A number of NHRA teams have active Twitter accounts (www.twitter.com)
with thousands of followers and at the 13th annual O’Reilly NHRA
Midwest Nationals presented by Castrol they decided to ramp up the
interaction on the wildly popular social media site. Throughout the two
days of qualifying teams and drivers made updated also known as
“Tweets” and they encouraged fans to join in the fun whether they were
at Gateway International Raceway or not. All posts were tagged with
#nhragir so they could be tracked on Twitter. At the end of the second
day of qualifying David Barnes of Florissant, Missouri was at the race
Twittering and he responded to the team Tweets which asked anyone on
the property to pick up hero cards and meet at the NHRA Nitro Mall
retail location following the second round of professional eliminations.

Tim Wilkerson feels honored.

The veteran Funny Car was selected by the NHRA with the blessings of
his nitro peers to conduct the first of many tests in helping the
sanctioning body gain a future nitro engine spec.

The test has been rescheduled for the Monday following Bristol
depending on the availability of parts. The original test was scheduled
for the day after the Joliet, Ill., national event and was moved up to
next week in St. Louis.

Regardless of when the test is staged, Wilkerson believes it needed to happen.

“It’s clear that we have to have some thought process going forward
about slowing these cars down,” Wilkerson said. “We’re obviously at the
limits of a lot of things. We’ve needed to be proactive about these
things and the NHRA is doing something, with or without me.”

Top Alcohol Funny Car ace Frank Manzo came out of the gate swinging in
the NHRA Northeast division.  The reigning divisional and national
champion opened the division season with a win at Virginia Motorsports
Park’s Full Throttle Shootout, a round of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag
Racing Series.  Joining Manzo in the winner’s circle is the current Top
Alcohol Dragster national champ, Bill Reichert of Owosso, Mich., and
Belleville, N.J., resident Anthony Fetch who scored a rare double win,
taking home the goods in both Super Stock and Stock Eliminator.

Manzo, a resident of Morganville, N.J., started the race from the No. 1
position and never looked back. He made his best run of the day in the
final when he squared off against No. 2 qualifier John Anderika of
Pittson, Pa.  Manzo ran 5.583 seconds at 238.02 mph to Anderika’s
5.916-second, 221.89 mph lap.

Rain delayed the final rounds of qualifying at 39th Annual NAPA Auto
Parts Ignitor presented by Dan Wiebold Ford, a round of the NHRA Lucas
Oil Drag Racing Series, several hours but racing got under way at about
3 p.m.  In the end, there were no changes in the top qualifiers from
Friday’s action and Oregon City, Ore., resident Adam Bowdish kept the
No. 1 spot in Comp Eliminator and Eric Bell of Chandler, Ariz., stayed
in the top spot in Super Stock and Poctello’s Jon Percy is the No. 3
qualifier in Super Stock.      

Greg Stanfield would have no problem with two-session qualifications if they all turned out like the NHRA O’Reilly Midwest Nationals in St. Louis did.

The former sportsman champion turned Pro Stock hitter captured his
fourth career No. 1 qualifying effort Saturday afternoon at Gateway
International Raceway when qualifying was abbreviated to just one day.

“Usually when we lose two runs, it’s trouble for our team,” Stanfield
said. “We ran well in Atlanta and conditions here were similar. That
helped us and only having two runs probably helped us because there are
some stronger teams out there.”

Shouldn't  a multi-time world champion would know what a world record run feels like?

Andrew Hines pleads guilty to that insensitivity as he rode his way to
a new elapsed time world record with a 6.860 second pass at 192.14 mph
during the final session of qualifying for the Pro Bikes at the NHRA
Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.

The monumental run also represents his third No. 1 of the season and 25th of his career.

Ron Capps had to change the way he used to think. The veteran Funny Car driver didn’t believe that qualifying No. 1 always worked out as a positive.

He’s since had a change of heart.

"For a while, No. 1 always felt like you were a little bit jinxed going
into Sunday and it didn’t really matter as long as you were top four
and you had lane choice," said Capps in the post-qualifying press
conference at the NHRA O'Reilly Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.

Capps used a 4.111 elapsed time at 297.02 miles per hour run in the
first session to nail down his ninth career No. 1 qualifying effort and
second of 2009.

Morgan Lucas might be one of the few drivers who smiles when he sees rain in a race weekend forecast. It just so happens for Lucas, when it rains the good fortunes pour.

Two weekends ago, Lucas won his first Top Fuel national event at a
rain-drenched NHRA Summit Racing Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga.
Friday’s qualifying at the NHRA O’Reilly Midwest Nationals in St. Louis
was washed out leaving only Saturday’s two sessions in which to secure
a spot in the 16-car field.

Guess where Lucas ended up? If you guessed No. 1 you’ve been paying attention.

Pro Mod driver Rick Stivers was unharmed after his '06 Stratus hit the
wall and flipped in a qualifying accident in the Get Screened America
Pro Mod Challenge Saturday at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals.
 
The accident occurred in the second round of qualifying when Stivers
and Brad Personett were attempting their final run of the day.
 
Stivers' Stratus did its slight shimmy off the line as it applied
torque to the track, but, as Stivers explained, "Then all hell broke
loose - literally."
 

Morgan
Lucas continues his hot streak as he took the top spot in Top Fuel at
the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway International Raceway on
Saturday.

Two qualifying sessions took to the track on Saturday after rain
cancelled qualifying for all classes except for Pro Stock Motorcycle on
Friday.  This is the seventh of 24 events in the NHRA Full Throttle
Drag Racing Series.

Ron Capps, Greg Stanfield and Andrew Hines also take No. 1 positions in
their respective categories into eliminations on Sunday at 11:00 a. m.