Drag
racing legend Jeg Coughlin Sr. will make a special appearance this
Saturday, Jan. 3, at the Murray's Speed & Custom Full Throttle Car
Show benefiting the Darrell Gwynn Foundation. The can't-miss event
takes place from 6-10 p.m. at the Sheehan Autoplex, 2800 North Federal
Highway, Lighthouse Point, Fla.

Coughlin will help his longtime friend Gwynn give away a special
wheelchair at the event, while taking time to sign autographs and pose
for pictures with the fans in attendance.

No Funny Car Experience and a Willingness to Learn Crowned Tobler in 2008 …

His experience was non-existent. His challenge was monumental.

Neither prevented Rahn Tobler, a world championship tuner from the Top Fuel ranks, from learning how to make a Funny Car work.

Tobler, the former tuner for four-time Top Fuel champion Shirley
Muldowney and later championship contender Doug Kalitta, not only
accepted a challenge from Cruz Pedregon late in 2007, but also made the
decision by his employer rank as a move of sheer genius.

The then past Funny Car world champion wanted Tobler to tune his Funny Car.

Fresh off his second straight and fifth overall world championship, Pro
Stock drag racer Jeg Coughlin Jr. is ready to trade in his 1,500-horsepower
JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt for a gravity-driven JEGS.com bobsled at the
fourth annual Whelen Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge, Jan. 2-4, in Lake
Placid, N.Y.

The charity event created by NASCAR veteran Bodine raises money for the
Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project, which designs and makes bobsleds exclusively
for Team USA. Prior to Bodine's involvement, U.S. bobsledders were
afterthoughts on the world stage, racing the castoff bobsleds from
their European counterparts. Now they routinely win medals at the
highest level of the sport, including the Olympic Games and World
Bobsled Championships.

"It's very exciting to return to this event," Coughlin said. "I've
thought about our return since last January and I'm thrilled that our
family business, JEGS Mail Order, is now involved in helping fund the
project. We're all very proud of our young American athletes and the
bobsled team has certainly come a long way since Geoff started this
deal back in the 1990s. They're gold medalists now and it's exciting to
be a part of something where we're really making a difference."

Roy Hill Drag Racing School Graduate Eric Gullett Presented With Unique Opportunity…

Life has its way of presenting unique opportunities and for Eric Gullett, fate need not ask a second time.

The low profile bracket racer from Chattanooga, Tenn., will begin
licensing procedures next month in hopes of becoming a nostalgia Funny
Car driver.

Gullett will make runs behind the wheel of Mitch King’s Fuel Altered.
If that goes well, he could easily end up behind the wheel of either
Henry Guttierrez’s restored Jungle Jim or Brand X AA/Funny Car entries.

The talk for now is that Gullett will become a back up driver for
either Army Armstrong or Mitch King in the event of a scheduling
conflict.

“We’ll be doing some match races and certainly be at the NHRA Hot Rod
Reunions,” Gullett added. “These cars back in the day were all about
showmanship and we want to give the fans their money’s worth. We want
to pay tribute and have fun doing it.”

It may well be an NHRA first.

It most certainly was a first for the young and highly talented pastry chef at Lowe's Motor Speedway's Speedway Club.

In early November, Jessica LeCronier, a fourth year student at Johnson
and Wales University, Charlotte campus and pastry chef at the Speedway
Club, was commissioned to create an exact replica of the recently
opened Zmax Dragway, home of the NHRA Carolina Nationals, in
gingerbread.

It may be snowing in Delaware, Ohio, but the hometown of JEGS Mail Order and five-time world champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. still managed
to send out road crews to change the city limit signs to reflect
Coughlin's latest title. Coughlin won his fourth Pro Stock championship
since the turn of the millennium, scoring titles in 2000, 2002, 2007,
and 2008, to go with his 1992 Super Gas crown.
 
"It's really quite an honor for the city to do this for us," Coughlin
said. "It never fails to put a smile on my face whenever I drive by one
of those signs because it allows you a moment to reflect on all the
good times we've had racing our JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt.
 

Businessman and Nitro Funny Car drag racer Paul Lee has announced his
100% purchase of the common stock of McLeod Industries, Inc., which
includes the Weber Clutches brand as well.  Lee was most recently the
CFO of Boninfante Clutches, a leading clutch component manufacturer in
professional drag racing.
 
McLeod Clutches is a US-based manufacturer of high performance
automotive clutch assemblies for performance automotive enthusiasts and
the auto industry.  The company was founded in 1971 by legendary clutch
“guru” Red Roberts.  For over 38 years, the McLeod brand has been known
throughout the automotive aftermarket in all forms of motorsports. 
McLeod manufactures and distributes a full line of clutch assemblies,
flywheels, hydraulic throw out bearing kits, adaptive bellhousings, and
other component clutch and transmission parts.
 

First round of competition concludes with Day 4 matches …

Drag
racing’s most prolific star and a dreamer who wanted to be a
sanctioning body president both won their respective first round
matches during the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories
Showdown.

The second round of competition will pair “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and
Kenny Nowling in the second round of competition, their match scheduled
for January 5, 2009.

While sanctioning bodies are able to hang onto their deals another team loses sponsorship funding.

In a prepared statement issued to the media this morning, Mac Tools
announced they are changing their sports marketing program by ending
their primary sponsorship on the Top Fuel dragster driven by Doug
Kalitta at Kalitta Motorsports.

While most Australians were enjoying some Boxing Day relaxation, American nitro racer Gary Densham was on a plane - on his
way to Australia for the ENZED International Nightfire New Year Series
this Friday and Saturday, January 2 and 3, at Willowbank Raceway.

Touching down in Brisbane over the weekend, the nitro Funny Car legend
will feature at both of the two rounds of Willowbank Raceway's January
Series, taking on four Australian contenders in a USA vs AUS Nitro
Funny Car showdown.

You would be mistaken however for thinking this was Densham’s first
trip to Australia – in fact it is his eleventh trip Down Under, and a
little known fact about the racer is that he was the first to race on
Queensland’s premier drag racing facility – Willowbank Raceway – albeit
with a twist.