Jerry Toliver confirmed with CompetitionPlus.com on Friday that he will be driving in 2009 for veteran team owner Jim Dunn.

Toliver,
of Tumecula, Ca., drove this season for Don Schumacher Racing with
limited results, reaching the quarter-finals only twice. He opened the
season with a promising No. 2 qualifying position but struggled in the
middle portion before qualifying No. 2 in Memphis and No. 3 recently in
Las Vegas, Nev.

Toliver has five career national event victories
in ten national event finals during his NHRA career. Two of those
victories came at Pomona. 

TROXEL ASSUMES POLE IN HOT CONDITIONS THAT CONFOUND CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS

Todd, Line and Krawiec round out provisional pole-sitters

With
air temperatures in the mid-80s and track temperatures exceeding 100 at
the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals on Friday, first year Funny Car
driver Melanie Troxel delivered a stunning 4.105-second pass to assume
the provisional pole in Funny Car.

The run was particularly impressive given the soaring heat that kept
every one of the five championship contenders in Funny Car from getting
his car down the Auto Club Raceway under power. The most notable of the
five was points leader Cruz Pedregon, who remained unqualified and will
have just two more attempts on Saturday to get in the field and keep
his championship hopes alive.

Tony Bartone is in his final weekend as the driver of Jim Dunn’s nitro flopper. This weekend could be his last as a nitro Funny Car racer, and possibly nitro altogether.

Bartone plans to race next season, but on a smaller scale and in his old Top Alcohol Funny Car stomping grounds.

“I’m gonna get back some time and spend it with my family,” said
Bartone, a 28-time winner in the Top Alcohol ranks. “You can run about
eight or ten races less than on the professional series. That’s the
game plan for right now.”

Yes, Bob Glidden was walking around in Larry Morgan’s pit area in Pomona.

Yes, Morgan was very happy about it.

“I love him like a dad,” Morgan admitted, about their peculiar
relationship which has had more break-ups and reunites than rocker
Tommy Lee and wife Pamela Anderson.

“He’s more than welcome to be here. I’ve even told him I’d get him a car if he wanted it,” Morgan added.

Call it reorganization should the speculation comes to pass.

Sources indicate the departing crew on the U.S. Army Top Fuel team will
be replaced with members of the FRAM Top Fuel team thus putting in
place a vicious circle of raiding where members of at least one DSR
Funny Car team will replace the repositioned dragster crew members.

Confused?

Cory McClenathan isn’t. He’s been around drag racing long enough to know that nothing lasts forever.

Robert "Jocko" Johnson, who built some of drag racing's
swoopiest machines, including his notable but unsuccessful "JockoLiner"
with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, died Nov. 14 of a massive heart attack.
He was 72.

Johnson first came to drag
racing renown for his work porting and polishing cylinder heads,
carefully massaging them by hand in the days before CNC machines.

Morgan Lucas couldn’t help but smile as he signed autographs on Thursday afternoon after ending up second in a Morgan Lucas Racing logjam atop the provisional Top Fuel field at the NHRA AAA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

He didn’t want to brag or beat his chest after the opening session, but
after the season he and his team has endured in 2008, such a display of
superiority is something that MLR has needed for a while.

“I’m very proud of the guys out here for what we’ve done,” Lucas told
CompetitionPlus.com. “This is my dream for the whole team to have the
two cars running one and two. Nothing would make me happier than to see
both cars go to the finals, I really wouldn’t give a damn who won the
thing as long as both cars are there and both cars run well. That’s
been my dream for this team all along. Today it almost takes us to that
level.

As the 44th annual Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA
Finals began Brittany and Courtney Force will be wrapping up their
first
season behind the wheel of the Jerry Darien tuned A/Fuel dragster. The
youngest daughters of 14-time Funny Car champion John Force have
continued to learn as they have become more comfortable with each pass.
As they both look back on the season they know that they have enjoyed
their time in the cockpit but they both know they have much to learn.

They
are clearly on the right track as Courtney made a blistering 5.282
second pass in her Jerry Darien tunes A/Fuel dragster to secure the top
spot. If this time holds it would be the youngest Force's first No. 1
spot. Funny Car professional and sister Ashley Force qualified No. 1
five times during her Top Alcohol Dragster career.

Brittany is currently sixth.

All Jeg Coughlin Jr. needs to do to secure his fourth POWERade
championship is qualify for this weekend's 44th annual Auto Club NHRA
Finals. He took a big step in that direction Thursday by running a safe
6.678 at 206.95 mph in his JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt to earn the eighth
spot in the provisional field.

Chris Rivas knew the moment the engine in the G2 Motorsports Buell
fired up Thursday that his first qualifying run might not be a good
one. He was correct.

A leak in the intake system combined with an electrical glitch that
prevented the motor from reaching a competitive speed and Rivas rode it
to the end at just 26 mph.