Organizers of the annual California Hot Rod Reunion, presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California, and the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion have announced new dates for the popular nostalgic weekend festivals.

“Start your engines and plan ahead for next year, race fans!” said Reunion Director Tony Thacker, “The new dates for the 2011 Reunions were selected to best accommodate NHRA race fans, and we’ll be better than ever in 2011.”

JEGS Mail Order, a worldwide leader in the high performance parts business, was recognized by the Greater Linden Development Corporation with its "Beautiful Business Award -- Large Business Category" Tuesday night during the seventh annual Linden Awards and Gratitude Celebration in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

JEGS was honored for its "continued demonstration of community pride and commitment" and for "setting a standard that makes Linden proud," according to Donna J. Hicho, executive director of the non-profit organization.

Matt Hagan fired the first salvo of this much-anticipated final weekend of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Series season with a blistering 4.139-second pass at 293.86 mph to earn the provisional No. 1 in Funny Car.

The three bonus points he earned for the quickest pass of the session extended his lead over second-place John Force (qualified fourth) to 40 points, which means (since he owns the tiebreaker with Force) that if he maintains that margin throughout qualifying Force would need to win three more rounds on Sunday to win the championship.

“That’s huge,” Hagan said of the three bonus points, before adding cautiously, “It sounds great right now, but we’ve got a lot of qualifying left. I don’t think it will stick.”

After supporting the PMRA Series for its entirety of six seasons, Mike Stawicki returned to racing in the Pro Modified Racing Association for the 2010 season, and captured his first PMRA Championship in the Point Award Series presented by Magnum Auto Parts and Patio Passport.
 
“Our year went excellent,” said Stawicki, who set several Pro Modified benchmarks during the season, including a Canadian record of 5.739 seconds for a quarter-mile pass, just one one-thousandth of a second behind the world Pro Modified elapsed time record. “Our year was one of the best.”
 
Stawicki qualified for all PMRA events, and took the number one Marydel Homes qualifying spot in four of five events, qualifying second in the remaining race. His 2010 PMRA record included one victory, a co-victory, two runner-up placings, and a quarter-final round.

Today will mark the beginning of the end for the 2010 season. Twelve racers with a mathematical chance to procure a Full Throttle Drag Racing championship

will begin qualifying at the NHRA Auto Club AAA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

One of the most heated battles will come from the Funny Car series staged between sophomore hopeful Matt Hagan and 14-time titlist John Force. Force pulled to within 37 points of the Don Schumacher Racing driver with his recent Las Vegas victory.

"No matter what happens, we can't lose sight of how much progress we've made this year,” said Hagan. “This is the team that in our rookie season last year struggled to try to make the Countdown. And now we're in a position where we've really got a legitimate shot to win the championship.

Justin Humphreys could have towed out to Pomona, qualified in the bottom quarter of the Pro Stock field, exited in the first or second round and gone home $20-30 thousand dollars poorer.

Instead, Humphreys and crew towed to Rockingham Dragway to further fine tune their Roush-Yates Racing engine and Mustang body. There will still be twenty thousand or less in the pocket book, but the information gleaned from a two-three day session is far more valuable to the team then four to five runs in Pomona.  

“We'll be out all of 2011,” assured Humphreys when asked about the current state of his program. “This year has been a learning curve for us and (Ford). The Ford program is brand new. These guys, have done an awesome job. We didn't want to bring out the car until it's right. We know right now we could go out and qualify in the back, but that is not what we want to do. We want to be competitive.”

Motorsports is filled with patriotism and love for America’s defenders.
 
Whether it’s the Army’s sponsorship of NHRA Full Throttle Series Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher, the Navy’s past sponsorship of NASCAR teams such as JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnardt, Jr., or the American Drag Racing League (ADRL) and their partnership with the National Guard, the military has a strong presence.

The American Drag Racing League (ADRL) is pleased to announce that its 2010 Racer Appreciation and Awards Gala will take place on Saturday Jan. 22, 2011, from 7-11 p.m. at the beautiful Crowne Plaza Hotel in Clayton, MO, just outside of St. Louis.

The semi-formal event will take place at the luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel for the first time and will serve as a fitting end to what was a memorable and record-breaking 2010 ADRL season.

The new venue provides a more central and cost-effective location for the ADRL’s talented competitors, teams and sponsors, and a special room rate ($79/night for standard room; $129/night for an Executive Tower room) is also available for the event.
All current ADRL competitors receive one free ticket to the event. Additional tickets can also be purchased this year for just $30, which is significantly lower than the $50 price tag for last year’s gala. For the first time, the event will also be open to ADRL members and fans, who can also purchase tickets for just $30.

On a beautiful late fall day in Rockingham, North Carolina Kurt Busch took the next step in his recent drag racing endeavor. The Las Vegas native ran quick enough, in a Roy Hill-owned Pro Stock, to earn his Pro Stock license.

There was no fanfare, no champagne, no cheering crowds, just empty concrete, steel and wood looking on from both the left and the right lanes with the exception of a husband and wife from Akron, Ohio who were on site to collect on a wife's gift to her husband for his 50th birthday. 

There were no other competitors on site. It was Kurt, his drag racing crew, the track prep crew and Roy Hill conducting the first day of a three day class of teacher, student and the necessary back-up personnel needed for a former Winston Cup, now Sprint Cup, champion to earn his stripes in a Pro Stock car.

ADRL Pro Nitrous racer Jim Halsey understands drag racing is measured in tiny increments of time.

During the semi-final round of last month’s ADRL Battle for the Belts competition, the championship-determining competition at the LenMar Motorsports World Finals, .001 of a second might have well been ten minutes. That miniscule measurement of time ended his 2010 season as he ended up on the wrong side of the green light against fellow nitrous titan Shannon Jenkins.

Earlier in the day, Halsey, the first nitrous driver into the five second zone, jumped to the top of the qualifying list for the 2011 season with the quickest run in qualifying, a 3.896 at 194.18.

The ADRL’s unique championship format crowns the series champions on Friday all the while qualifying for the first event of the following season on Saturday. The first race of the next season is completed on Saturday.