Car owner Russ Farmer should probably go on vacation more often,
especially if it's on race night. Farmer made a brief appearance last
night at Piedmont Dragway's PowerJam event - just long enough to watch
his driver, Travis Harvey, make one lap down Piedmont's 1/8 mile before
taking off to the beach. Approximately 5 hours later, Farmer's relaxing
vacation was interrupted by a phone call. "We won!", Travis Harvey
shouted. "He basically responded with total silence," laughed Harvey,
followed by, "Are you kidding?"

Travis Harvey, the 26 year old Burlington, NC resident rolled to the
winner's circle last night at Piedmont Dragway to hoist the most famous
trophy in southeastern heads-up racing. Fashioned of ceramic and shaped
like a dog, Harvey's first impression of the trophy was measured in
pounds and ounces. "Wow, this thing is heavy!", noted Harvey, lifting
the Big Dog trophy skyward.

Harvey's course of action on Thursday began with a middle of the pack
qualifying effort, steering the Race Tech Race Cars 68 Camaro to a
qualifying best of 4.27 @ 170mph. The effort was good enough for the #9
slot in the 16 car field of doorslammers. The last session of
qualifying on Thursday had fans holding their breath as Ken Regenthal
and his famous Carolina Hooker Corvette slammed the wall head-on after
the car violently shook the tires beginning around the 100 foot mark.
Ken received much applause as he exited the race car unscathed.
Significant damage, however, was sustained to the front end of the
famous, yellow doorslammer.

Paul Athey’s Red Eagle Racing team has re-launched the team website at
www.paulathey.net . Paul and the team encourage everyone to stop by and
check it out.

Montgomery Motorsports Park promoter Jim Howard has opened up the purse
strings for this weekend’s (7/4-6) Mullis Super 7 Series event.  Howard
has invited Footbrake racers to buy a weekend spectator pass for ONLY
$40 and race for up to $5,000 each day Saturday and Sunday (minimum of
50 cars).  Pro racers will vie for $10,000 each day (if a minimum of 90
cars enter).

In the early days of drag racing on the East Coast one race track stood out from all the rest and that was York US 30 Dragway
operating on an active runway in Thomasville.
 
The airport was closed to daily flight activity when the races were
scheduled and cars from far and wide came to the "diamond in the rough"
in York.  Occasional necessary flights would stop racing activity until
the aircraft could leave the airport or arrive from distant areas.
 
The York US 30 Dragway contributed more to the evolution of early day
drag racing than any other Eastern race track and became the track that
everyone that was anyone in drag racing had to lay claim to competing
at one time or another in their storied careers could say "I was at
York". It is a fact that stands in drag racing history.
 
These memories are relived the second weekend of July every year at the York Expo Center, York Fairgrounds, Toyota Arena
with this year's presentation of the 7th Annual Musclecar Madness at the York Reunion.

On July 5th, Rockingham Dragway will host the 5th Annual Freedom Fest
with a new series of festival-style events combining grassroots drag
racing with classic rock ‘n’ roll. Created by the producers of the hit
Speed series PINKS, 1320x is an all-day celebration of the American
muscle car and is presented by Ellerbe Telephone Communications and RBC
Bank.

Along with the heart- pounding excitement of heads-up, outlaw, and
bracket racing, the event will feature the Classic Gear Jammers circuit
and a car show— capped by a concert by popular local groups "Twisted
Motive" and “Zephyr’s End”.

“The American muscle car— Fords, Chevys and Mopars—represents freedom,
and it has propelled freedom around the world,” said Stephen Pullin,
executive producer and president of Pullin TV. “And, there is no better
place than Rockingham Dragway to celebrate these great cars and launch
the 1320x brand.”

In two weeks, every Funny Car and Top Fuel team in the NRHA will be
running on the recently introduced 2550 Goodyear racing tire. The 2550
replaces the 2420 which has been in use for over two years, but will no
longer be available starting in Denver.

Development of tires for the Funny Car and Top Fuel categories is a
challenging process. To quote a driver, “even two perfect runs are not
the same”.

“It's true,” Stu Grant, General Manger, Global Race Tires, said during
the Nationwide Series race at Michigan Int'l Speedway. “Development in
Top Fuel/Funny Car, that's a difficult process because a  pass in drag
racing is very difficult to duplicate. You have some many things going
on, the temperature of the racetrack, the nitro (mix) the humidity;
there are so many different factors that effect a pass so it's much
harder to compare a to b in Top Fuel/Dragster than it is to get a lap
on a NASCAR Sprint Cup car on one set of tires versus another; its a
little tougher environment.

XM Satellite Radio’s Power Shift, hosted by Joe Castello, pays tribute
to the history of the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing series with a special
“NHRA Legends” edition. Power Shift “NHRA Legends” will air Wednesday
night, July 2nd at 8 PM Eastern time on XM Sports Nation, XM channel
144. The show will feature in depth interviews with NHRA Drag Racing
legends Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, Shirley Muldowney, “Big Daddy” Don
Garlits and legendary NHRA broadcaster Dave McClelland. These NHRA
legends will discuss the history of the sport as seen over the course
of their careers in racing. Power Shift “NHRA Legends” will also
feature classic drag racing commercials first made famous by Steve
Evan’s “Be There”. Cameron Evans, son of the legendary NHRA broadcaster
will appear on behalf of his father. Power Shift “NHRA Legends” will
take any NHRA fan for a ride down memory lane.

Who is NHRA Pro Stock driver Dave Connolly hanging out with on
LifeLockRacing.com?

Check it out: click on LifeLock drivers to see Connolly and his LifeLock
Racing teammates, and then take advantage of LifeLock’s Connolly Countdown to 10
promotion.

Everyone enrolling in LifeLock’s proactive
identity theft protection program during the Countdown to 10 will automatically
receive a special promotion price, 30 days
free and an autographed Dave Connolly t-shirt. 
Go to LifeLock.com and click on Enroll Now and enter promotion
code NHRA, or visit cagnazziracing.com and click on the LifeLock icon.  The deadline for enrolling is September
1.

For the third time this season, Steve Harker and the OMS Graphics Top
Alcohol Funny Car Team made it to another national event final round
appearance and this time walked away with a runner-up finish at this
past weekends NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Nationals held in Norwalk,
OH.

After Qualifying in the number two position with a 5.66et, Steve Harker
faced off against the 15th qualifier Keeter Ray in the first round and
defeated Ray’s 5.74et with another blistering 5.66et at 254mph pass.

Harker looked set to face off against Marty Nothstein in round two
however Harker went into serve tire shake around the 330ft mark and
clicked it off early but lady luck was with the OMS Graphics Team as
Nothstein had left a red light at the starting line handing Harker the
win.

Before the Englishtown, N.J., NHRA SuperNationals two weekends ago, members of
the Rockstar Energy Drink Dodge Funny Car team made a random and emotional visit
to a New York City firehouse and found a drag-racing fan among the firefighters.

Tim Waterman, Clarence Huizenga, Michael and Angela Lance and Ashley
Yost (granddaughter of DSR crew chief Ed McCulloch) were enjoying the sights in
New York City before the Englishtown event.

"We were just walking around
the city," said Tim Waterman, whose responsibilities are the body and fuel on
the car that Jerry Toliver drives in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. "I'm
a volunteer firefighter at home, and Clarence used to do that. And we just
thought we'd visit some of the firehouses. And we stopped at Rescue One (at 43rd
St. between 10th and 11th Avenues) and we found out that one of the firefighters
there works with the folks at the Bristol and Las Vegas tracks every once in a
while on the NASCAR side. And he just welcomed us in and gave us a tour and
talked to us about the guys that they lost during 9/11 and asked if we could put
some stickers on the car and wear some hats in Englishtown.