You just have to admire Jim Cunningham’s spirit. The man loves Fords and puts his money where his mouth is.

Cunningham’s Shelby Cobra has provided the only measure of pride for
Ford Pro Stock fans this season. Jerry Haas is driving Cunningham’s
award-winning ride. The car was voted Best Engineered during the St.
Louis event.

KME, Inc., a provider of conveyor and material handling equipment to
the manufacturing and automation industry, is pleased to announce a
partnership with Mike Edwards Motorsports for the O'Reilly NHRA Thunder
Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn., the weekend of May 18-20.

Car to feature famous Eighties Band

Stephen Pearcy and the rock band
RATT enjoyed their 1980s drag racing exposure so much that they are back for
more – literally. Two decades later, their name will be emblazoned on the Clay
Millican-driven, Evan Knoll dragster for the balance of the 2007 NHRA POWERade
tour promoting their upcoming June tour with another popular Eighties icon band
Poison.

It’s nine o’clock Friday morning and
the usual suspects have started assembling in the vast airplane hangar at
Kalitta Charters. This group of Kalitta Motorsports fly boys of course includes
the two most well known flying Kalittas, drag racing patriarch Connie and his
nephew and quarter-mile ace Doug, who will soon take their respective helms as
pilots of this aerial adventure. Also on the passenger list are two Team Kalitta
crew guys who have crisscrossed the country many times taking off and landing at
one NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event after another with Doug and Connie.

Scott Finnis has been flying with
the Kalittas for the longest amount of time. Finnis’ association with one of the
most respected names in drag racing history began when he signed on in 1993 to
help as a crewman for Doug when the younger Kalitta was still driving open-wheel
Sprint racers in USAC. Finnis worked with the Sprint car team until 1998 when
Doug got the call from his uncle to go straight line racing in the family
business. According to Finnis, he helped back then with “everything but putting
together motors”. Doug, with the guidance of his father Doug Sr., crew chief and
engine builder Jerry Danowski and Finnis, captured the 1994 USAC Sprint Car
World Championship as well as runner-up points finishes the two following
years.

Melanie Troxel looks like she may have learned from 2006, a season that
began with her setting the world on fire only to settle back into
fourth place by season’s end.

Heading into last weekend’s O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals, the
seventh of 17 races in the first stage of the new Countdown playoff
format, Troxel was, instead of setting the pace, stalking the pace.

Consecutive DNQs cannot break Morgan Lucas’ confidence.

“Last weekend was just a growing pain for us,” Lucas said. “We run a
different combination than Rahn [Tobler] is used to running. We are
just taking some time for him to get used to it and get acclimated with
how it works.

“Lance and Rahn are working well together. They are having fun. I think
when everything begins working as it should – it will be a perfect fit.
I just think that over time we will get the data we need. That’s all we
need.

Chip Ellis needed less
than an inch during a semi-final loss to Angelle Sampey. That would have been
enough to erase a .001 finish line deficit. Both riders had .008 reactions and Sampey’s
7.017 elapsed time was a tad bit quicker.

Never had Ellis, rider for
the G2 Team, wanted a win so badly. Ellis wanted to win for his grandfather
Herb Ellis, who was brutally murdered the weekend before St. Louis.

Pat Dakin, driver for the legendary Rupp & Dakin team that tore up
the drag racing circuit in the early 1970s, can't wait to reunite with
old pals at the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion, presented by
SoffSeal, June 15-17 at National Trail Raceway near Columbus, Ohio.
Dakin wants to tell stories about his old partner, Gary Rupp,
especially the ones that are not suitable for publication. Rupp &
Dakin – named among the Honorees of the Reunion – ran one of the nicest
looking dragsters of its day. Dakin drove and Rupp was the car owner.
The team began racing in 1970 in a gas car and then made the switch to
a front-engine fuel dragster in 1971. They switched to a rear engine
Woody Gilmore car in 1972 and bought another one in '74-'75 and kept
that one until '77 when they quit. Dakin said, "We came back in '89 and
won an IHRA World Championship and then bought a Don Long car and
stayed together through the 1993 season." Then Rupp moved to Florida,
effectively ending the team. Dakin found a new partner in Tom Kattelman
and continued to race, but he never went further west than Texas. The
team was victorious in Canada in '71 and '73. Dakin still has the '89
car and is attempting to put it back together in time for the Reunion.
Here are some of his thoughts on the upcoming Reunion:

AlphaTrade Battle for the Belts points standings

(Effective
May 6, 2007; through 3 of 8 events; all points pending ADRL approval)

The
top eight points-earners in each class at the completion of the ADRL Eastern
Race Fuels DRAGSTOCK IV event, Sept. 14-15, qualify for the AlphaTrade Battle
for the Belts championship eliminators, Oct. 12 at the AlphaTrade ADRL World
Finals.

Birthday presents come in all shapes and sizes but none compare to the one Team
Torco delivered to their sponsor Evan Knoll during the NHRA O'Reilly Midwest
Nationals in St. Louis, MO. Knoll celebrated his birthday over the course of the
race weekend.