The 2010 edition and 10th anniversary celebration of the Mopar® HEMI® Challenge Race Series will conclude this weekend as a large gathering of Super Stock/A HEMI (SS/AH) drivers do battle on Sept. 24–25 in the Mopar HEMI Challenge event during the Jegs Northern SPORTSnationals at National Trail Raceway near Columbus, Ohio.

Charles Lingenfelter sat in the Industrial Distribution Group [http://www.idg-corp.com] suite on the third floor of the zMax Dragway tower entertaining his customers.

When it came time for the Super Stock eliminations at the  NHRA O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals in Concord, NC., the President and CEO of IDG stopped talking and started watching.

Super Stock will forever be special to him. Drag racing, too.

“Drag racing has been a part of my family since 1968,” said Lingenfelter, whose brother John Lingenfelter was a past NHRA Super Stock champion. “I first helped with my brother. In 1973, I quit racing and went back to work while he went racing.”

Pro Stock racer Bob Yonke will unveil a one-race sponsorship this weekend during the NHRA Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas.

Yonke, who missed the Countdown to 1 playoffs, will fly the colors of Coffman Tank Trucks on his Pontiac GXP confirmed JB Coffman, company owner.

Former nitro and alcohol Funny Car racer and noted supercharger manufacturer Mert Littlefield died Sept. 20. He was 66.

Littlefield, whose superchargers were key components in the breaking of several NHRA performance barriers, including the first four-second and 300-mph Funny Car passes (Chuck Etchells and Jim Epler, respectively) and the first five-second alcohol Funny Car pass (Bob Newberry) and who was at the forefront of the high-helix supercharger technology, also was a national-event winning driver of his own cars, all of which he also tuned.

The final rounds have been run. The winners given their trophies. The champagne corks popped.

It's Monday at zMax Dragway, the day after the NHRA Carolina Nationals, and there are several teams still in town tending to business.

Tony Schumacher is here testing. Jack Beckman is testing. John Force has all three of his teams in house. The Harley Pro Stock Motorcycle teams are working hard, as is the team of Angie Smith. Hector Arana's rig shows signs of his team thrashing about.

Force, who had just finished chatting it up with the crew of the NAPA Auto Parts Funny Car driven by Ron Capps, said he was here testing a new Goodyear tire.

Cruz Pedregon was overcome with emotion. The second-generation driver had won two NHRA Funny Car championships and his victory at the NHRA O’Reilly Auto Parts and captured 31 national event titles including his days as a Top Alcohol racer.

However, this win was different.

When he realized the magnitude of what he’d accomplished, winning from the No. 1 position, against all odds, he wept openly in the post race press conference.

LE Tonglet is making quite a case for Rookie of the Year. For the second straight event, the young rider has risen above Pro Stock Motorcycle competitors with years more experience, and at the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals in Charlotte, he definitely had the bike to beat as he earned the first No. 1 qualifying position of his career and rode it to his third victory and fourth final round in the first year of his professional journey.

Tonglet, fresh off of an incredible win at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indy, came to Charlotte with a ton of skill, a remarkable crew, an awesome bike, and the new found aid of Kenny Koretsky's Nitro Fish brand.

“This is unreal,” said Tonglet. “I never thought in a million years that I would be this close to a championship and be this competitive. We started at Gainesville just hoping to be No. 16, and now we came into Charlotte hoping to be No. 1 and we did it. I just can't believe it. We wouldn't be here without Kenny Koretsky and Nitro Fish.

It was about time.

Summit Racing Pro Stock driver Greg Anderson had not had much success at his home track zMax Dragway in Charlotte before the weekend of the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals, and much of the year, Anderson has felt his efforts and his car were subpar. But everything came together in front of a plethora of friends and family as he piloted his Pontiac GXP to a third win of the season in his fourth final round.

“I got lucky today,' said Anderson. “I had the best hot rod of the Summit Racing bunch and probably the best hot rod on the grounds. I'm a lucky man, without a doubt. I've struggled with the Charlotte racetrack in the past, but no more. I now officially love it and want to race here 10 more times a year. Thank you, Bruton Smith and all the great people here; zMax Dragway is now my favorite racetrack.”

On the way to his 11th win in as many final round appearances, Larry Dixon dispatched the third, second and fourth place drivers (Schumacher, McClenathan, Kalitta) in the point standings, in that order.

This is the second time this year the Al-Anabi juggernaut has bested Kalitta. The two met earlier this year in Pomona to start the season. Dixon improved his record to 9-4 over Kalitta, with five of those wins coming this season.

Dixon's first victim in the NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway, David Grubnic, was no slouch either. It's just that right now Dixon is like a train wreck to the rest of the competition. He is 11 for 11 in final round appearances in 2011, with 10 of those wins coming in the last 15 events. That's two-thirds of the races since Dixon left the Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway in March sitting fourth in the point standings.

“He didn't red light,” said car owner Don Schumacher, with confidence, when asked about Ron Capps run against teammate Jack Beckman in the first round.

In 685 previous runs in either a Top Fuel dragster or a Funny Car, Capps has only turned on the red light once. Now, according to the NHRA, in his 686th pass he's done it twice.

Capps, his car owner and others who have looked at the ESPN tapes disagree.

“Obviously it was frustrating first off to race our teammate first round,” said Capps. “It's inevitable, but it's not something you like doing."