They say everything’s bigger in Texas and this weekend the Flowmaster
American Drag Racing League (ADRL) presented by the National Guard
intends to prove the point as it stages ADRL’s Drag Illustrated
Dragpalooza IV Mar. 7-8, at Houston Raceway Park (HRP) in Baytown, TX. Keep up with this weekend's action.

Predicting an ADRL Champion
can be a complex task when compared to analyzing an NHRA or IHRA champion.

Once a team qualifies for
the top eight by collecting points all year long, the championship is
determined by a shootout on a Friday night in Texas. With that said, we will attempt to
predict the top eight in each class however, it all depends on who brings the
biggest gun to the final showdown in Ennis, TX in October.

Rarely do drag racing fans
get the opportunity to watch prominent teams from competing sanctioning groups
race perform in a national event atmosphere. Yet, that is exactly what occurs
when competitors from both the NRHA and IHRA gather for the Eastern Sprint Test
Nationals in Valdosta, Georgia.

This weekend, over 130
professional and sportsman racers will converge on South Georgia Motorsports
Park [SGMP] for the 9^th annual running of what has proven to be the
largest organized professional test session on the eastern seaboard, and for
that matter in American drag racing.

The 2008 CSR Eastern
Spring Test Nationals presented by Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com promises to be
the largest in the history of the event that dates back to 2000.

Even after three name
changes and three diametrically different venues the casual event continues to
grow.

Charles Carpenter, 49, residing in Harrisburg, N.C., thought at one
time about campaigning a body style other than a 1955 Chevy and as
quickly as he entertained the idea, he brushed aside the notion.

The mere thought of owning a race car outside of the 1955 Bel-Air was
nothing short of blasphemy. For over three decades, he’s been
completely faithful to this particular breed of shoebox. Well, there
was that one tryst with a Pontiac Firebird, but that was just Carpenter
being a good southerner and helping out a friend while his new 1955
Chevy was under construction.

Other than the five-race stint, Carpenter has had eyes for only the double-nickel icon.

“My older brother raced a ’55, and when I went to the races with him as
a kid, the ‘55 was a popular car,” Carpenter explained, when asked why
the dedication to this one body style.  “When I became old enough to
drive, I bought the car from my brother since he was going through a
divorce and needed to get rid of it. The rest is history.”

South Georgia Motorsports
Park [SGMP] and Popular Internet Magazine Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com will join
forces for a third year in presenting the Eastern Spring Test Nationals, a
premiere test session the week prior to the NHRA Gatornationals, March 6 – 8.

This is the official news page for the event. 

Del Worsham has experienced disappointments before, but failing to
qualify at the NHRA CSK Nationals in Phoenix, Arizona was a bitter pill
to swallow. Rain abbreviated Funny Car qualifying to only two sessions
and while Worsham wasn’t looking for a home run, a pair of base hits
would have been sufficient. Instead, he went O-for-2.

One would have thought Worsham was the top qualifier with the amount of
race fans seeking an autograph behind his trailer. Just to think, if
he’d qualified for Sunday’s final eliminations, he might have missed
out on this opportunity for fan interaction.

“I still would've spent time with the fans, they’re great,” Worsham
said, while signing an autograph for an admiring young fan. “They offer
their condolences and let me know that they wished I would've qualified
but there will be another race and I realize that.  I felt terrible
Sunday morning, but I really felt bad Saturday night.  It's going to be
tough because we all know what's going on; we know this is a race and
not a gathering.”

Greg Anderson doesn’t publicize the fact he was out of drag racing in
the mid-1980s and didn’t plan on coming back. In fact, his return was
brought about by the coaxing of Kurt Johnson. The invitation from
Johnson enabled him to close a painful chapter in his life and begin a
new story as a crewman turned crew chief turned Pro Stock icon.

Anderson befriended low budget Pro Stock racer John Hagen in 1979 and
raced with him until the influential figure in his career lost his life
during an unfortunate accident during the 1983 NHRA Northstar Nationals
in Brainerd, Minnesota.

Anderson cherishes those memories and if asked, will tell, but the pain
prevents him from offering the subject. Instead, he’ll tell you that
he’ll try to remember. The facts are, he remembers them well,
unfortunately with the fond memories comes the horrific scene he
witnessed that August afternoon in 1983.

Frank Hawley attends every NHRA POWERade event so he figured
his time outside of tutoring drivers could be well spent re-acclimating
himself to the rigors of driving a nitro-burning Funny Car. The
two-time NHRA champion will run at select events in 2008 behind the
wheel of a Funny Car for team owners Mike Ashley and Roger Burgess.

One must take inventory of the factors that would inspire a successful
businessman such as Hawley to return to the demands of driving a fuel
car. After all, Hawley has won a world championship, established a
successful driving school and garners a respectable income as a driving
coach for several of the NHRA’s leading competitors.

One would simply ask, “Why?”

“Once you’re a racer I don't think that desire to get out and
compete ever leaves,” Hawley explained. “If given an opportunity, it's
pretty hard to turn down.  In spite of all the great things that I've
gotten to do, there's a little bit of curiosity too.”

Even the staunchest supporters of sanctioned Pro Street racing cannot
agree whether or not this one time drag racing trend is dead, but
they’re unanimous that it’s on life support. If death is near, the fast
street legal community will realize it when the National Muscle Car
Association (NMCA) heads into Bradenton, Florida for its first of seven
national events in 2008.

Maybe Pro Street Racing has seen its better days and maybe, Charlie
Harmon, President of ProMedia, producer of the NMCA events felt giving
the class one more season was necessary to leave no loose ends. What
might not be common knowledge is the fact that Harmon’s group came
close to pulling the plug on Pro Street, formerly the premiere
classification within the series.

“Not for 2008," Harmon said, when asked if Pro Street was dead. "To be
honest we considered it, but after we examined the implications, and
spoke to various racers and sponsors, we chose instead to concentrate
our efforts this year on resurrecting the class, not killing it. Pro
Street is what helped define our sport, and we feel we would have been
turning our backs on the foundation of street legal drag racing if we
would have eliminated it.

Every
Friday, Torco's CompetitionPlus.com brings you our Feedback letters.
Read what our readers have to say about our feature articles and you
can even offer your opinions.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY - FEBRUARY 15