The NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship Regular Season concludes a
week from today with the 54th running of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals
beginning at 11 a.m. ET on Labor Day Monday at O’Reilly Raceway Park in
Indianapolis.

The following are the remaining clinching scenarios for No. 1 seeds and
the final playoff berths. As a reminder, this year the top seeds will
receive a 20-point bonus so when the playoffs begin Sept. 11-14 with
the Carolinas NHRA Nationals at zMax Dragway @ Concord and the points
are reset, first place will have 2,090, second will have 2,060 and each
of the remaining drivers in the Countdown to 1 will be separated by 10
points down to 1,980 for 10th place.

They are a drag racer's favorite sounds, the voice of their hearts: the
long rev of the engine at 8,000 RPM, the burn of the tires and the
screech when they catch half-way down the track, the bang when the
chutes fill to slow the car down. Veteran drag racers Rick Stivers and
Quain Stott along with Lee Boy Paving Equipment have chosen to use
their racing voice to say thank you in their own special way this
coming weekend as the JEGS ProMod series competes at the NHRA Mac Tools
US Nationals in Indianapolis.
 
Stivers will field a special-edition "Support Our Troops" '64 Corvette
Pro Mod as his way to communicate the message, "job well done" to the
troops coming home from their time in harm's way.
 
"I know a lot of teams have done something similar, but I don't think
you can say thank you enough.  Because this war has gone on so long,
some of our boys and girls are being forgotten, and I don't want to let
them slip by without doing my part to welcome them home," Stivers said.

Phoenix, Arizona based hot rodder Joe Schott along with brother’s Mike
and Randy Way of All Ways Hot Rod shop rolled into the Goodguys 22nd
West Coast Nationals in Pleasanton with their eye on one prize – the
Goodguys 2008 America’s Most Beautiful Street Rod presented by
Hushpower. Thanks to their stunning blue three- window coupe, they got
their wish, taking home the AMBSR honors at a special award ceremony
Saturday night, August 23rd.

Four years ago, Schott, a hot rodder since he was 18, commissioned the
Way brothers to build his dream car, a’32 Ford three-window coupe. The
project started with a rendering from Jimmy Smith (also of Phoenix) and
a rare Dearborn Deuce coupe (one of only five ever made). A chassis
from the late Boyd Coddington was then massaged and upgraded with
inboard coil over suspension. Under the hood, the Ways installed a
painted and polished LS-1 mated to a 4L60 transmission with cruise
control. All engine and chassis components were then meticulously
polished and chromed taking the coupe to the “next level”.

John Wright driver of the Nostalgia Fuel Altered
Association AA/FA 'Chaos' Topolino survived this wreck with just a
bruised finger. The car hooked right toward the centre line
against the similar machine of Tony Betts during qualifying then
corrected, hit the left guard rail before barrel rolling several times at the
Shakespeare County Raceway's Open Sport Nationals run over the end of the August
Bank Holiday in England. (Roger Gorringe Photo)

Veteran driver would welcome a mix of distances in 2009 …

The IHRA has plans to incorporate 1,000-foot drag racing into a mix of eighth-mile and traditional quarter-mile venues in

2009. The NHRA has yet to reveal whether  1000 foot racing will continue beyond 2008.

The NHRA announced a temporary scale back to 1,000 foot drag racing for
the nitro division through the 2008 season following the tragic death
of Funny Car racer Scott Kalitta during the NHRA Supernationals in
Englishtown, NJ.

Veteran nitro Funny Car racer Ron Capps, a drag racing purist by his
own admission, wouldn’t mind seeing the NHRA run quarter-mile at
certain venues while scaling back to 1,000-foot on those tracks with
shorter shutdown areas.

Mopar® has  relaunched Moparspeed.com, its Team Mopar racing Web site
for  motorsports enthusiasts. The revamped Web site will feature
exclusive new  content, including a weekly Team Mopar driver blog
section and updated  desktop wallpaper graphics featuring Team Mopar
race teams available for  download. The site changes also include
enhanced navigation and design.  

Headlining the new Web site’s debut will be blog entries from two-time 
Formula Drift champion Samuel Hübinette and four-time NHRA POWERade 
champion Gary Scelzi. Blog entries will be posted each week from Team 
Mopar drivers including: NHRA Pro Stock driver Allen Johnson, SCCA
SPEED  World Challenge GT pilot Cindi Lux, SCORE Desert Series off-road
racer  Brian Collins and USAC Racing Series circle track drivers Brady
Bacon and  Brad Sweet.

Though Tom Hammonds Enterprises, LLC (THE) took a small sabbatical from
drag racing, the team never stopped working towards building a premier
engine program. The results of the NitroFish car driven by Richie
Sevens and powered by a THE engine for the Brainerd, Minn. and Reading,
Penn. events gives credence to that. 

"Although we have not been at the race track competing for the last few
events, we have really been working hard on our engine program," said
Tom Hammonds, owner/driver of THE.

Headed by 30-year engine builder Jim Oliver, THE's engine program is in
its second year, and this season has leased engines to Kenny Koretsky
and Jim Yates, with both drivers resulting in qualifying.

"Up until the time we leased an engine to Koretsky in Las Vegas this
season, we did not know where our program was," explains Oliver.  "All
we had was an engine dyno, which gives you a number, and it's just a
number unless we had one of the top players' engines on the same
machine. We can say wow their engine is 30 horsepower better than ours,
but until then we just had a number."

Mark Thomas knows it’s the little things that have kept him from
successfully defending his IHRA Alcohol Funny Car

championship in 2008.
The veteran driver from Louisville, Ohio, has won 29 career national
events but none of them have come this season.

He’s frustrated, but the likable Thomas, a past sportsmanship winner, keeps the negatives at bay.

“You come off two championships in a row then you come into a year
where little things keep happening over and over," Thomas said. “Yeah
it’s better than knocking the hinges off of it every run. But it’s one
small thing after another. Yeah it’s tough and we’re not getting beat
up over it. I mean if someone said you could take two championship
years and one terrible year out of three years or just three
middle-of-the-road years. That’s a no brainer. The longer you do it the
more you’re going to see everything happen that can happen.

Morgan Lucas has confirmed his Lucas Oil A-Fuel dragster entry for the
Mac Tools U.S. Nationals Top Alcohol division will be with 17-year old
Zach Beard in the cockpit.

The son of noted tuner, Lee Beard, crew chief/team manager for Antron
Brown’s David Powers Racing Top Fuel dragster, has afforded the young
man a racing background from a first-hand perspective.  His father has
earned 53 wins and 59 poles and is considered one of the best nitro
crew chiefs in NHRA racing.

If the 54th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals wasn’t already the
busiest weekend in drag racing, bear in mind, try seeing it from Morgan
Lucas’ perspective.

This
24-year Brownsburg resident is going to be driving his own personal
Indy 500 this week all around the ‘Circle City’ with all the social
functions, hospital visits, the introduction of the new Lucas Oil
Stadium, and oh yes, a fierce battle in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel
points standings during the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the main event
which holds the week all together in keeping Lucas going straight.