Todd
Okuhara has been with Don Schumacher Racing long enough to have
carefully observed every Funny Car driver the Chicago-based team owner
has utilized, from Whit Bazemore to Gary Scelzi, Ron Caps and now, Jack
Beckman, the decisive winner of the Skoal Showdown in Indianapolis.  We’d all like to think we can watch a car go down the track
and know whether or not its driver is good, bad or indifferent, but the
reality is that what we’re seeing is a land-locked missile blasting
from one end of the track to the other.  As log as the driver doesn’t
run into anything, as far as were concerned, he got the job done. 
Tuners like Okuhara see things quite differently.
 
As he quickly said when asked if he was happy with the current
arrangement at DSR, Okuhara said, “It’s been really cool working with
Gary.  I’ve been lucky because I got to work with (Ron) Capps, Gary and
Jack Beckman.  Not too many guys can say they’ve been able to work with
guys of that caliber.”

Pro
Stock living legend Bob Glidden was at this year’s 53rd U.S. Nationals
serving as a consultant for the Knoll Gas Energy car driven by Justin
Humphries, and recently we had a chance to catch up with the second-winningest
Pro Stock driver of all time to discuss his Indy success, among other
things.

Glidden was great at every track he went to, but he was especially
dominant at the U.S. Nationals, winning an incredible 9 times in an
equally impressive 13-straight final round appearances. What set
Glidden apart from the competition?

 
“We were very lucky,” said a humble Glidden. “We always seemed to have
the absolute best luck at this race track. Other than that, what helped
us more than anything was the fact that we dynoed our engines in Indy
air, so we may have been more prepared engine-wise than our competition
for the simple fact that we live here.”

Glidden won at this famous venue many times, but as most any driver
will tell you, any win at Indy is the crown jewel of a career, even if
you only do it once. That makes it impossible for Glidden to pick out
his favorite U.S. Nationals victory.

“I’ve been asked which one was the most special many times,” Glidden
said. “All of them were special. I would say the most special win of my
career wasn’t here at Indy, it was actually my last one in Denver. I
can’t separate one U.S. Nationals from another, so they all rank up
there for me.”

The dates have been set for the 2008 Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion, presented by SoffSeal. 
As in previous years, the Reunion will take place on Father's Day
weekend, June 13-15, 2008.   The Reunion will once again be held
at historic National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio. 

Honorees for the 2008 event will
include drivers Arnie Beswick, Gabby Bleeker, Jim Walther and Boogie
Scott; and component builder and sponsor Bob Stange.  The Grand Marshal
will be driver and chassis tuner Dick LaHaie.  The Justice Brothers
Reunion Spotlight will fall on The Ramchargers, a group of engineers
from the Chrysler Corporation who built the cars that were credited
with some of the first seven and six-second Funny Car times.

Terry McMillen is getting the hang of this whole Nitro thing. After
driving in the Alcohol Funny Car ranks for years without finding the
Winner’s Circle, McMillen, Elkhart, Ind. won his second IHRA Knoll Gas
Nitro Jam national event of the season in the Top Fuel class with a
final round win over national points leader T.J. Zizzo during the
Canadian Nationals presented by PartSource.

McMillen posted a 3.106 elapsed time at 270.16 mph to knock off Zizzo,
who carded a 3.313, 246.03. The race was contested on an eighth-mile
format due to weather conditions and track concerns. After heavy rain
moisture was seeping through the track near the guard walls, forcing
IHRA officials to shorten the race. This tactic was also used at the
season-opening race in San Antonio, Texas. The shorter race worked just
fine for McMillen.

A likely showdown between defending American Drag Racing League champion Bubba
Stanton of Potts Camp, Miss., NHRA Pro Modified champion-to-be Joshua Hernandez
of Conroe, Texas, and ADRL national record holder Jason Scruggs of
Saltillo, Miss., looms large this week as the ADRL
returns to Steve Earwood’s Rockingham Dragway for Dragstock
IV.

While Stanton is the current ADRL
points leader in the featured Pro Extreme class, Hernandez may be the hottest
Pro Modified driver on the planet.  Wheeling the  “Dr. Moon’s Rage” Chevrolet
for Howard Moon, the Texas driver has won five of seven races this season in the
NHRA Pro Mod Series and was runner-up in a sixth, all but locking up the AMS
Championship.

He also has enjoyed
previous success at The Rock where he was the Pro Modified Champion at the IHRA
Spring Nationals in 2006.

Dragstock IV is the
last of eight races in which drivers can earn points that will determine who
will compete for Flowmaster ADRL championships in the Battle of the Belts at Ennis, Texas. 
The top eight drivers after Saturday’s eliminations will compete Oct. 12 in a
showdown event at Ennis,
Texas that will determine champions
in Pro Extreme, Pro Nitrous, Pro Extreme Motorcycle and Extreme 10.5 classes. 

Pro qualifying for
Dragstock IV begins Friday with a single session at 8 p.m. followed Saturday by
12 noon and 3 p.m. sessions that will set the fields for final eliminations.  A
single round of racing Saturday afternoon will set the stage for final
eliminations beginning at 7 p.m.

Ed Conrad, 62, Gardenia, CA., died on September 6 at Irwindale Speedway. He was the victim of an apparent heart attack.

Reportedly, Conrad suffered the heart attack in the burnout box and the
car traveled down the track before crashing. Conrad did not appear
injured in the subsequent crash.

"From what the paramedics told me, it was an apparent heart attack,"
Speedway Vice President Robert DeFazio said. "I'm told by witnesses he
slumped over the wheel, passed out, and went down the track a little
ways and stopped."

Speedway safety crews performed CPR on Conrad until Los Angeles County
firefighters arrived. He was transported to Methodist Hospital in
nearby Arcadia where he was pronounced dead.

Even before the term was coined, hot rodders were racing across the dry lakes of southern California in the1930's.
One of them, Wally Parks, who went on to found the National Hot Rod
Association in 1951, helped organize the unorganized racers into a
group called the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA).  Formed
in November 1937, the SCTA held its first race in 1938 and has been
sanctioning races at El Mirage dry lakes and at the Bonneville salt
flats ever since.

To help celebrate the SCTA's 70th Anniversary, The Automobile Club of
Southern California agreed to underwrite an exhibit at the Wally Parks
NHRA Motorsports Museum, presented by the Auto Club of So. Calif.

Opening to the public on Nov. 7, 2007 at 3:00 p.m., (with a media and
VIP reception at 1:00 p.m. the same day) the exhibit will comprise a
number of milestone land speed racing vehicles. They'll include Stuart
Hilborn's Ford-powered streamliner—the first hot rod to go 150 mph; Al
Teague's Spirit of '76, the first single-engined, wheel-driven car to
go 400 mph; Kugel & LeFever's Pontiac Firebird, the first
stock-bodied passenger vehicle to exceed the 300 mph barrier; and,
finally, the Toyota Prius Greensport hybrid which went 130.74 mph at
the Bonneville salt flats in 2004.

Monday's final results from the IHRA Canadian Nationals presented by
PartSource at Toronto Motorsports Park. The race is the ninth of 11 in
the $19.5 million 2007 Knoll Gas Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series:
 

Top Fuel -- Terry McMillen, 3.106 seconds, 270.16 mph  def. T.J. Zizzo, 3.313 seconds, 246.03 mph.

Final round-by-round results from the IHRA Canadian Nationals presented
by PartSource at Toronto Motorsports Park, the ninth of 11 events in
the $19.5 million 2007 Knoll-Gas Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series:
 
 

TOP FUEL:
 
ROUND ONE -- Terry McMillen, 21.874, 70.70 def. Mitch King, broke;
Scotty Cannon, 4.710, 318.54 def. Bobby Lagana Jr., 9.308, 94.84; Bruce
Litton, 4.765, 260.46 def. Jeff O'Neill, broke; T.J. Zizzo, 4.827,
294.31 def. Todd Paton, 4.917, 286.01;

SEMIFINALS -- McMillen, 6.710, 95.16 def. Litton, foul; Zizzo, 3.108, 275.22 def. Cannon, 3.206, 267.48;

FINAL -- McMillen, 3.106, 270.16 def. Zizzo, 3.313, 246.03.

Point standings (top 10) for IHRA professional categories following
the IHRA Canadian Nationals presented by PartSource at Toronto
Motorsports Park, the ninth of 11 events in the $19.5 million 2007
Knoll-Gas Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series -