The dramatic crash between Kenny Koretsky and Bruce Allen in
2005 at Dallas will be chronicled soon in a documentary on the History Channel,
according to Koretsky.

The NHRA crowned their four
world-championship winning drivers crowned Monday evening during the 2007
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series awards ceremony at the Westin Bonaventure
Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

The evening
featured two very moving tributes. The first to NHRA founder Wally Parks, who
died Sept. 28 at age 94, after a lifetime dedicated to growing and nurturing
NHRA to position it as a worldwide leader in motorsports; and the other to
Funny Car driver Eric Medlen, who died March 23 from injuries received in a
testing crash at Gainesville Raceway four days earlier. Medlen, 33, a team
driver for John Force Racing, was one of the bright young stars in the NHRA
POWERade Series.

Click here for our extensive AWARDS CEREMONY - LEND-AMERICA PHOTO GALLERY 

Could Cory McClenathan soon get an upgrade? He's apparently made it clear to Don Schumacher that he wants to.

McClenathan has lobbied Schumacher
to be more than just a leaser at Don Schumacher Racing. The veteran Top Fuel driver
said he’s got a two year contract on the table to drive for DSR with the
blessings and monetary support from Fram and its related companies.
 

“Basically, what's going to happen is we're going to move the Fram deal all
the way into their deal and have two dragsters,” said McClenathan. “Our sponsors
have been great and understanding considering all of the problems that we’ve had
with different owners and changing teams. It’s nice to have control of your
destiny and I still want to make that control good. 

Tony Pedregon found it
hard to hold back the emotions Sunday when Robert Hight was eliminated from
championship contention. The moment of a lifetime had arrived and he couldn’t
fathom the reality that he was a champion.

One would have thought Pedregon might
have been accustomed to this experience considering he'd won a title in
2003. That was then, in 2003 while racing for John Force Racing. This
was now, racing out of his own wallet.

“The money isn’t the
reason I started doing this,” Pedregon said, as he stood on the championship
stage. “I wanted to do what my dad did and I wanted to go fast. But, it’s
become a lot more about that.

Ron Capps said he isn’t the only driver that has taken notes on the championship
format for next year.

"This season was a
learning experience,” Capps said. “I know you learn every year, but being the
first year of the Countdown to the Championship points system, I felt like we
really, really showed a lot of brilliance in the beginning of the year.
Obviously, we learned that we're not going to back off and try to test. We had
such a great points lead (by as much as 154) that we decided to test, and I
think that affected our mindset in a lot of ways.

Lance
Larsen has tuned for some of the top teams in nitro racing. Some of his more
memorable years were in working with Clay Millican and the Werner Enterprises
Top Fuel team. Next year he’ll be reunited with Millican as a tuner for the
second dragster on Evan Knoll’s expanding Top Fuel operation.

“I’m really looking
forward to it,” Larsen said. “Clay and I are good personal friends and I get
along well with the guys that work there and live in the area.  It’s really just a no-brainer and working on
an Evan Knoll-owned car is another exciting thing too.  He’s quite the philanthropist and is really
great guy.”

 Todd Veney has reportedly informed NHRA’s National Dragster that he
will not seek to renew his annual contract with the house organ
publication.  He will instead opt for a position on the new Funny Car
team being formed by Mike Ashley.  Veney, who’s campaigned his own Top
Alcohol Funny Car on a limited basis when he’s had the funding to do
so, will reportedly sell his pristine operation.  Ken Veney-built
alcohol motors are an excellent investment, and Todd is unlikely to
need them again.

Funny Car racer Tim Wilkerson won the $25,000 Motel 6 Who Got the Light? Award
for the 2007 season with his .0013-second margin of victory over Tony Pedregon
during the second round of Funny Car eliminations at the Torco Racing Fuels
NHRA Nationals, Oct. 7 at Virginia Motorsports Park
near Richmond, Va. Wilkerson and Gary Scelzi tied for recording
the overall narrowest margin of victory for the season, both with a
.0013-second MOV. Wilkerson’s victory for the season-long title was
determined via tie-breaker, which awards the title to the driver with the lowest
average MOV for all elimination rounds during the 2007 season.  Wilkerson,
from Springfield, Ill., who drives the Levi Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala, is the
second Funny Car driver to win the season award. Cruz Pedregon claimed it in 2005.
All other season winners have come from Pro Stock, including Richie Stevens,
Steve Johns, Scott Geoffrion, Larry Morgan and Jim Yates.   

The look on his face on Thursday at the NHRA Auto Club Finals said a lot about the season Del Worsham has had.

Worsham used to get all of the breaks at Pomona, but the last two times haven’t been
kind to the hometown favorite from nearby Chino Hills.

The first day of
qualifying at the NHRA Auto Club Finals was indicative of the season he’s
experienced. When Worsham’s car failed to fire for the first qualifying session
and nearly failed in the second, it seemed like a continuation of the fate he
experienced last year when a parachute failure sent him careening into the
shutdown area.

“It’s been a crazy
season,” Worsham said. “You know when I look back on the season at all the runs
and all the races, from June on we had a pretty good running car.  We didn’t win any of the races but we made
some nice runs and got dropped from those races.  We get to the Pomona and it’s a home race and all the
problems are back.” 

This kind of fate is what
had Worsham puzzled, because he’s had usually good fortunes at Pomona. At least the plusses have outnumbered
the minuses.