Motorcraft and Quick Lane Racing have enhanced their online presence
with the addition of three social media sites to keep race fans
informed of the very latest team news, sweepstakes and offers.

This week, Motorcraft and Quick Lane launched Facebook, Twitter, and
Flickr accounts as a supplement to their current online presence.

Summit Racing Equipment has further strengthened its commitment to the
hot rod enthusiast community by launching social networking pages on
Twitter, Facebook, and Hub Garage.
           
“High performance enthusiasts are part of a big online community,” Jeff
Winters, Summit Racing Equipment Chief Marketing Officer, said. “Our
presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Hub Garage gives us another outlet
to interact with this community and gives hot rodders, racers, and
off-roaders another place to connect with fellow enthusiasts.”

Summit Racing’s Twitter account allows the company to share news and
information with the website’s estimated four- to five-million users.
By using the site’s micro-blogs, or “tweets”, Summit Racing will
provide the most up-to-date information on special offers, new
products, motorsports news and results, and other interesting facts
related to the high performance industry.

The 2009 season for the Joe's Transmission TNT Super Series kicked off in fine form last Friday night at Dunn Tire Raceway Park (DTRP). 
A 30% chance of thunderstorms didn't stop twenty-three of the best
sportsman competitors from coming out to the NOCO Energy presented
event.  And when the dust settled, it was Gary Kerl from Williamsville,
New York in the DTRP Winner's Circle. 

Gary and his 1968 Chevrolet Camaro held off Jamie Stoneman's
(Cheektowaga, NY) hard-charging 1993 Chevrolet S10 in the final round. 
And even though the race was all over when Jamie red-lighted, Gary ran
it out out the back door to a 7.010 ET.  Couple that with his near
perfect .501 reaction and this would have been a tough package to
beat.  Jamie was no slouch either running an almost perfect 7.005 ET
but would have needed a .505 or better reaction time to win that
round.  On his way to the bye run in the semi-finals, Gary met up with
Steve McCarrick (Phelps NY), Kirk Parry (North Tonawanda NY) and Jason
Vitez (Elma NY).  The rounds didn't come easy for Gary though as he had
to overcome starting line disadvantages in both the first and third
rounds.

Last year Mike Neff made a statement early in his rookie season when he raced his then Old Spice sponsored Ford Mustang to the No.
1 qualifying position and on race day he defeated veterans Tony
Bartone, Ron Capps, and Robert Hight en route to his second consecutive
final round appearance of the season.

He had the baddest hot rod on the property but a surprise mechanical
problem in the final round at Bristol Dragway led to an upset loss
against Melanie Troxel.

As Neff’s Ford Mustang pulled up to stage his team was unable to lift
his Mustang body. As a result crew chief John Medlen was unable to make
critical engine adjustments to his BOSS 500 Ford motor. At the top end
Neff’s Mustang erupted in flames as Troxel pedaled and drove past him.

As hard as it is to comprehend, it takes a rookie Top Fuel racer
several full passes down the drag strip before their mind actually
catches
up with what they're experiencing in real time. It's simply part of the
learning process of wrangling an 8,000-horsepower dragster through a
3.8-second, 315-mph journey.

Former two-time Sportsman world champion Shawn Langdon, the hand-picked
driver of the Lucas Oil/Dixie Choppers dragster, made the move from
175-mph Super Comp dragsters to Top Fuel in February. To date, he's
made about 30 full passes in his new car, including licensing,
qualifying, and race day action.

"I'm feeling really good in the car lately," Langdon said. "I've gone
from trying my best not to screw up to actually racing the car. I can
go back to Stewie (crew chief John Stewart) after a run now and tell
him exactly what happened. I feel like I've experienced most of the
things these cars do."

One would think with three wins and a 20-4 race day record, Pro Stock
racer Jeg Coughlin Jr. would be content with cruise control at this point in the season.

Five world championships and 57 national event victories at just 38 years of age suggests otherwise.
 
"There's always room for improvement," Coughlin said. "In Pro Stock, we
set a 16-car field that many times features a spread of just four or
five hundredths of a second from the top guy to the final qualifier.
When it's that close you have no thought of giving anything less than
100 percent every single pass. You have to.
 

Momentum bodes well for Top Fuel driver Antron Brown.

The combination of winning the most recent event and heading into a
race where his crew chiefs are defending champions only ups the ante
for the former Pro Stock Motorcycle standout turned nitro frontrunner.

Ask Brown how excited he is about this weekend’s event and chances are he won’t hold back much.

"Man, I'm fired up about going to Bristol,” Brown proclaimed. “We've
got 'big blue' back for Bristol with our Matco Tools colors and our car
is running great. Mark (Oswald) and Brian (Corradi) have this Matco
dragster hauling and we have such a great team here at MAR. Bristol is
an awesome track and our goal is to continue to go rounds and stay
consistent with the performance of this Matco dragster.”

For track owner Kenny Barnes and his crew, the weekend of May 29-31 can’t get here soon enough.

After years of putting everything he has into a dream, that dream will
finally become a reality later this month as his brand new,
all-concrete track is set to host its very first national drag racing
event when Nitro Jam rolls into town for the Amalie Oil Texas Nationals
at Dallas Raceway May 29-31 in Crandall, Texas.

“Kenny Barnes and his team at Dallas Raceway have spared no expense in
making his dream a reality in Dallas. I hope that the racers and fans
who attend this event get a chance to thank Kenny for building such a
wonderful place to not only grow IHRA’s brand of entertainment, but for
building a facility that will help grow the sport,” said IHRA Vice
President of Racing Operations Skooter Peaco.

Located just a few miles outside of downtown Dallas, the track is in a
prime location and Barnes is planning on seeing some big crowds when
the world’s fastest cars hit the track for the first time later this
month.

CompetitionPlus.com reader Reuben Martel captured what could be
considered one of the best photo sequences of the Rick Stivers crash at
the recently completed O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.
Stivers was uninjured in the crash.

Tom Hammonds announced today that his NHRA Pro Stock race team will be
sitting out the next few races on the Full Throttle Series tour
beginning with this weekend's NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol
(Tenn.) Dragway. Hammonds is confident that the hiatus is temporary,
and hopes to return to racing as soon as sufficient sponsorship is
secured to run competitively.

"We have a terrific race team, and a great program to offer a potential
sponsor partner," Hammonds said. "We don't want to just go out and
qualify, we want to be competitive, win races and challenge for the
Full Throttle championship."

The 42-year-old Hammonds entered his first NHRA Pro Stock contest at
the 1996 Mile-High Nationals while playing professional basketball with
the NBA Nuggets. He continued to compete part-time on the NHRA tour
while still in the NBA.