The Bernstein name is well-known in Texas racing circles.  Each year
when the NHRA circuit makes it annual stop at the Texas Motorplex, it’s
as if Kenny and Brandon Bernstein journey back to their roots.

When six-time NHRA champion Kenny Bernstein and his son Brandon get to
the Motorplex for O’Reilly Super Start Batteries Fall Nationals Sept.
19-21, they will see many familiar faces.

Kenny started his racing career in and around the Dallas area.  Some of
the car owners that he originally drove for in the early days of his
career, Mitchell and Donald Anderson, Vance Hunt, along with Bobby
Langley, are annual guests in the Bernstein pit area.  They still bench
race and tell tales of the early days of racing.  The only one missing
from the familiar confines of the pit area is Kenny’s father Bert, who
succumbed to cancer in 2005 shortly after watching his grandson Brandon
win in St. Louis.

Brandon’s mother and many Texas A & M college friends are always
on-site to cheer the Budweiser/Lucas Oil team.  Brandon won the Dallas
event in 2006 with family and friends helping to celebrate the team’s
victory.

Aaron Brooks, crew chief of R2B2 Racing's Funny Car driven by Frank
Hawley is leaving the team at the end of this month for a similar
position with renowned Top Fuel tuner Alan Johnson’s new two-car team
that will debut in 2009.

The Brooks-Hawley combination has been very impressive this season
despite competing in just six of the first 19 races.  They earned a No.
1 qualifying position at last weekend’s Carolinas Nationals in
Charlotte with one of the quickest 1000-foot elapsed times of the
season, 4.072 seconds.  They also had a final-round appearance at
Reading, Pa., last month.

Note to bracket racers: never forget your tricks and experience because you never know when it might come in handy.

Jack Beckman, a former Super Comp world champion and avid bracket
racer, looked more like he was racing a bracket dragster than Don
Schumacher’s Valvoline/MTS-sponsored Funny Car.

At one point in his march to the finals, Beckman strapped a .002 light on one opponent.

“I think it was almost survival of the fittest here this weekend,”
Beckman said. “It’s hot, it’s humid, these firesuits don’t breathe very
well in there and we got pulled up there and had a lot of down time, I
mean god bless the safety safari they’re fast but importantly they are
effective. Ten minutes in that car more than what you’re used to will
bear on you.

The experience was totally different this time for John Force.

14-time
NHRA Funny Car champion John Force returned to the Texas Motorplex on
Monday via the same helicopter that transported him to Baylor
Universaity Hospital after his devastating crash. (NHRA.COM Photo)

The fourteen-time NHRA Funny Car champion took another ride in an
Air Evac Lifeteam helicopter. This time the flight was a return to the
Texas Motorplex a year after the most devastating crash of his storied
drag racing career.

Force suffered a compound fracture of the left ankle, broken bones in
his hands, fingers and toes and ligament and tendon damage in his right
knee at last season’s NHRA Fallnationals.

This time Force was all healed up.

A flat tire cost Bob Frey his chance of pulling off the Concord trifecta.

The veteran announcer was en route to emcee an event at the old
Concord, N.C. drag strip, the same one in which Tommy Ivo ran his front
engine dragster off a small cliff. He never completed the trip and headed back home.

Years later, under the employ of IHRA President Larry Carrier, Frey
made the only other national event in Concord. This event was the IHRA
Southern Nationals and was contested on pit road of Charlotte Motor
Speedway.

For as long as Orlando Speed World Dragway promoter Carl Weisinger has staged his incredible World Street Nationals event, there has been a pre-event party at Hooters.

Some traditions are too good to end.

Weisinger confirmed the 16th Annual World Street Nationals pre-race
party Thursday, October 30 at Hooters on Lake Underhill will be rocking
this year.

Jerry Toliver remembers a more primitive era for drag racing. He was
there in the early days tagging along with his uncle, the legendary
Jack Chrisman.

He glances over the paved pits at ZMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C., and
takes note of the large rigs and hospitality areas. Toliver remembers
when the Top Fuel cars parked in the dirt.

After showing significant signs of improvement in the past week, Pro
Modified racer Steve Engel died suddenly at 5 p.m. Sunday at Methodist
Hospital in Indianapolis. Engel was involved is a serious one-car
racing accident during the recent 54th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals
at O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis.
 
Engel's Diamond Heavy Haul Corvette swerved wildly near the top end of
the track and he impacted the retaining wall head-on. He was airlifted
to Methodist Hospital where doctors discovered six broken vertebrae in
his back. Two were fixed immediately, but then excess fluid developed
in his lung doctors had to wait to fix the other four. That procedure
was done Friday and physicians were diagnosing a long but full recovery.

Steve Johnson may be winning Pro Stock Motorcycle races, back-to-back as a matter of fact, but he’s not carrying a measure of dominance.

At least that’s how he sees it.

He may win with a Suzuki in a class dominated by Harley-Davidson and V-twin Buells but that’s on account of his riding talent.

Want to set him off?

Tony Schumacher had better hope that Kyle Busch never decides to drag race. It seems the NASCAR heavy-hitter is the only one who can beat the five-time champion these days.

Before a packed house at the NHRA Carolinas Nationals in Charlotte, N.C., Schumacher drove his U.S. Army-sponsored
dragster to his 53rd career victory, passing the legendary Joe Amato
for the role of winningest Top Fuel driver ever.

Just days earlier Schumacher proclaimed jokingly about Busch, “I only know the guy for two hours and I already hate him.”