Today, Pedregon Racing announced a partnership with Toyota for team
support including supply of transportation vehicles for the 2007 NHRA
POWERade Drag Racing season.
 
Cruz Pedregon, driver of the Advance Auto Parts Nitro Funny Car, and
Tony Pedregon, pilot of the Q Power Nitro Funny Car, will each receive
team support vehicles from Toyota.
 
Toyota will support each team with key product for use throughout the
remainder of the 2007 season. This product support includes the Sequoia
Full Size SUV and the all-new Tundra CrewMax pick-up truck. The Tundra
Full Size CrewMax pick-up is equipped with a 5.7 liter V8 engine which
will provide a towing capacity of over 10,000 pounds. While providing a
functional addition to the Pedregon Racing teams, this product support
will also offer tremendous exposure for the Toyota Tundra and Sequoia
models.

Knoll-Gas Nitro Jam officials have announced the schedule for the
postponed Skull Shine Sooner Nationals presented by Wolverine and
Academy Sports + Outdoors.
 
The event, rescheduled for Saturday, June 23, will kick-off
professional racing at 12 noon with a time trial for all qualified
cars. Qualifying was completed prior to postponement, so the
professional category fields are locked. The professional classes are
Top Fuel, Nitro Funny Car, Pro Modified, Alcohol Funny Car and Pro
Stock.
 
Professional eliminations will begin at 4:30 p.m. Second round is scheduled for 6 p.m., third round 8 p.m. and finals at 10 p.m.

Pro Stock team owner
Victor Cagnazzi says that he used the same principles to build a successful
drag racing operation that he did to develop a high-tech business that netted
in excess of $70-million dollars worth of sales annually.

Cagnazzi quickly points
out that it’s just a matter of applying the right people, resources, and
technology to a clearly defined goal. Then you supplement it with hard work and
the rest falls into place.

A New York Institute of
Technology graduate, Cagnazzi made a career out of building small companies
into large ones. The same could be said for his drag racing endeavors. It all
began with an amateur start that eventually graduated to professional status.

Cagnazzi took a single Pro
Stock team and built the program into one of the forerunners of the class with
drivers Dave Connolly and Jeg Coughlin Jr.

Steve Johnson, who is currently No. 8 in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Countdown to the Championship on his Snap-on Tools Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle,
recently held a special gathering for WyoTech students and their families at his
race shop in
Alabama.

WyoTech (the official technical
school of
NHRA) representative Craig Fiddler
directed approximately 50 students, friends and family members to Steve Johnson
Racing's facility, with participants coming from regions in
Alabama,
Georgia,
Mississippi and
Tennessee. "When new students
enroll at WyoTech we like to create an opportunity from them to meet and get to
know each other," said Johnson. "Doing it in this kind of racing environment is
the kind of level and standard we want all students to get a taste of."

HD Partners Acquisition Corporation ("HD Partners") and the National Hot Rod Association ("NHRA"), the world's preeminent drag racing organization, today announced the signing of a definitive agreement under which HD Partners will acquire all of NHRA's professional racing assets, including the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing series, together with a broad set of rights to commercialize the NHRA brand.

Junior looks more and more like his dad every time
he cranks his 1968 Pontiac Firebird Pro Modified.

Junior is the nickname Scott Cannon, Jr. answers to.
However, these days he performs a great impersonation of Senior.

Case in point, refresh your memories to Saturday’s
final Pro Modified session at the IHRA SKULL Shine Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Scott jumped from 11th
place on the 16-car grid following Saturday's first session to the top spot for
the second straight race. A dozen times in his career, Scotty went from outside
the field to the top spot in the final session.

Torco's CompetitionPlus.com managing editor Brian Wood made the trip to
England to cover the FIA European Drag Racing Championships. During Saturday's qualifying sessions he
compiled a gallery of images, including Top Fuel, Fuel Funny Car, Pro Modified, Pro Stock, Alcohol Dragster, Alcohol Funny Car, Fuel Bikes, Pro Stock Bikes, and more. Unfortunately, the event was eventually rained out, but the action was hot and heavy before the wet stuff came!

PHOTO GALLERY
FIA EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

When fans see the Ron Capps-driven BRUT Funny Car at the NHRA POWERade Drag
Racing Series events June through September this year, they will be challenged
to take a test drive of their own.  
 
Just in time for race fans braving
the summer at-track heat, BRUT is offering consumers the chance to "test drive"
any BRUT Anti-Perspirant & Deodorant products. If
consumers aren’t completely satisfied, they can return the product for a full
refund.
 
To mark the promotion, BRUT Racing will transfer its NHRA
at-track presence from the blue and silver BRUT Revolution colors to a special
edition BRUT "Test Drive" funny car paint scheme – which returns to BRUT's
signature green racing color. 

The Daily
Gazette
of Schenectady, New York has reported the passing of Jack A. Muldowney, Jr. of
Niskayuna .  The former husband of four-time Top Fuel World
Champion Shirley Muldowney passed away on Thursday, May 24th after losing a difficult battle with
cancer.

As Ms. Muldowney told Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com, “I
wouldn’t have had a career if it hadn’t been for Jack.  He taught me how to drive, how to do
everything.”  Ms. Muldowney said she managed to see Jack before his
passing, saying “I was very glad to have been there.  He was a remarkable man, and I’ve always liked the
sound of his name, which is why I’ve kept it all these years.”

When Gary Scelzi recalls his
previous NHRA appearances at Heartland Park Topeka,
various scenarios emerge in his mind.
He hopes this weekend's O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals will add another positive
image as he seeks his first Funny Car win at this circuit.

"Actually,
Topeka is the place where I broke the all-time Top Fuel season win record, which
was six, set by Cory McClenathan in 1998," said the four-time NHRA world
champion. "We won our seventh (of nine) Top Fuel national event of the
year in Topeka in 2000.

"Topeka's been
good, but Topeka's been bad. I had my first major crash in Top Fuel there where
we actually went through two cars. One on Friday, one on Saturday, and we kind
of pieced those two cars together to run on Sunday, which turned out to be a
semifinal finish. So,
Topeka's been good, bad and in-between."