The NHRA POWERade Countdown to One fields in Top Fuel, Funny Car and
Pro Stock will be set during this weekend's Torco Racing Fuels NHRA
Nationals at scenic Virginia Motorsports Park near Richmond, Va. There
are several close battles to keep an eye on. Following the race, only
the top four competitors in each pro category will be eligible to win
world championships during a two-race shootout in Las Vegas and Pomona,
Calif.

In Top Fuel, Bob Vandergriff Jr. is 21 points behind Brandon Bernstein,
who currently holds down the No. 4 cutoff position. In Funny Car, with
fourth-place driver John Force on the sidelines recovering from
injuries suffered in a high-speed crash at the last event, Jack
Beckman, Ron Capps, Gary Scelzi and Mike Ashley are all battling for
the final two spots in the top four. In Pro Stock, Allen Johnson and
Jeg Coughlin hold the third and fourth place spots, but Jason Line and
Kurt Johnson are looking to crash the party.

Fans will remember the last race of the regular season, the Toyo Tires
NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pa., for the amazing Cinderella run turned
in by Top Fueler Doug Herbert, who leapfrogged three drivers -- Cory
McClenathan, Melanie Troxel, and Dave Grubnic -- to clinch the eighth
and final Top Fuel playoff berth with his first win in more than two
years.

Also at that last regular season race, Craig Treble survived as the
last man in the Pro Stock Motorcycle field when Matt Guidera and the
Mohegan Sun team ended the playoff bid of Chris Rivas one round short
of bumping Treble. But Treble didn't survive a second bout with fate
when his playoff life was again out of his hands at the final Countdown
to Four race for the bikes in Dallas. There, he could only watch
helplessly as upstart Peggy Llewellyn beat No. 1 qualifier Chip Ellis
in the semis and three-time defending champ Andrew Hines in the finals
en route to her first career win to earn the fourth and final Countdown
to One berth.

Cory McClenathan’s next Top Fuel round win will be his 400th, a milestone
reserved for NHRA racers in the sport for the long haul. 
 
McClenathan,
44, has 29 victories in 50 final rounds in his 16th full season on tour.  His
last win came a year ago at Virginia Motorsports Park, site of this weekend’s
Torco Racing Fuels Nationals and, he hopes, his 400th round win and more.

 
“That is quite an accomplishment – 400 rounds wins,” said McClenathan,
“but my FRAM Top Fuel team is focusing on winning this race again.  By doing
that, I will have 403 round wins by Sunday night.  I believe we are capable of
winning the race.
 
“Keith Adams, our new crew chief, and Tony Shortall,
the assistant crew chief, have been working together for a short time, but they
found a combination our car likes.  In reality, if I had been on my game at the
starting line at our last race in Dallas, I already would have 400 wins.  I let
team down and myself down because I was left at the starting line in the second
round.
 

With Josh Hernandez already crowned the run-away 2007 AMS Pro Mod World
Champion, drivers in the AMS Pro Mod Challenge presented by Tindle Enterprises,
Inc. shift their focus to qualifying for the $50,000 ProCare Rx Pro Mod Clash
and taking home a part of the more than $30,000 purse to be awarded as the
series makes a stop at the hallowed grounds of Virginia Motorsports Park for the
Torco Race Fuels NHRA Nationals.
 
The top five drivers in the ProCare Rx
Clash points (Josh Hernandez, Tim Tindle, Tony Pontieri, Jay Payne, and Steve
Engel) have all clinched their spot to compete in the eight-car shootout to be
contested in Las Vegas, October 25-28, leaving seven drivers within 230 points
fighting to break through. Currently, Shelly Payne, John Russo, and Mike Janis
are above the bump spot, with Raymond Commisso, Scott Ray, Harold Laird and Rick
Stivers vying to get in.
 
Points for the ProCare Rx Clash are earned two
ways: qualifying order and consistency, with the top qualifier earning 160
points, No. 2 - 150, on down to ten. Consistency is determined by taking the
variance between a driver's best and worst qualifying runs and awarding 160
points to the most consistent, incrementally down to ten points. Conceivably, a
driver can earn 320 points in a weekend.

Team JEGS chef Nicky Morse got a huge boost in the lead-up to his new
reality-style TV show -- The Racing Chef -- with some big-time exposure at the
crossroads of the world, Times Square in New York City. Snippets of The Racing
Chef were repeatedly shown on one of the giant high-definition televisions that
have made the area so famous, along with information about the show and the
pilot times and dates of its premiere.

Laurie
Cannister could only smile as she walked into the pressroom at Maryland
International Raceway. Her day had finally arrived. She was prepared for the
moment and it didn’t matter if she only had two weeks to prepare for it.

Kevin and
Wendy Sims had purchased her former alcohol Funny Car and needed a driver.
Cannister was available. After all, she’d been waiting on a call since parking
her operation in 2002.

Sunday’s victory
over Mark Thomas validated Cannister’s patience.

“It was a
storybook weekend, absolutely storybook,” Cannister said.  “Kevin and Wendy called and said we’d like to
get back out there would you like to drive the car.  I’m like yeah, twist my, arm it’s the phone
call I’ve been waiting for since 2002.”

During the
weekend, the Sims announced a full tour in 2008 and ensured Cannister a driving
job. That leads one to ask, “How fortunate can a girl get in a weekend?”

Maybe it was
the magic of racing at MIR. Her last and only other IHRA AFC victory came in
2002 at this event when she defeated Jimmy Rector, who has since retired from
driving and now works as a Pro Modified tuner.

Englishtown will be
honoring one of their homebuilt legends next weekend during their 5th
annual Shakedown at Englishtown event. The two-time Pro Mod Champion
and
current NHRA Funny Car driver/owner has been named the Grand
Marshall. 

Ashley's career, which began at Etown as a sportsman racer, led to the
2004 and 2005
NHRA AMS Pro Modified Championships along with numerous Pro Mod event
wins. Currently competing with
his Skull Gear/Torco Race Fuels Nitro Funny Car in the NHRA Funny Car
division, Ashley is ranked number 7 in the Countdown to the
Championship, just 15 points
away from the coveted number 4 spot.

Ashley is expected to spend the day at Englishtown with his family and friends,
rekindling friendships from years past.

"All of us at Raceway Park
couldn’t be happier as we welcome Mike back to his home track for this once a
year, record setting, heads up extravaganza," said Michelle Marchese, event co-ordinator.

Ron Capps will run a special Valvoline paint scheme on the Dodge Charger Funny
Car he will race at this weekend's Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at Virginia
Motorsports Park.

For the second time this season, the Brut Dodge Charger
will sport the red, white and blue theme of the team's sponsor, representing
Valvoline's longtime association with the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing
Series.

"We are once again proud to feature Valvoline on one of the Don
Schumacher Racing Funny Cars," said team owner Don Schumacher. "Valvoline is
such an icon of the sport, and their products are unsurpassed. Our crew chiefs
swear by their quality and attribute longer parts wear to these
products."

Next Generation Racing team hopes to make a real statement in their debut at
Richmond, VA - site of the NHRA Torco Racing Fuels Nationals October 5-7. Driver
George Landis is no stranger to going fast, he's just been doing it at other
events. The team car, a blown Hemi Stratus is no stranger to going fast either.
Last year, while the car was still owned by Jim Oddy, the Dodge smashed the IHRA
speed record with a 238 mph blast. The record stood up until two races ago.

This weekend's Richmond event will mark the team's first participation
in NHRA Pro Modified racing, via the AMS series. In fact, driver George Landis
has never so much as laid eyes on the track in northern Virginia. "We're excited
about competing in this event", stated Landis, adding that if sponsorship could
be secured, the team would like to run the full schedule of AMS events in 2008.
"We're diving into this race to basically see where we are and what we need to
work on over the winter", explained Landis.

Rickie Smith thought he was in big time trouble. He had just made what he thought was a strong run when an IHRA official walked up to his car and told him “they want to see you on the starting line.”
 
“What for?” Smith asked.
 
The official said nothing as he attached a towrope to Smith’s 1978 Mustang II and proceeded to tow him to the starting line. Every conceivable thought ran through his head as the ATV slowly churned its way up the return road in front of the crowd.
 
Smith gradually noticed the cheers of the crowd gathered at Rockingham Dragway for the 1980 IHRA U.S. Open Nationals. He surmised that he had done something “pretty good.”
 
What Smith didn’t know immediately is that he’d performed a feat that no other Pro Stock driver had been able to accomplish in national event-legal trim. Not even Bob Glidden, Bill Jenkins, Ronnie Sox, or Warren Johnson had pulled off what he did.
 

Pontiac's Jim Yates is hoping some midyear performance improvements in his Wiley
X Eyewear GTO will be just what the doctor ordered to secure a 15th career
top-10 finish. The veteran driver needs to get around a pair of pretty
formidable opponents with only three races remaining on the NHRA schedule, and
putting together a string of round wins at this weekend's 2nd annual Torco
Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals would go a long way in securing the desired outcome
for the resident of nearby Occoquan, Va.

"Right now we're excited," said
Yates. "We've come down to the end of the year, and we're in position to get a
top-10 finish and maybe get a race win. It's the same excitement you get at the
beginning of the season. It's so close that we feel like we can achieve it, and
we're going to do our best at the next three races to get there. 

"One
of the exciting things for us is to be a player in the Countdown. Not that we
are actually competing for the championship, but if we perform to our potential
we can have a lot of fun, and make or break it for some of the racers in the
Countdown. Being a spoiler is certainly a good reason to get out of bed and go
to work everyday. It makes it kind of fun. They put these Countdown cars up on a
pedestal, and we want to knock the legs off those pedestals and bring them back
down to earth a little bit. The last six or seven races we've had a pretty
strong showing. Bill Jenkins is working up there in Malvern, Pa., rebuilding
engines and giving us a good strong horse to ride." 

Since late June,
the Wiley X Eyewear Pontiac has run markedly better than it did during the first
half of the season and the results have put Yates in position for a strong
finish to 2007. Currently 11th in the standings, Yates has advanced beyond the
first round in five of his last six starts including a semifinal round run at
Memphis and a No. 2 qualifying effort, his best of the year, at Indianapolis.
That has moved him to within 10 points of 10th-place V. Gaines and to within 52
points of ninth-place Richie Stevens Jr.