With only two races remaining in the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing
series and Countdown to 1 playoffs, teams are scrambling to grab as
many points as they can before the final runs are made and champions
are crowned at the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals
in Pomona.

Though U.S. Army dragster pilot and five-time POWERade world champion
Tony Schumacher has all but secured his fifth consecutive title, the
hunt for the second spot in the point standings remains, and KB
Racing’s Hillary Will, Matco Tools dragster pilot Antron Brown, and
FRAM dragster driver Cory McClenathan all have a legitimate shot at
that runner-up spot for the season.

Apparently making the most of the least puts a driver in charge of their destiny. This may not apply to every team on the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing tour, but it sure fits Tim Wilkerson to a tee.

Wilkerson is deemed an independent; a single car team with an average
budget battling a world of multi-car teams with mega dollar budgets. 
He works with less crew members than most and the most astonishing
feature is that Wilkerson owns the team, drives the 8,000 horsepower
monster machine and is his own crew-chief.  He is the only full-time
Funny Car in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing arena that operates this way and
yet every race weekend, Wilk and his talented team take on the giants
in the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS and still they keep
coming out on top.  And Wilkerson plans to keep his momentum going
through to the very end.

Daniels Scores Maple Grove Win; Westcott Jr. Claims 2008 Mopar®HEMI® Challenge Points Title

Jim Daniels, of Bristol, Pa., scored an emotional and popular first
career Mopar® HEMI® Challenge victory in the Pennsylvania Dutch Classic
at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, Pa. on Friday, Oct. 24. Daniels,
driving his 1968 Dodge Dart, bested Jim Pancake, of Delaware, Ohio, in
a battle of the red lights as both drivers fouled. Daniels took the win
after Pancake, also steering a '68 Dart, went "red" first.

Technicoat Companies and Kalitta Motorsports extend partnership through 2013

Technicoat Companies, a worldwide leader in industrial waterproofing
and flooring, and Ypsilanti, Michigan-based Kalitta Motorsports
announced today that they will extend their long-running and greatly
successful partnership for another five years.

Technicoat Companies will continue their support of Kalitta
Motorsports’ NHRA professional drag racing team as a major associate
sponsor on the 8,000-horsepower, Nitro-fueled Top Fuel dragsters driven
by Doug Kalitta and Dave Grubnic and on the Ken Black-owned, Kalitta
Motorsports-managed Top Fueler driven by Hillary Will. Technicoat will
also continue to have major associate signage on the Team Kalitta Funny
Car driven by Jeff Arend.

The
dateline is "Las Vegas," but Jack Beckman's location could be anywhere
in the United States since he left Richmond, Va., in his motor coach
with wife Jenna and son Jason Russell on Oct. 13 and headed west to The
Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the NHRA Nationals this weekend,
the penultimate event of the 2008 season.

The driver of the Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T
Funny Car in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, who is second in the
Countdown to 1 playoffs point standings with a strong chance of winning
his first championship, is a capitol junkie.

An avid historian, Beckman is enjoying one of his life's goals of
visiting ever capitol in the United States as he travels the country to
each racing venue. As of this writing, he's checked off 20, including
those in Des Moines, Cheyenne (double-back visit) and Salt Lake City
this past week.

If 2008 is an indication of what 2009 will bring, Chevrolet IHRA
Mountain Motor Pro Stock driver John Montecalvo is ready to start the
new season next weekend. The veteran driver from New York’s Long Island
capped his 2008 season with an impressive win and runner-up in
Rockingham, N.C., one in the finals of the IHRA World Finals and the
other in the rain-delayed $50,000-to-win Pro Stock Showdown.

Not to be overshadowed is a season that produced two victories in four
final rounds. A handful of semi-final finishes added to the strong
point total.

The end result was a third place finish in the championship, a mere 26
points from first place. Throw out the IHRA’s Last Man Standing points
which rewards winning qualifying runs and the championship would have
been Montecalvo’s.

Call Dave Connolly the Comeback Kid.

He’s accomplished more in 17 races than all but two other POWERade
Series Pro Stock drivers have in 22 as the 2008 season reaches its
penultimate stop at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Oct. 31-Nov.
2.

Connolly – with an assist from NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship
format – goes into the ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals still in title
contention, albeit 77 points behind Jeg Coughlin, the pacesetter,
defending champ and his Cagnazzi Racing teammate.  Connolly, who placed
third in three of his four Pro Stock campaigns, is three points behind
runner-up Kurt Johnson.

Greg Anderson is the odd man out.

Of all of the regular season champions, Anderson’s the only one not in
the points lead. He’s not in second or third, either. Anderson’s in
fourth place, 82 points behind leader and reigning NHRA POWERade Series
world champion Jeg Coughlin, the man who denied Anderson’s bid to
reclaim his title last year.

A few seasons ago, when Anderson was all but literally putting tire
tracks on the backs of his competitors for three straight dominating
seasons, this kind of disadvantage was unthinkable. For others, a
top-five finish in the season standings would be welcomed; the best of
their careers. But Anderson? Not him. He was winning half the events on
the schedule, which makes it particularly absurd to see him lagging
behind like a kid who missed the bus.

And yet he is, with two events left to make up ground. The NHRA
POWERade Series comes to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Oct.
30-Nov. 2 for the eighth-annual ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals. It’s
the last race before the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., where
this year’s champions will be crowned.

Long before Mad Dawg events or Pro Modified Quick Eight associations
ever existed, Farmington Dragway (Winston-Salem, N.C.) threw down the
gauntlet with their southern style Pro Stock events. We uncovered this
sweet gem of doorslammer action featuring southern Pro Stock legends
such as “General” Lee Edwards, the late Don Carlton, Reid Whisnant and
a score others. There’s even a Ronnie Sox cameo along with Hubert
Platt’s Pinto in a small clip from Shuffletown Dragway in Charlotte,
N.C.