Roger
Burgess heads into this weekend’s NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis,
Mo., with a valid question engrossing his thought process. The
successful businessman from Duluth, Ga., drives a supercharged 1963
Corvette on the Jegs ProMod series and in his first full season is
doing quite a job of it.

His mind continually asks, “How can you top the last outing?”

The soft-spoken Burgess has a clear set of objectives aimed at answering those questions.

Sunday's final results from the 12th annual O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals
presented by Castrol at Gateway International
Raceway.  The  race is the
seventh of 24 in the  NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series:
 

Top Fuel -- Rod Fuller, 4.525 seconds, 328.70 mph def. Tony Schumacher, 4.583 seconds, 325.45 mph.

Former IHRA Pro Stock and Pro Modified champion Tommy Mauney drove his
1963 Chevrolet Corvette past the twin-turbo 1957 Chevy of South
Carolina’s Annette Summer Sunday to win the Outlaw Pro Modified
showdown but rain brought an early end to other racing in the Holcomb
Motorsports Spring Civil Wars at Rockingham Dragway.

Because of rain on both Saturday and Sunday, only a handful of
champions were crowned in the Pro Tree Racers Association (PTRA)
categories including Chad Christy of China Grove, Bobby Houston Jr. of
Hickory and Jeff Knox of Goose Creek, S.C.

Christy, Houston and Knox all got free rides to their titles when their
final round opponents were guilty of foul starts.  Christy won the
Hedman Hedders 5.30 Index title, Houston won in the Hamburger’s Oil
Pans 6.0 Index class and Knox prevailed in the Hedman Hedders 7.0 Index.

UPDATED - The two positions have already been filled. 

Officials with the JEGS ProMod Challenge have announced a rare opportunity for
two racers to join the tour and run at this weekend's 12th annual O’Reilly NHRA
Midwest Nationals at Gateway International Raceway. The coveted spots will go to
the first two racers who contact officials at
JegsProMod@earthlink.net .

"We've got 24 spots at this race and we're
looking to fill the last two," series spokesman Woody Woodruff said. "It's a
last-minute deal but we're hoping a couple of racers can put something together
in a short amount of time and come and spend the weekend with us."

This weekend, May 2-4, native Australian Dave Grubnic and his team will have
primary sponsorship support on their 8,000-horsepower Kalitta Motorsports Top
Fuel dragster from the St. Louis Carpenters Union as the NHRA POWERade Drag
Racing Series rolls into Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from
downtown St. Louis, for the annual running of the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest
Nationals at Gateway Int’l Raceway.

“The St. Louis Carpenters Union has been supporting NHRA drag racing for many
years, and it’s an honor for me and our Kalitta Motorsports team to represent
them this weekend in St. Louis,” Grubnic, a 45-year old resident of Ennis,
Mont., said. “They’re going to bringing out a lot of guests to Gateway this
weekend, and we’re looking forward to meeting them and hopefully showing them a
great performance with our race car on the drag strip.”

Some teams don’t know they’re hot.

When Alan Bradshaw qualified No. 1 in Gainesville, his crew didn’t
believe it. It took a visit from an NHRA official, a trip to the media
center for Bradshaw and a run sheet before they finally did – and then
the Vis Viva Fuel Top Fuel dragster team followed it up with another No.
1, in Houston, proving they weren’t just lucky.

The 2008 season has been good to the one-car teams.

Six one-car teams – at least one in each category - won in the first
five races of the season alone, before Atlanta. The proverbial Goliaths
might not be scared when they pull into St. Louis for the 12th annual
O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals, but they must be a little shaken. The
event at Gateway International Raceway is the seventh of 24 in the
nationwide NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.

For
long-time drag racing fans, former world champion Mark Oswald's return
to competition in this weekend's NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet,
Ill. was like a return to days gone by. Round-by-round, the "Ice Man"
drove the A&R Transport Dodge Charger like he'd been in the seat
every day in the past eleven years - not tuning and working behind the
scenes.
 
Oswald was tapped late Thursday night by Mike Ashley to drive the car
because Ashley was once again called into action by his company, Lend
America, and had to miss the race. Although Oswald hadn't driven
competitively since 1997, he took the challenge knowing that the car he
was getting into was one of the best in the field.
 

Ron Capps cannot bring himself to leave an autograph-seeking fan sitting at the ropes of his pit area.

Ron Capps said each autograph is special to him.

“It’s that one person you can walk away from, and maybe it’s a kid, that gets to you,” Capps admitted.

Capps remembers, as a kid, drawing the wrath of Funny Car legend Don
Prudhomme for seeking an autograph while walking through a restaurant.

“He was eating and I wanted his autograph,” Capps recalled. “I remember him yelling at me.”

Capps rewinds the memory of his devastation every time he’s tempted to walk away, leaving a fan.

No Top Fuel driver has
ever won the NHRA Midwest Nationals Top Fuel crown four times. Doug Kalitta
hopes he can change that.

Kalitta, an 11-year Top
Fuel veteran, visited the winner’s circle at GIR in 2004, 2003, and 2001.