John Force, who captured his record 15th NHRA Funny Car Championship with a come-from-behind victory last weekend in Pomona, CA, was presented the

John Force, left, poses with Edsel Ford II moments after Ford, in a surprise presentation, presented Force with the Spirit of Ford award.

prestigious Spirit of Ford Award in a surprise ceremony at Ford Championship Weekend in the Homestead-Miami Speedway media center.

The Spirit of Ford Award is the highest honor Ford Motor Company bestows for lifetime achievement in auto racing, on and off the race track.  Force becomes the 24th recipient, joining an international list of honorees from all forms of racing and racing media.

He was given his award in a surprise presentation today by Edsel B. Ford II, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford and a member of the company’s board of directors.

Pat Musi, didn’t win a race Friday, but he did have reason to celebrate.

Musi, who resides in Carteret, N.J., is the provisional No. 1 qualifier in the Pro Street class with a 6.066-second elapsed time at 235.97 mph in the Street Car Super Nationals VI at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Mike Maggio was second in the Pro Street qualifying at 6.085 seconds.

That top time for Musi was quite surprising considering the adversity his team had to deal with Friday morning.

Billy Harper knows what it’s like to be a champion.

The veteran driver won the Pro Nitrous ADRL championship back in 2008.

However, since that time Harper has not raced in the ADRL and he’s only competed on a very limited schedule in other events put on by different sanctioning bodies.

Harper is competing this weekend at the Street Car Super Nationals VI at The Strip. Harper entered his 2000 Pro Mod Viper in the Pro Street Class.

No one can say Brad Personett is afraid to take chances.

Personett, who made a name for himself in the NHRA Pro Mod ranks, took center stage Friday morning at the Street Car Super Nationals.

Personett set a new world record with a 6.088-second elapsed time at 250.37 mph on a 10.5-inch tire during the first round of Pro Street qualifying Friday morning.

Personett, however, wasn’t celebrating when he came back to the pits because he was concerned he hurt his engine on the record pass.

John Force barely had time to savor his 15th Funny Car championship and his victory last Sunday in the National Hot Rod Association season finale.
 
Longtime crew chief Austin Coil, who came to Force as a championship tuner and was architect of his record-smashing success, announced Tuesday he's leaving the organization to relax first, then pursue other drag-racing opportunities.
 
It's not the first time in 2010 that a trusted member of the Force Racing family left for another organization. John Medlen, antsy to have a real tuning job, a real responsibility after Mike Neff's fourth Funny Car was parked at the end of 2009 and he was essentially a floater, bolted for Don Schumacher Racing. (He now finds himself out of a crew chief position, according to Schumacher's statement following the final race of the year.)
 
But still, it was a blow to the Force camp. Instead of being able to share with the Ford Motor Company his tribute to its technical and engineering support, he hasn't been able to exploit the fact that Ford helped make race cars safer, more aerodynamically competitive, and relevant to the automaker's global sales and marketing initiatives. That's lost in the shuffle of . . . well, a personnel shuffle.

For the second time in less than a year, Summit Racing driver Greg Anderson has been the victim of a fire.  As the 2010 NHRA Pro Stock champion flew home yesterday from the season finale in Pomona, CA, the massive transporter that serves as the team’s headquarters at the race track caught fire on the I-10 freeway shortly after leaving Auto Club Raceway, severely damaging the trailer and much of its contents, including Anderson’s championship-winning Summit Racing Pontiac.
 
This latest incident comes just ten months after Anderson was displaced from his Concord, NC home by a fire started in a neighbor’s house, with the family only recently moving into a new home.  Despite the extensive property damage suffered in each instance, the four-time champion was primarily grateful that there were no injuries and quickly gathered his KB Racing team at their shop in Mooresville to determine their plan of action moving forward.

Conditions Thursday night were not ideal for the Test & Tune session at the Street Car Super Nationals VI at The Strip.

The cool track made it difficult for any of the cars to get any kind of grip.

For Larry Dixon, the first round at the recently completed Auto Club NHRA Finals was unlike any opening round he’d faced all season long.

Even though the race was just beginning, the opening round against Mike Strasburg was an opportunity to put an exclamation point on an incredible season.

Win the first round and he would be the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel champion.

“I’ve never had so much excitement for a first round win in my life,” Dixon said. “An awesome job for my team. It was just one round today but it was all of the good rounds we’ve had previous. The second rounds and the semi-finals. They have all added up to this point. It’s a credit to Alan Johnson, Sheikh Khalid, Jason McCulloch and the whole Al-Anabi team. This is for everybody who pitches in to make this happen. This is what we do it for.”

It’s official. Kenny Nowling is no longer associated with the American Drag Racing League (ADRL).

After creating the country’s preeminent outlaw doorslammer series from what in 2004 was intended only as a one-off showcase for NHRA Pro Mod stars at tiny Carolina Dragway, Nowling’s departure was announced in a Nov. 18 press release from the O’Fallon, Missouri-based sanctioning body and its previously unconfirmed ownership group, Al-Anabi Companies, headed by Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani (KH) of Qatar.

“ADRL Co-Founder Kenny Nowling will step down as President and CEO effective immediately to take an expanded role in the company’s international development,” the release stated. It also said that chassis builder Tim McAmis, already responsible for overseeing Al-Anabi’s United States racing operations, immediately assumes the CEO role and all other current ADRL executives will remain in place.

Von Smith is fresh off of one championship.

But the talented Pro Modified driver already has his sights sets on another championship, this time on overseas soil.

Smith, crew chief and the Barwa Racing team is set to compete for a championship in the Pro Extreme class of the Arabian Drag Racing League, which starts on Dec. 2-3 in the country of Qatar.

The quest will be done in a new 1968 Pro Extreme Camaro that is sure to turn heads. It was recently finished by Tim McAmis Race Cars and the sparkling finished product will debut in Qatar.