One-third
of the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season has crossed
the finish line at more than 300 miles per hour and despite what many
prognosticators had forecast during the last off-season, six-time Top
Fuel world champion Tony Schumacher, the 2008 Driver of the Year, is
still right there, at the top of the championship points order.

It is a comfortable position for the driver of the U.S. Army dragster,
who with 59 victories is the all-time wins leader in the 7,000
horsepower category. With 91 final round appearances he is quickly
tracking the final class record that he doesn’t already own: Joe
Amato’s mark of 99 career finals.

Schumacher won’t admit it, but his body language says otherwise: that a
championship title this season would mean way more to him than any of
the others, including his unlikely first in 1999 and the five-straight
that he and super-tuner Alan Johnson reeled off together during a
remarkable run from 2004-2008.

“When the amber comes on, push down on the throttle. It sounds easy doesn't it?” said Larry Dixon
in the post race interview following his victory over Clay Millican in
the final round of the O'Reilly's NHRA Summer Nationals at Topeka
Heartland Park. That was the way it was expected to happen when Dixon
teamed up with Alan Johnson and the Al Anabi race team. Until now,
expectations were not being met.

Dixon, by his own admission has struggled this season with getting it right.

“I'm not where I want to be driving the car and it peaked out (at
Bristol). Alan took his crew chief hat off and put his driving coach 
hat on and worked on me, getting my mind right and where it needs to
be. We went and ran the car at Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday after
Bristol, just made a whole bunch of runs and that was just nice. They
learned a lot from that test and I learned a lot from that test.”

John Force, the 14-time NHRA Full Throttle Series Funny Car champion,
will be the guest on the debut of The Race Reporters radio show,
Wednesday, June 3, 7 p.m. EDT, on www.PowerUpChannel.com.

The Race Reporters can be heard “live,” downloaded into an iPod, or
accessed for listening on a delayed basis by clicking on the show icon
at www.PowerUpChannel.com. Listeners can bookmark the show and sign-up
to receive a free “E card” with news on upcoming guests, at the show’s
page, http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1549

The National Guard American Drag Racing League (ADRL) is proud to announce Garret Race Cars as its newest contingency sponsor.

Garret Livingston (far right) watches National Guard ADRL Pro Extreme
champion Jason Scruggs launch his Garret Race Cars-built ’68 Camaro
that scorched the Memphis Motorsports Park eighth mile in a record 3.66
seconds at more than 207 miles per hour. Garret Race Cars is the
National Guard ADRL’s newest contingency sponsor.

Garret
Race Cars is a full-service chassis building shop in Marble Hill,
Missouri, and the source of two-time defending Pro Extreme champion
Jason Scruggs’ record-setting 1968 Camaro. Garret also built the 2007
Dodge Stratus in which Scruggs won the 2008 Pro Extreme title.

“This is a big step for us, but I think it’s important to support the
racers who support us,” said Garret Livingston, owner and founder of
Garret Race Cars. “The ADRL is on a huge growth curve right now and we
at Garret Race Cars want to help keep that growth going.”

When Ike Maier won the recent Victoria Day Weekend PMRA race at the Cayuga Dragway, he became the 15th different winner in 21 Pro Modified Racing Association races held since 2005.
 
Maier also became the sixth different winner at the track, which is the oldest operating drag strip in Canada.
 
While the Pro Modified Racing Association has raced at many tracks
throughout Ontario, Quebec, and New York State, the Cayuga Dragway at
Toronto Motorsports Park has been one of the mainstays in the Pro
Modified series. Carl Spiering of Jordan Station, Ontario, beat Al
Billes of Barrie, Ontario to win the very first PMRA race back in May
of 2005.
 

Long an innovator on the race track, six-time Australian Top Doorslammer champion Victor Bray will introduce a unique and exciting feature to Team Bray's website.

Beginning with the May 31st test session at Queensland's Willowbank Raceway, fans will be able to hear Victor reporting on the team's progress within minutes of each and every pass he and son Ben, make in their supercharged hot rods.

After a week of non-stop rain, drag racing fans in North Carolina took
advantage of Saturday's beautiful race day conditions, filing into O'Reilly
Farmington Dragway to enjoy an open field Pro Modified shootout. Local
racer Steve Vick went the distance behind the wheel of his new Alan
Pittman-built 1968 Camaro beating Todd Tutterow in a thrilling blower
verses nitrous final round.

Clay Millican stated emphatically before the NHRA O’Reilly Summernationals the time for the MPE Motorsports Top Fuel team to make something happen was at Heartland Park Topeka. Going to the final round is making something happen.

Millican’s Topeka runner-up to Larry Dixon was his fourth career NHRA final round and first since May 2004.

The multi-time IHRA Top Fuel champion has never won an NHRA event and though he entered the weekend as 11th in points, 105 behind Joe Hartley, his first round Sunday foe.  Now, he is within 38 points (360-322).

Ashley Force Hood’s bid to succeed her father as champion of the
O’Reilly Auto Parts Summer Nationals came up just short Sunday at
Heartland Park-Topeka where points leader Ron Capps sped to his fourth
victory of the season.
 
The No. 1 qualifier, Force Hood was victimized in the final round by
something her Castrol GTX team has avoided much of the season – a loss
of traction.
 
With her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang ahead near half track, Ashley
suddenly had her hands full as the 8,000 horsepower hybrid darted
toward the left side guard wall.  For all intents, that ended the
26-year-old’s bid for her third pro victory.

Even though there are unwritten rules in drag racing which mandate one doesn't cheer for a rival, the fact is blood is thicker than nitro.

And, the blood between a father and a son is the thickest of all.

Ed and Jason McCulloch will go down in the annals of drag racing
history as the first father and son nitro crew chiefs to win an NHRA
Full Throttle National event on the same weekend as they guided their
respective teams to victory at the O’Reilly NHRA Summernationals in
Topeka, Kan. Three months earlier they were the first to guide their
drivers to No. 1 positions during the same event, this time in Phoenix,
Az.