Mike Castellana reportedly will not return to the 50th NHRA Gatornationals following his accident early Saturday afternoon during qualifying for the E3 / J&A Service Pro Mod Series at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway.

David Barton escaped injury Saturday at Gainesville, Fla., in a frightening, wall-banging, first-round accident that almost collected opponent Chris Holbrook in Factory Stock Showdown eliminations.

It was the fourth major incident Saturday at the 50th NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.

Longtime motorsports broadcaster Joe Castello will be debuting a new podcast dedicated to the wildly popular SAMTECH.EDU Factory Stock Showdown series part of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events in 2019. The inaugural Factory Stock Podcasts are available now on Soundcloud here (Episode 1) and here (Episode 2) as well as on Apple Podcasts in advance of the 50th annual Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals. Castello will be joined during each podcast by Brian Massingill, SAM Tech’s Vice President of Business Development who is also a successful sportsman racer in the Stock Eliminator class. The series is expanding to eight events in 2019 and Castello will host a pre and post-race podcast around every race featuring racers and industry insiders.

Brittany Force set the Gainesville Raceway track record during the fourth qualifying session of Top Fuel to become the first woman to qualify No. 1 at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals since Shirley Muldowney 40 years ago.

Robert Hight (Funny Car), Rodger Brogdon (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also No. 1 qualifiers in their respective categories at the third of 24 events on the 2019 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule.

Top Alcohol Funny Car D.J. Cox was unhurt Saturday at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway in a crash during the first round of eliminations at the NHRA Gatornationals.

If longtime drag-racing fans ever forgot the scene at the U.S. Nationals when Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen scored an upset final-round victory over Don “The Snake” Prudhomme days after losing his young son Jamie to leukemia, they had a movie to remind them how Snake crawled up under McEwen’s raised body at the top end and shared a poignant moment with his pal. What no one else but Prudhomme got to see was the last one they ever had.

Prudhomme received a phone call one morning last June at his home near San Diego and learned that McEwen had passed away in his sleep.

Drag-racing icons “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney had matched-raced against each other dozens of times throughout the country in their heydays, but their head-to-head record in NHRA competition, surprisingly, was five and five.

After Friday’s first round of “Unfinished Business” pairings in a showdown of the sport’s legends at the 50th edition of the Gatornationals at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway, it’s Advantage Ms. Muldowney.

In identically prepared Toyota Camrys, Muldowney scored a runaway victory. She’ll meet six-time champion and 97-time winner Warren Johnson, “The Professor of Pro Stock,” in Saturday’s semifinal round. He beat Pro Stock Motorcycle class founder Terry Vance, co-owner of the Vance & Hines two-wheeled empire.

If anything, Robert Hight is a realist.

Hight drove his way to the provisional No. 1 spot in Funny Car at the NHRA Gatornationals with a 3.928-second pass at 305.15 mph despite running the car to the 1,000-foot mark on seven cylinders.

No, that's not a typo on the Top Fuel qualifying sheet. That really is TJ Zizzo at the top of the chart after the second qualifying session for the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Friday at Gainesville Raceway.

The part-driver with his part-time team made a stellar pass of 3.762 seconds at 323.35 mph to lead Doug Kalitta (3.776), Brittany Force (3.800), Steve Torrence (3.800) and the rest of the 18-car field. Zizzo doesn't have a No. 1 qualifier in his career, nor has he ever been provisional No. 1.

Jose Gonzalez sits atop the NHRA Gatornationals Pro Modified field courtesy of a 5.726 elapsed time at 255.15 miles per hour pass after two sessions on Friday. This weekend marks the first race of the season for the Pro Modified entries.