and upset.

McDonald, a Pro Extreme racer from Locust Grove, Ga., was in the second
pair of cars in the first qualifying session, when his Corvette ran a
tenth quicker than his personal best. Unfortunately for him, his
incredible .870 sixty-foot time, threw up a red flag to race officials
who disqualified the run citing the car caused the timing system to
malfunction.

The second quickest short time of the session was a .934.

The ADRL doesn’t field any Funny Cars but their Pro Extreme division produced two fires that would have made the

The
remnants of the engine block Frankie Taylor wounded on Friday event.
The engine explosion engulfed the car in flames momentarily.

flopper contingent green with envy. Frankie Taylor and Tommy D’Aprile
had their respective cars become engulfed in flames just shy of the
finish line after violent explosions.

“It broke a rod,” Taylor explained, as his crew thrashed in the
background. “It caught on fire I guess and it cleaned up. I don't know
just a bunch of work.”