DIXON, BARTONE, AND CONNOLLY KEEP TOP QUALIFYING SPOTS IN TOPEKA

 

Larry Dixon, Tony Bartone, and Dave Connolly were able to hold on to
the top spots in their respective categories Saturday at the O’Reilly
NHRA Summer Nationals.

Despite the heat and humidity at Heartland Park Topeka the three
drivers’ Friday night qualifying runs were enough for them to maintain
the No. 1 qualifying positions in their respective categories.

Dixon’s run Friday night of 4.527 seconds at 325.30 mph in his U.S.
Smokeless Tobacco dragster was strong enough to keep the top spot in
Top Fuel. It’s Dixon’s first No. 1 qualifier of the season, 28th of his
career, and third at Heartland Park Topeka.

Veteran NHRA Pro Stock driver Kenny Koretsky walked away from a violent
qualifying accident Saturday at Heartland Park Topeka when his car hit
the left guard wall and then slid across the track on its top before
banging into the right wall.

“I hit the wall really hard,” said Koretsky. “My lower back and left
leg hurt right now, but I feel okay. I am upset that our new Pontiac
GXP wrecked like this.  It was just a freak thing. I got out towards
the centerline and tried to push the clutch in and before I knew it the
thing just went haywire.

 

Never underestimate the power of Frank Hawley. 

 

In a last-minute driver substitution for Mike Ashley, Hawley landed in a provisional top-five position during the
first day of qualifying for the O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park
Topeka.
 
Less than 30 minutes before he was supposed to make his first
qualifying attempt of the day, Gotham City Racing co-owner and driver Ashley received an
urgent telephone call from his office at Lend America in Melville, New York
alerting him of a business-critical meeting which required his participation.
Ashley was forced to remove himself from competition and substitute former World
Champion and veteran drag racer Frank Hawley in his place and leave Topeka
headed back to Long Island.
 
"Unfortunately, business has to come first,
and I've been working on some pretty big things for Lend America, and literally
at the last minute an opportunity came together that I had to attend to
personally," a disappointed Ashley explained.

The first session of Top Fuel qualifying during the NHRA Summernationals in Topeka, Kansas, taught Hot Rod Fuller a
valuable lesson. One cannot be lighter in the cockpit without
compensating somewhere else on the race car.

The wait is all but over for the 2008 season-opening event of the
Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod Association. Rising Sun, Maryland's Cecil
County Dragway is now the relocated site of the season-opener, after
rain washed out the previously scheduled launch at Numedia Dragway 2
weeks ago.
 
Cecil County Dragway, owned by Pro Mod superstar Jim Halsey, is
recognized as the home track of the Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod
Association, a series founded by John Mazzoranna in 1992. Cecil County
will host the action-packed "Extreme" race opener on Saturday, May 31.
 
"Extreme" is a worthy description of this special event, as fans will
be treated to a very diverse drag racing experience. Four distinct
performance combinations will square off in two separate 8-car fields.
Nitrous assisted doorslammers will battle normally aspirated mountain
motor entries, while blower cars will race turbos. "If I'm short on
anything I think it will be blower cars, and I want to send a message
loud and clear that all competitors who drive IHRA-legal blower cars as
well as turbo entires has a place to race with the Northeast Outlaws,"
says John Mazzoranna.

It was hot and humid for the opening day of qualifying at the

O’Reilly Summer Nationals Heartland Park Topeka.  Funny Car
points leader, Tim Wilkerson had a little trouble with his Levi, Ray & Shoup
Chevrolet and looks for Saturday to bring better runs.

BARTONE SITS NO. 1 IN TOPEKA; DIXON, CONNOLLY ALSO IN PROVISIONAL SPOTS AT HEARTLAND PARK

After
nearly two years since his last No. 1 qualifier, Funny Car driver Tony
Bartone raced to the provisional top spot Friday at the O’Reilly NHRA
Summer Nationals.

Larry Dixon and Dave Connolly were also No. 1 qualifiers in their
respective categories at the ninth of 24 events on the NHRA POWERade
Drag Racing Series.

Bartone drove his Canidae Pet Food Chevy Monte Carlo to a 4.881-second
pass at 301.81 mph to become the provisional top qualifier. It would be
Bartone’s second career No. 1 qualifier, with his first coming in 2006.

As a newcomer this year to contending for NHRA’s POWERade Drag Racing
Series Pro Stock Motorcycle championship, Chris Rivas has adopted the
Alfred E. Newman approach of “what, me worry?”
 
That mindset most recently paid dividends at Las Vegas (Nov. 2), when
the talented rider of the G2 Motorsports Drag Specialties S&S Cycle
V-Twin motorcycle earned his second victory in four Countdown to the
Championship races to move within 39 points of the lead.  And now, with
the Southern California Automobile Club Finals at Pomona, Calif., on
deck Nov. 13-16, Rivas is once again adopting the same attitude.
 
“I was busy at my (motorcycle) shop, trying to get customer bikes
worked on, doing lots of performance motor work, head porting and dyno
tuning,” said Rivas, of Fresno, Calif.  “I got all the bikes done so
they could have a good weekend and I haven’t had a chance to really
think about racing. I think that’s probably a really good thing for me.”
 
Rivas is in third place with 2,354 points, 19 behind second place (one
round) and two rounds behind the leader with four rounds of racing on
Sunday’s docket.