NHRA announced that beginning in Denver, the monetary fines imposed on
the professional categories associated with the current oildown policy
will be eliminated until further notice. The point deductions, however,
associated with oildown violations at national events, will continue to
be enforced.

“This move is designed to ease the financial burden on the race teams
given the cooperation we’ve experienced by everyone in the racing
community to minimize oildowns at national events,” said Graham Light,
senior vice president of racing operations, NHRA.

Currently, professional teams are allowed one oildown violation prior
to any penalty and can earn an additional credit after 25 consecutive
oil-free runs at NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series events.  Although the
monetary fines associated with violations will be eliminated,
professional teams will still lose points based on the current policy
which includes loss of 10 points for each infraction during
eliminations on Sunday and additional point deductions if violations
occur multiple times at the same event.

The grueling three-race NHRA Western Swing, a series of events contested on
consecutive weekends in Denver, Seattle and Sonoma (Calif.), gets underway on
Friday at Bandimere Speedway. Just the very nature of this midseason, summer
racing tradition, and the way it separates a majority of the teams from their
racing and engine shops back east, makes it imperative to be fully prepared for
any contingency that may pop up along the way. It's a challenge that Mike
Edwards feels his Young Life/Penhall Pontiac GXP team is ready for as they begin
the first leg of the stretch this weekend at the 29th annual NHRA Mile-High
Nationals.

"The Western Swing is going to be tough on everybody -
personnel and equipment," Edwards said. "You have to be fully prepared for
anything that can happen. For us, considering that our engine shop is all the
way back in North Carolina and our race shop is in Oklahoma, going out on the
Western Swing is like going into no man's land. If you don't have a part, or
you're missing something on the transporter, you just can't go into the other
room and pick one up. All of our engines have been fully freshened and the
transporter is stocked with all the parts and pieces we'll need. Hopefully we
can put some good runs together and maybe win a race or two."

CompetitionPlus readers can join Valvoline for a live, interactive Web
Seminar on Wednesday, July 16th at 10am (EDT) and hear directly from
industry experts including the automotive “Cat in the Hat” himself,
Jack Roush of NASCAR’s Roush Fenway Racing, and one of the top tuners
in NHRA drag racing, Lee Beard of David Powers Motorsports.

Cruz Pedregon wants to win the first-ever 1000-foot drag race.

Veteran Funny Car racer Cruz Pedregon has won 27 drag races and a world
championship at the conventional quarter-mile length. Now he'll try to
win the first ever contested to 1,000 feet at this weekend's Mile-High
NHRA Nationals.

"Winning this race would be gigantic for our Advance Auto Parts Toyota
Solara race team," Pedregon said. "Not because it's the first one to
1,000 feet, but because we want to win a race. I look at it this way;
someone is going to be holding a trophy up at about 5 p.m. Sunday night
and I want it to be us.

"I'm looking at this whole 1,000-foot thing as an interim deal. It
makes sense for a short-term fix but we're quarter-mile people all the
way. That's the way it needs to be and we'll get back to that as soon
as possible."

In response to the death of fellow Funny Car racer Scott Kalitta on
June 21st in Englishtown, N.J., NHRA officials have temporarily
shortened all races from 1,320 to 1,000 feet in an effort to curb top
speeds of 325-plus mph and provide racers with more shutdown area to
safely slow their racecars.

Team Kalitta wants answers and for that very reason their Funny Car
team could return to action as early as the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in
Brainerd, Minn.

Jim Oberhofer said it’s important that their team gets to the bottom of
the engine explosion and subsequent parachute failure which led to the
death of driver Scott Kalitta. There are only a short handful of
drivers being considered for this position as successor to Kalitta’s
cockpit.

“We want to figure out what happened first,” said Oberhofer. “That’s
our number one priority. Obviously everything that happened to Scott
was kind of like a perfect storm. You know everything that could
possibly go wrong did. So that’s the main thing we’re looking at. We’re
looking at -- What happened to the engine? Why did the engine explode …
because we don’t have data obviously from a computer.”

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the factory-built drag race
package cars from Dodge and Plymouth. To commemorate those
HEMI®-powered drag cars, Mopar® announced it will unveil its new Dodge
Challenger Drag Race Package Car at the 29th Annual Mopar Mile-High
Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo. on Sunday, July 13.

Featuring separate paint schemes, the first two Challenger Drag Race
Package Cars built by Mopar will be revealed at approximately 2 p.m.
MDT (after eliminations and before finals). Mopar, Chrysler LLC’s
original equipment parts manufacturer and distributor, announced its
Challenger Drag Race Package Car at the 2007 Specialty Equipment Market
Association (SEMA) Show in Oct. 2007.

The first drag-race-only, factory-prepped package car built in 40
years, the new Challenger Drag Race Package Car by Mopar builds on the
heritage of the 1968 HEMI®-powered Dodge Darts and Plymouth Barracudas.
The limited-edition ’68 package cars represented a significant point in
Mopar’s history – solidifying the brand as a quarter-mile force. A
watershed moment in drag racing history, they were also a major
milestone in the evolution of the second-generation HEMI powerplant
(426 HEMI engine). Some of drag racing’s biggest names drove the
crowd-favorite ’68 package cars – like Ronnie Sox, “Dandy” Dick Landy
and Jack Werst, just to name a few. Mopar’s popular HEMI Challenge
racing series, operated in conjunction with the National Hot Rod
Association (NHRA), features these ‘68 package cars in quarter-mile
competition all over the country today.

-Force Goes Pink With
Wildly Popular Collectible-

The 2008 Ashley Force Castrol GTX Ford Mustang die-cast from Motorsports
Authentics commemorating her fantastic rookie season will be available starting
today, July 9^th. Pre-orders will be taken beginning at
12 noon PST
exclusively through the John Force RaceStation online at www.JohnForceRaceStation.com or
via phone at (714) 921-1651.

As the winner of the Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the
Future Award last year Ashley Force was already recognized as one of the hottest
stars on the NHRA POWERade Series. Her collectibles ranging from the Mattel
Ashley Force doll or previously released 1:24 scale die-cast Mustang, 1:16 scale
Milestone dragster and Hot Wheels dragster are tremendous collectibles for true
Ashley Force and John Force Racing fans.

NHRA
Pro Stock Car Driver Tom Hammonds is the inaugural feature for the new
"Cool Jobs" section in the collector's edition of Ebony  - The 25
Coolest Black Men of All Time.

Making its debut in the August 2008 issue, the "Cool Jobs" section will
appear monthly in the magazine and will spotlight African Americans who
make a living doing interesting, nontraditional jobs.  

NHRA’s traditional Western Swing gets underway in Denver this weekend
with the Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway.  By the time it
concludes at sea level in Sonoma, Calif., on July 27, some drivers’
championship hopes will have vanished like the oxygen in the mile-high
air.

Dave Connolly doesn’t believe his Cagnazzi Racing Charter
Communications/LifeLock Chevy Cobalt team will be one of them.  He has
been chasing his peers for seven races – he started five races behind –
and has been chipping away at the margin separating him from 10th
place.  The difference is 54 points with six more races on the docket
before the beginning of NHRA’s six-race, 10-driver Countdown to 1.

Running three straight races – Seattle (July 18-20) and Sonoma (July
25-27) follow – always is a daunting task, but this time the nerves are
likely to be ratcheted up a few more notches.

Just when Justin Humphreys and the RaceRedi Motorsports Pro Stock team
were finding a tune-up comfort zone for the Dodge he’s been driving for
four races, the NHRA schedule sends them skyward to 5,280 feet and more.

The POWERade Series stops in Denver for the Mopar Mile-High Nationals
at Bandimere Speedway, Friday through Sunday.  The air is thinner there
and the lack of oxygen affects the cars’ engines, resulting in slower
elapsed times and the need for motors built specifically for this
occasion.

“We should be okay,” said Humphreys, who drove his way into the
semifinals at Norwalk (Ohio) two weeks go and back into contention for
the 10th and last point position in the new Countdown to 10
championship format.  Only the top 10 drivers advance to the six-race
finale beginning September 14 in Charlotte, N.C.