When NHRA officials were forced to cancel the second round of Top Fuel qualifying Friday night at the Fram-Autolite Nationals, it didn’t sit well with some competitors.

The NHRA called off the second round of qualifying because the sanctioning body didn’t believe it could complete the session by the 10 pm. curfew at Infineon Raceway.

“I think they (NHRA) had to cancel a Top Fuel qualifying session back in 2007 or 2008 at Sonoma,” said Jim Oberhofer, crew chief for Doug Kalitta. “You think they would have learned from that. They have a strict 10 pm. curfew and our (Kalitta Motorsports) Funny Car didn’t make its first lap until 5:31 pm., (which) is what is says on our time slip.

“I do not know how the heck they got so behind. I think it is a bull**** deal. I think whoever the hell makes the schedule here for this race, needs to either be fired or learn how to make a schedule. We constantly have this problem here every time we run here. The problem with this place is that the air changes so much that you end up having problems running your car. The chances of blowing stuff up are much greater here because of these huge air swings.”

Funny Car driver Tim Wilkerson predicted that with the program dragging on Friday night with clean-up delays -- meaning cooler and better conditions -- that Infineon Raceway fans just might see the fastest run of the year so far in qualifying for the FRAM-Autolite Nationals.
 
His guess was amazingly close when it came to elapsed time, although he was a bit off on the speed. And he probably was less disappointed in missing the forecast as he was that the track E.T. and speed records belong not to him but to Jack Beckman.
 
Beckman made a bid for his first No. 1 qualifying position since last fall's Richmond race, posting a 4.063-second pass at 311.56 mph in his Don Schumacher-owned Valvoline/Mail Terminals Dodge Charger.
 
Racing a curfew that cost the Top Fuel class a second qualifying session as much as his competitors, he erased teammate Matt Hagan's records (4.068/307.51) from last July.
 
Although he carries the nickname "Fast Jack," Beckman would own just the third top-qualifying spot of his career.

Allen Johnson took advantage of mineshaft conditions Friday night and under the Infineon Raceway lights, he did more than make a bid for Pro Stock's No. 1 qualifying position for the FRAM-Autolite Nationals.
 
He rewrote both the track elapsed-time and speed records with a 6.545-second blast at 210.77 mph in his Team Mopar / J&J Dodge Avenger. They wiped out Jason Line's year-old marks.
 
The Greeneville, Tenn., native, on target in his native Southeast, was No. 1 qualifier at Atlanta and Bristol. So this would be the third top spot of the year and 10th of his career.
 
"Conditions at 300 feet -- best conditions we've had in awhile. Humidity rolls in and it slows us down on miles per hour.  But track's awesome. Air's awesome," Johnson said. "We had a decent run."
 
He corrected himself.
 
"It's pretty much an above-average run," he said.

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Excitement was in the air Friday evening as the MOPAR Nitro Jam Nationals presented by E3 Spark Plugs officially got underway at the Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, Ontario.

Friday wasn’t as much about the show as it was giving all the race teams a hit at the track, but still several fans came out to enjoy an evening of exciting doorslammer and dragster action. All sportsman drivers and even members of the Pro Modified Racing Association got in one pass on Friday in preparation for two days of thrilling Nitro Jam action Saturday and Sunday at “The Bend.”

And those in attendance Friday evening got a bit of a surprise and a taste of things to come as Mike Stawicki (Medina, N.Y.), the new record holder for the PMRA Pro Mod group and the most recent race winner, continued his reign of dominance with a blistering 5.881 second pass at 252.05 miles-per-hour to rocket to the top of the charts.

All season, Larry Dixon has been a favorite to win qualifying pole positions.

Friday at the Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals it was no different and Dixon lived up to his billing.

Dixon took the provisional pole with a 3.839-second time at 317.79 mph. Dixon’s run was the last run of the first round of qualifying and it held up when the second round of Top Fuel qualifying was cancelled by NHRA officials because they didn’t believe the second round of qualifying could be completed in time to meet the 10 pm curfew at Infineon Raceway.

“We made a nice run in that first session,” said Dixon, who is aiming to capture his fifth No. 1 qualifying spot this season. “As more cars ran, it gave Jason (McCulloch) and Alan (Johnson) an opportunity to gauge what they thought the track would hold. They went up there and made a very good run. It was just a great job by everybody on the Al-Anabi team.”

The employees of Combustion Technologies USA were life-long fans of NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster racer Mark Niver.

His dedication to the sport and his creative, quality driven craftsmanship is an instrumental part of our business philosophy. Tragically, Niver lost his life due to injuries suffered in a racing accident this past Sunday during the running of the NHRA Northwest Nationals. On behalf of the staff at Combustion Technologies USA, we would like to offer our heart-felt condolences to the Niver family for their loss.
 
As NHRA Sportsman racers ourselves, we believe Niver, a machinist by trade, was one of the best examples of ‘Ingenuity in Action’, a phrase which is a fundamental principle of those who created the National Hot Rod Association. He was also a gentleman.

Jack Beckman is in position to earn his first No. 1 qualifier of the season at the halfway point of qualifying at the 23rd annual FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals.

The other provisional No. 1 qualifiers at the 15th of 23 events in the NHRA Full Throttle Series season were Larry Dixon (Top Fuel), Allen Johnson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle).

The drag racing world may never know what transpired during the first round of Pro Stock eliminations at the recently completed NHRA Northwest Nationals in Seattle, but new facts have come to light which may lead to a logical explanation. However, the explanation may still be a guess as to what transpired forcing various Pro Stock racers to verbally lash the sanctioning body alleging a lack of track preparation.

At issue is whether the NHRA prepped the track before the Pro Stockers ran their opening round. What is not at issue is the difference in opinion between the drivers and the race officials.

“We have a huge discrepancy in what us as Pro Stock drivers and crew chiefs need in a racing surface and what the NHRA believes we need in a racing surface,” Pro Stock racer Greg Anderson told ESPN on Sunday afternoon. “They prep it in the way they do for the fuel cars – they run 1,000 feet. We run quarter-mile. They [NHRA] go out there and decide the track doesn’t need any extra glue for the Pro Stock cars. That’s 100-percent wrong. We preach it. We preach it. These cars have to have glue all the way to the quarter-mile. That was skipped today.”

The NHRA instituting new rule changes is nothing new, but renowned chassis and car builder Brad Hadman, a noted chassis builder for 38 years, believes the sanctioning body doesn’t have a reciprocal relationship with drivers when it comes to the issue of safety.

“I feel like it always gets passed off on the racer to make it safer to do this and to do that,” Hadman said. “It is still the age old argument and we’ve never improved our race track. That’s the same netting system, the same crap they have had for 100 years. Are they (NHRA) going to change it? Probably not because they feel like it is the way it is. I look at being proactive and NASCAR got into soft walls and they’ve tried to do things to minimize the injuries in their sport, and we haven’t. There are other things we could institute into the ends of our race tracks that could make them far safer than they are right now. The racers have paid their fair share trying to keep up on the safety rules that they (NHRA) make and I feel it should be the same in turn. They (NHRA) should make as big of an effort on their end, as they expect the racers to do.”

Hadman's feeling's aside, the NHRA acted quickly to amend its rule book following the on-track death of Top Alcohol Dragster driver Mark Niver Sunday at the Northwest Nationals in Kent, Wash. Niver died when his dragster crashed into the safety net at the end of the Pacific Raceways track and it buckled the chassis into the driver cockpit.