If the annual Mopar Super Stock
Hemi Challenge had been a boxing match, it would have been halted by
the fifth round. As it was, the SS/AH racers who participated in the
annual Indy event had to endure three full days of punishment by
Charlie Westcott Jr., who drove his War Fish Barracuda to the SS/AH
class title at Indy for the third time in the last four years. While
most of his opponents were running in the 8.8-second zone, Westcott,
and his father, Charlie Sr., were cranking out 8.6-second runs with
alarming consistency. In the final round Charlie Jr., defeated his old
nemesis Bucky Hess, 8.65 to 8.86.

"This car is for sale but the price just went up," said
Westcott, who collected a $15,000 bonus from Mopar Performance, $10,000
for winning the Hemi Challenge and an additional $5,000 for claiming
the overall 2008 Hemi Challenge series title. "I had the field covered
today but that doesn't always guarantee a victory. You can't win if you
don't have a fast car, but you can lose even if you've got the quickest
car so I had to do my job as a driver. I think the final round was
right about where I wanted to be. I had a decent light and my car ran
exactly what it should have run. Other than having my dad in the final
we did just what we wanted to do this weekend."

Professional Funny Car driver Ashley Force knows all about getting from point A to B on the race track. The 2007 rookie of the

Ashley Force and Designing Spaces host Dave Dodd.

year is one of the most consistent drivers on the track and one of the busiest spokespersons away from it.

The soon to be newlywed will be telling viewers on behalf of sponsor
Sanyo about getting to the finish line when it comes to installing the
ultimate home theater for a special holiday edition of the Designing
Spaces television program.

Force wrapped up filming for Designing Spaces, a 30 minutes show that
inspires viewers to make every space count and enjoy the space they
live in, the Tuesday before the 54th annual Mac Tools US Nationals from
the production studios in Florida. The self proclaimed “shy Force” was
at ease in front of the camera talking about a topic that the
California home-body is very excited about.

 Native Canadian Jeff Arend will take the reigns as driver of the
Nitro-fueled DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car at this weekend’s running of
the world-renowned Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at O’Reilly Raceway Park at
Indianapolis.

Kalitta Motorsports team owner and drag racing legend Connie Kalitta
chose Arend to drive the DHL Toyota Solara mount in late July to help
preserve the legacy of his legendary son, Scott Kalitta, who died as
result of a high-speed Funny Car qualifying accident in Englishtown,
N.J., June 21.

“It will always be Scott’s car,” Arend, a 46-year old resident of San
Dimas, Calif., said. “I am just the newest member to be added to the
DHL Funny Car team, and I will do my best to accomplish what Scott and
Connie started out to do, and that is having a consistent, competitive,
and safe racecar capable of going rounds and winning races.

Just think, last year people were talking like all the IHRA nitrous Pro
Mod drivers were going to go away. Three drivers and their teams
refused to adopt this mind-set, and their performances this year are
proof enough that IHRA’s Pro Modified class is as strong and
diversified as ever.

Mike Castellana, Jim Halsey and Pat Stoken…you could not find three
more different people. Castellana is a New Yorker who operates a chain
of grocery stores. Jim Halsey, from Street, Maryland, is a drag strip
operator. Pat Stoken is a logger from the great state of Montana. If
you saw them on the street standing next to each other, and someone
challenged you to pick which one was the New Yorker, which was the
logger and which was the drag strip operator there is not much of a
chance you wouldn’t be able to tell which was which.

But on the track and in the pits, they are very similar. They are all
hard workers, they all don’t complain and they all have a specific
goal…to make their nitrous-assisted Pro Modified to go as fast as they
can go. When people were complaining about a perceived disparity
between nitrous entries and supercharged entries, they didn’t join in.
When other nitrous drivers abandoned their IHRA dreams, Castellana,
Halsey and Stoken shrugged their shoulders and continued to work on
their combinations.

Terry
Haddock and his Lend America Racing nitro Dodge Stratus will face off
against drag racing veteran Jack Wyatt this Saturday in Grand Bend,
Ontario, Canada in two featured match races at the Teamsters Canada
Thunder by the Beach Weekend featuring the Saturday Night of Nitro.
Haddock is the reigning IHRA Grand Bend event champion, and Wyatt is
the 2007 IHRA Sportsman of the Year.
 
For Haddock, who is currently leading the points-race in IHRA nitro Funny Car, the event serves a dual purpose of fun and work.
 
"I'm really looking forward to Saturday and racing in Grand Bend again,
because we get to go racing without a lot of the pressure that comes
with a points-race," Haddock explained. "I love drag racing, and aside
from spending time with my wife and son, it's what I love to do most.

CompetitionPlus.com owner and publisher Bobby Bennett announced today
that Lend America, a nationwide direct-to-consumer mortgage source, has
signed an agreement to become the Official Mortgage Company of
CompetitionPlus.com.

The two companies will work together to offer lending opportunities to
the dynamic drag racing fans that visit the drag racing e-zine daily,
Bennett said.

“It’s a well-known fact that drag racing fans are a powerful market
demographic, and more and more companies are taking advantage of this
sport to reach their customers. It’s exciting to announce this program
because Lend America is no stranger to drag racing, and this is a great
extension of the legacy they have already built,” Bennett said.

Lend America’s Mike Ashley, 2007 U.S. Nationals Funny Car champion,
said he is pleased to expand his relationship with the growing online
publication. Lend America is currently the sponsor of the online photo
galleries visited by thousands of fans daily.

Wiley X Eyewear, sponsor of Jim Yates’ Pro Stock entry, has invited a
special guest to this weekend’s NHRA U.S. Nationals.

The invited guest, who will be
in attendance on Saturday at O’Reilly Raceway Park, is James Megellas, a
91-year-old World War II veteran who is the most decorated officer in the
history of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

A retired lieutenant
colonel, Megellas, also known as “Maggie”, was awarded more than 20 medals,
including The Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze
Stars, two Purple Hearts and Master Parachutist. 

A bill was introduced in
Congress on July 8, 2008 to authorize and request the President to award the
Medal of Honor to James Megellas for acts of valor on Jan. 28, 1945 during the
Battle of the Bulge in World War II. 

The world’s most prestigious drag race, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals,
will once again serve as the centerpiece of a special pull-out section
in the largest-circulation newspaper in the United States, USA Today.

The 54th running of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals will run from Aug. 27
to Sept. 1 and the special section will be published in USA Today on
Friday, Aug. 29, the first day of qualifying for drivers in the NHRA
POWERade Series. The special section will include advertisements from
the Coca-Cola Company/POWERade, ESPN/ESPN2HD, JEG’s Mail Order and
Harley-Davidson.

The Mac Tools U.S. Nationals is the longest-running race in the NHRA
POWERade Series and for many years, beginning in the early days of the
sport when teams competed regionally, it was the one race during the
year when all of the top teams descended on a single site to compete
against one another.

Historically, then, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals became the race to
win, drag racing’s equivalent of The Masters or Wimbledon, and it
remains that way today.

New shutdown area at Indy intended to be the prototype for the future …

Kenny Bernstein, shown here with Monster Energy Drink driver Tommy Johnson Jr., said the recent upgrade in the shutdown area was a process that NHRA deserves credit for bringing to fruition. (KennyBernstein.com Photo)

The NHRA’s decision to rework the shutdown area at O’Reilly Raceway
Park [ORP] was one put in motion in the days following the fatal
accident of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta in Englishtown.

This according to Kenny Bernstein, President of Professional Racers
Organization [PRO], was something for which the NHRA deserves credit.
Bernstein pointed out the design at ORP will serve as the prototype to
be implemented at other facilities, notably the new zMax Dragway in
Concord, NC, and the Pomona Fairplex in Pomona, Ca.

“This was their plan from the early going, it was just a matter of
getting the right people together and the engineers – those who knew
about sand, to make it happen,” Bernstein said, in a telephone
interview on Wednesday afternoon. “They went to work with the plan to
implement it here [Indianapolis].”

Roger Burgess arrived at his Atlanta, Ga., residence on Monday at 2 AM following a vacation trip around the world. While this
experience
was breath-taking for the highly successful businessman, he admits the
experience would pale in comparison to winning the greatest of all NHRA
JEGS Pro Modified championships – the NHRA U.S. Nationals in
Indianapolis.

The five-day experience known simply as the “Big Go” would serve as perfect follow up to his 24-day world tour.

“Without a doubt,” Burgess confirmed. “If you’re a drag racer that has
visions of grandeur, then you want to win Indy. It’s the Daytona 500 of
drag racing. You can win any event and it’s a great experience, but
winning Indy is a great experience and then a while lot more.”