The third time was the charm for Mike Ashley, whose Topeka final round marked
three finals in two seasons.

Ashley drove his Torco/Skull Gear Dodge Charger to his first
career win with a 4.896 at 310.70 over Jim Head, who drove his Head Racing
Toyota Solara to a 4.918 at 308.50.

“I’ve won lots of races in the Pro Modified division,” said
Ashley, a two-time NHRA Pro Modified champion. “But nothing compares to winning
an NHRA POWERade national event. This is terrific. That is mainly because the
competition is so fierce in this class.

“I just put this team together at the beginning of the year
and we’re already third in the points. I say this a lot, but I am a dreamer.
This is a dream for me and I encourage anyone who shares the dream to go for it.
That’s what we had to do and we stuck with it.”

Brandon Bernstein extended his recent dominance of the Top Fuel class Sunday at
Heartland Park Topeka with his third win of the last four national events,
surging into the POWERade points lead in the process.

Mike Ashley joined Bernstein in the winner's
circle of the 19th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol
GTX with his first Funny Car trophy, while Pro Stock kingpin Greg Anderson
collected his fifth Wally of the year's first eight races.

Usually Bernstein and final-round opponent J.R.
Todd are each other's biggest cheerleaders, but on this day they were rivals, if
only for a few seconds, as they streaked down the quarter-mile for the race
title. In the end, Bernstein's rock-steady rail was quick enough to turn on the
win light as the 15-time national event winner crossed in 4.582 seconds at
320.51 mph to Todd's 4.667 at 299.86 mph attempt.

Final round-by-round results from the 19th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals
presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park Topeka, the eighth of 23 events in
the  NHRA POWERade Drag Racing
Series:

Sunday's final results from the 19th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals
presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park Topeka.  The 
race is the eighth of 23 in the 
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series:

Point standings (top 10) for NHRA professional categories following the 19th
annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park
Topeka, the eighth of 23 events in the 
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series -

Top qualifier Robert Hight
experienced a nasty fire following his second round victory over Scott Kalitta.

The subsequent fire
resulted in collisions with both retaining walls before coming to a stop in the
sand. Hight said a loss of traction down track led to the fiasco.

 “It started spinning,” Hight said. “That is a
routine deal when it is hot. The things can spin. They have a rev limiter on
them and it never did rev real high so I stayed with it. If you pedal it down
track like that you lose so much fuel it bangs the blower so I stayed with it
and kept driving it and it wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t even revving up that
high. The rev limiter was holding it and it blew up. It dropped a cylinder and
it lifted that head and then it relit in that cylinder and it blew the head off
of it.”

That’s when things got
ugly in a hurry.

A visit to an innovative new website could be worth $250,000.00. Today,
nationwide direct lender, Lend America, announced the unveiling of its new
website www.lendamerica.com. In connection with the launch, the company is
offering free entry into to a sweepstakes where the winner will have their home
mortgage paid off up to a maximum of $250,000.00.

American Dragster returns to ESPN2 with a eye-opening episode that shows the
heart of racing is more than just pure horsepower. What does it take to push a
car a quarter-mile at 300 miles per hour?  What happens in an engine during a
race? More importantly, what happens to the driver?

POINTS LEADER CAPPS FAILS TO
QUALIFY: HARTLEY, HIGHT, AND ANDERSON HOLD
ON TO NO. 1 SPOT

POWERade points leader Ron Capps failed to
qualify for the 19th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by
Castrol GTX, snapping the longest active qualifying streak in the Funny
Car class at 55 races.

Capps' shocking result overshadowed the low qualifying efforts of Joe
Hartley, Robert Hight, and Greg Anderson, who were all able to maintain
the top rankings they attained Friday.

Entering the race with a 121-point lead in the standings, Capps could
leave Heartland Park Topeka with the No. 1, but he knows his lead will
probably be substantially trimmed.

When Mike Edwards and his Young Life team developed “A Team on a
Mission” and “Sending A Kid To Camp” program for the 2005 season, none
of them knew how far it would reach into the racing community. Now
entering its third year, the program has sent nearly 300 kids to a
Young Life camp, and for 2007 Edwards and his team hopes the program
far exceeds that number.

“We knew the racing community was a giving bunch that would do almost
anything to give those not as fortunate as us a chance at something
better,” Edwards said. “That is why we started this program and now it
is accomplishing just that, giving kids some hope for the future.”