Not since Gary Scelzi pulled off an amazing Top Fuel run in 1997 has a rookie driver won both the Full Throttle world championship title and the Auto Club Road to the Future Award.

Pro Stock Motorcycle phenom LE Tonglet, winner of the first two playoff races in the Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship, has emerged with an opportunity to join Scelzi in the NHRA record book as a rookie world champ.

In the first two playoff events – at Indianapolis and last weekend at Charlotte, N.C. – Tonglet rode his NitroFish Suzuki to victory over three-time world champ Andrew Hines.

Tonglet, who started the Countdown in the 7th position, will try to keep his incredible Cinderella run going at the O’Reilly Super Start Batteries Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec, Sept. 23-26 at the all-concrete Texas Motorplex, the sport’s first supertrack. Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel), Robert Hight (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Hector Arana (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are the defending winners of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event, which will be televised on ESPN2 HD.

It was a very, very long time in coming, but Al Ackerman, a Competition Eliminator driver, is finally having his NHRA breakout year.

Ackerman, who began his NHRA career in 1964, is having a dream season he never wants to wake up from.

“The season has been record-breaking to say the least,” said the 63-year-old Ackerman, who pilots a dragster. “It has been kind of unbelievable for us to accomplish what we have this year.”

Ackerman is atop the NHRA’s national Competition Eliminator point chase with a 706 total, thanks to winning at Norwalk, Ohio, Brainerd, Minn., and Indianapolis. He also was runner-up at Atlanta.

NHRA A/Fuel and IHRA Pro Fuel Dragster driver Johnny Ahten will appear as the in-studio co-host of Speed Scene Live, a Southern California internet-based TV and Radio motorsports show, along with host Scott “Lucky” Hudson, Tuesday night September 21st at 9pm EST / 6pm PST at http://www.speedsceneracing.com.

It wasn’t for lack of effort that prevented Scott Ray for making the final round call to race Melanie Troxel at the recently completed NHRA O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals in Concord, NC.

Ray beat heavily favored Mike Janis with a run which turned his finely-tuned, Andy McCoy Race Cars into a barbeque pit for a few moments at the tail end of his semi-final victory. He was uninjured in the incident. The car wasn’t as fortunate.

"It was a big disappointment but we still had a great weekend" said Ray. "We got a break in the first round when the Jegs car had problems, then Von Smith and I had a pedal contest on the hot track in the second round. We had Mike Janis in the third round and knew he would be tough so dad had it really hopped up.

The 2010 edition and 10th anniversary celebration of the Mopar® HEMI® Challenge Race Series will conclude this weekend as a large gathering of Super Stock/A HEMI (SS/AH) drivers do battle on Sept. 24–25 in the Mopar HEMI Challenge event during the Jegs Northern SPORTSnationals at National Trail Raceway near Columbus, Ohio.

Charles Lingenfelter sat in the Industrial Distribution Group [http://www.idg-corp.com] suite on the third floor of the zMax Dragway tower entertaining his customers.

When it came time for the Super Stock eliminations at the  NHRA O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals in Concord, NC., the President and CEO of IDG stopped talking and started watching.

Super Stock will forever be special to him. Drag racing, too.

“Drag racing has been a part of my family since 1968,” said Lingenfelter, whose brother John Lingenfelter was a past NHRA Super Stock champion. “I first helped with my brother. In 1973, I quit racing and went back to work while he went racing.”

Pro Stock racer Bob Yonke will unveil a one-race sponsorship this weekend during the NHRA Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas.

Yonke, who missed the Countdown to 1 playoffs, will fly the colors of Coffman Tank Trucks on his Pontiac GXP confirmed JB Coffman, company owner.

Former nitro and alcohol Funny Car racer and noted supercharger manufacturer Mert Littlefield died Sept. 20. He was 66.

Littlefield, whose superchargers were key components in the breaking of several NHRA performance barriers, including the first four-second and 300-mph Funny Car passes (Chuck Etchells and Jim Epler, respectively) and the first five-second alcohol Funny Car pass (Bob Newberry) and who was at the forefront of the high-helix supercharger technology, also was a national-event winning driver of his own cars, all of which he also tuned.

The final rounds have been run. The winners given their trophies. The champagne corks popped.

It's Monday at zMax Dragway, the day after the NHRA Carolina Nationals, and there are several teams still in town tending to business.

Tony Schumacher is here testing. Jack Beckman is testing. John Force has all three of his teams in house. The Harley Pro Stock Motorcycle teams are working hard, as is the team of Angie Smith. Hector Arana's rig shows signs of his team thrashing about.

Force, who had just finished chatting it up with the crew of the NAPA Auto Parts Funny Car driven by Ron Capps, said he was here testing a new Goodyear tire.

Cruz Pedregon was overcome with emotion. The second-generation driver had won two NHRA Funny Car championships and his victory at the NHRA O’Reilly Auto Parts and captured 31 national event titles including his days as a Top Alcohol racer.

However, this win was different.

When he realized the magnitude of what he’d accomplished, winning from the No. 1 position, against all odds, he wept openly in the post race press conference.