The Darrell Russell tribute firesuit worn by Top Fuel driver Alan
Bradshaw at the recently-completed 12th annual O'Reilly Midwest NHRA
Nationals will have a permanent home in Russell's hometown of Houston.

Seth Angel, general manager and co-owner of Houston Raceway Park, was
the highest bidder for the firesuit, which was auctioned online at
eBay. Angel paid $1,100 for the one-of-a-kind item and plans to have it
framed and hung in a prominent place in the racetrack's Top Eliminator
Club, which is already named in Russell's honor.

"I was going to pay whatever it cost to get that suit," Angel said. "It
belongs here. It belongs in Texas and Houston Raceway Park, where
Darrell had so much success. We're going to get it mounted and framed
up so we can share it with Darrell's fans. It's great to remember and
honor a wonderful person like Darrell. He will never be forgotten at
Houston Raceway Park."

It’s a long way from May to September when the subject is qualifying for NHRA’s
Countdown to the Championship. 
 
Only the top 10 drivers will be title
hopefuls after the POWERade Series’ first 18 races, so the scramble for
positions is far from finished.  This weekend’s Thunder Valley Nationals at
Bristol Dragway is No. 8 and it’s an important one for sophomore Pro Stock
driver Justin Humphreys.
 
He is on the bump spot in 10th with 286
points.  Humphreys has been in the top 10 since the season opener and maintained
his place among the leaders despite an off-weekend at St. Louis (May 4). He
couldn’t get the RaceRedi Motorsports Pontiac GXP to make a run without spinning
the tires and it cost him a place in the starting lineup.
 
Now
Humphreys, new crew chief Frank Gugliotta and engine builder Richard Maskin plan
to hunker down and get back to winning elimination rounds.  Gugliotta, a
Humphreys’ family friend and IHRA Pro Stock competitor, stepped in when veteran
Bob Glidden retired.  The Pontiac picked up the pace at Atlanta before
encountering traction trouble the next weekend.

T.J.
Zizzo will make his Torco Pro Nitro Top Fuel season debut at the Motor
City Nationals in Milan, but his opinions and aspirations are already
in mid-season form.

Zizzo has yet to compete this season after finishing second in IHRA Top
Fuel points standings last year. He fell 41 points shy of Bruce Litton,
who won the title, but his bank account was much further behind than
his season points total. Zizzo is a case study in how a sponsorship can
go very, very wrong.

He headed into the 2007 season as one of the favorites to compete for
the World Championship. He had a new sponsorship with the now-defunct Race News Magazine
and things seemed to be headed in the right direction…but things were
not as they seemed. The sponsorship soon started to crumble and, by
midseason, had completely fell apart leaving Zizzo and his race team
with a stack of unpaid bills and an uncertain future. It was a
situation Zizzo is still trying to fight his way out of…even to this
day.

Alan Bradshaw enters Bristol on the strength of a positive St. Louis showing. (Roger Richards)

Having secured his first round-win of the 2008 season at the
last NHRA event in St. Louis, Top Fuel driver Alan Bradshaw returns to his
traditional Vis Viva "Living Force Energy" colors for this weekend's
running of the O’Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn.

"Team Vis Viva is certainly showing signs of hope," Bradshaw
said. "In St. Louis we had three runs in the 4.50's and that is the kind
of consistency we have been looking for all season.  It also shows that we seem to have a good
'average weather' tune-up, and our 'playbook' is getting bigger at every
race.  Anytime you have more runs to the
finish line under power than not, it is a good thing."

Elton
"Al" Eckstrand, who campaigned the Lawman series of Dodge Stockers and
toured them overseas to entertain and inform U.S. troops in the 1960s,
died May 10 in Naples, Fla., after a short illness. He was 79.

Now that he's driven in his 500th NHRA race, won his 1,000th round,
made his 201st final round appearance and celebrated his 59th birthday,
all within the last three weeks, John Force acknowledged Wednesday that
he may be ready to take the final step in his recovery from
career-threatening injuries suffered last fall in a 320 mile-an-hour
crash.

John
Force enters this weekend as the defending event champion. Bristol 2007
marked his first national event win since the tragic death of Eric
Medlen. (Brian Wood)

"Every race I'm feeling more comfortable in the car," proclaimed the
14-time series champion.  "The car's gotten better.  I'm better.  I
think we're ready to win again."

Construction at zMax Dragway @ Concord, which will host the inaugural
NHRA Carolinas Nationals Sept. 11-14, is progressing at a record pace.
Much of the initial work on the grandstand and tower is already
complete, and the whole facility is taking shape, as these aerial
photographs attest. The event will be the first of six races in the
NHRA Countdown to 1.

Team owner chartering jet to send drivers to Congressional Medal of Honor function …

While many of the NHRA POWERade teams are preparing for competition at this weekend’s NHRA Thunder Valley Dragway in Bristol, Tenn., at least one team will put racing aside long enough to honor those heroes who have disregarded their personal safety for valor on the battlefield.

Roger Burgess, co-owner of Gotham City Racing, has arranged for a private jet to fly the team’s drivers Melanie Troxel, Frank Hawley and Mike Ashley as well as Kenny Bernstein Racing’s Tommy Johnson Jr. from Bristol, Tenn. to Atlanta, Ga., on Thursday evening for the In the Company of Heroes dinner. This gala function is presented by The Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation.

Burgess feels this event is one the team can learn from and apply to their everyday actions.

Kurt Johnson's most valuable lesson this year could be the meaning of a typo. (Roger Richards)

The first few days of this week proved to be rather interesting for Pro
Stock standout Kurt Johnson.  On Monday, KJ headed over to his daughter
Erin’s school in Buford, GA to take part in Career Day.  As expected,
the second-generation racer was fully prepared, dressed in his ACDelco
crew shirt and bringing his helmet, firesuit, HANS device and a
Goodyear slick to use as props, as well as a video from one of his
qualifying runs.

However, upon arriving at Ivy Creek Elementary School in Buford, Kurt
was unable to find the location for this event, and eventually asked a
teacher for assistance.  Much to his surprise, he was informed that
Career Day had in fact been scheduled for Tuesday, and that there was a
typo in the e-mail sent to parents requesting their participation. 
Fortunately, he was able to return the next day, and spoke to eight
different sets of fourth graders about his POWERade Drag Racing Series
career, fielding numerous questions from the enthusiastic students.

"The thing about drag racing," Ashley Force said after an historic
victory in the April 27 Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta, Ga., one
that made her the first female winner in NHRA Funny Car history, "is
that you can go from hero to zero very quickly."
 
As if to add emphasis to her observation, after three consecutive trips
to the final round, the 25-year-old daughter of drag racing icon John
Force was upset in her very first race the following week at Madison,
Ill.  As a result, she dropped from first to second place in the driver
standings behind veteran Tim Wilkerson.
 
When racing for the NHRA POWERade championship resumes this week at the
eighth annual O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway, the
graduate of Cal State-Fullerton will try to put that stumble behind her
and return her Castrol GTX® Ford Mustang to the dominant position it
previously occupied.
 
"For about 40 minutes I was in a pretty crappy mood," she said of
losing so early two weeks ago at Gateway International Raceway, "but
you always get over it.  Seeing dad win his 1,000th round and (teammate
Mike) Neff go the finals (in the Old Spice Mustang) completely brought
me out of my funk.