Alex Hossler, the veteran driver from Illinois who clocked the quickest eighth-mile passenger car elapsed time in drag racing history at 3.534 seconds on January 25, shattered that mark and claimed the fastest speed ever recorded with an astonishing 3.518-second blast at an incredible 215.68 miles per hour  during Wednesday's final test session for this week's penultimate event in the 2013 Arabian Drag Racing League International Championships. Ironically, Hossler had lost the title of World's Quickest Pro Extreme Driver on Tuesday when rival Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor unleashed a 3.529-second blast which, for a mere twenty-four hours, stood as the new record.

Hossler, who accurately predicted to CompetitionPlus.com his earlier 3.534 pass would probably not survive the series as the global standard for Pro Extreme Eliminator, made no test passes until Wednesday this week in Sheikh Khalid al-Thani's famed maroon Al-Anabi supercharged 1969 Camaro. Opening with a shut-off run on which the car recorded an elapsed time of 0.900 seconds in the first sixty feet, crewchief Frank "Ace" Manzo and team consultant Billy Stocklin later tuned the new Jerry Bickel Race Cars Chevy to a 3.542 at a career-best 213.64 mph. A third attempt in atmospheric conditions of a mere 86 feet above seal level resulted in a 3.530; the run was within one thousandth of a second of Taylor's new 3.529 record but came with the fastest speed ever recorded at 214.96 mph to erase Taylor's 212.42 best posted on January 17. Finally, Hossler staged for a fourth shot in virtually perfect conditions of 62 degrees, a track temperature of 80 degrees and a corrected elevation of eight feet below sea level. The result was an indescribable 3.518 at an amazing 215.68 miles per hour.

Alex Hossler, the veteran driver from Illinois who clocked the quickest eighth-mile passenger car elapsed time in drag racing history at 3.534 seconds on January 25, shattered that mark and claimed the fastest speed ever recorded with an astonishing 3.518-second blast at an incredible 215.68 miles per hour  during Wednesday's final test session for this week's penultimate event in the 2013 Arabian Drag Racing League International Championships. Ironically, Hossler had lost the title of World's Quickest Pro Extreme Driver on Tuesday when rival Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor unleashed a 3.529-second blast which, for a mere twenty-four hours, stood as the new record.

Hossler, who accurately predicted to CompetitionPlus.com his earlier 3.534 pass would probably not survive the series as the global standard for Pro Extreme Eliminator, made no test passes until Wednesday this week in Sheikh Khalid al-Thani's famed maroon Al-Anabi supercharged 1969 Camaro. Opening with a shut-off run on which the car recorded an elapsed time of 0.900 seconds in the first sixty feet, crewchief Frank "Ace" Manzo and team consultant Billy Stocklin later tuned the new Jerry Bickel Race Cars Chevy to a 3.542 at a career-best 213.64 mph. A third attempt in atmospheric conditions of a mere 86 feet above seal level resulted in a 3.530; the run was within one thousandth of a second of Taylor's new 3.529 record but came with the fastest speed ever recorded at 214.96 mph to erase Taylor's 212.42 best posted on January 17. Finally, Hossler staged for a fourth shot in virtually perfect conditions of 62 degrees, a track temperature of 80 degrees and a corrected elevation of eight feet below sea level. The result was an indescribable 3.518 at an amazing 215.68 miles per hour.

The maroon Camaro covered the first sixty feet in 0.898 seconds and the first 330 feet in a record 2.369 seconds. The "backhalf" of the run, (the elapsed time between the 330-feet mark and the 660-feet finish line), was also the quickest ever at 1.149. The speed was 1.26 miles per hour faster than Taylor's best and 3.19 mph faster than the World Record prior to the start of the Arabian series. In four weeks of racing, the fabulous surface of the Qatar Racing Club track near the capitol city of Doha has produced the nine quickest elapsed times and fifteen fastest speeds in passenger car drag racing history. In the same period since January 8, a total of twenty runs have included elapsed times quicker than Frankie Taylor's American record of 3.577 seconds.

After winning the second event in the five-race Arabian series, Hossler fell to a supercharger drive failure in last week's final round against Taylor. With four rounds of eliminations remaining in the 2013 Arabian Series, Taylor leads Hossler by one and a half rounds in the point standings of a championship which pays $27,000 to the winner.

Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor did not participate in Wednesday's final test session. Although Taylor won the opening event on January 18, a variety of mechanical problems slowed his efforts in the second race. Taylor rebounded with a victory in the third of five contests despite making runs far slower his 3.55-second potential demonstrated early in the month. For Tuesday's record-shattering blast, Taylor's crewchief and brother, Paul, returned the team's supercharged Jeffers Race Cars-built 2006 Corvette to the same configuration used in the first series event during which the car ran a best of 3.559 seconds. Using a conservative launch, (rather than the violent combination which produced a record sixty-feet elapsed time of 0.874 seconds later in the series on January 30), Taylor clocked 0.897 in the first sixty feet followed by a career-best 2.375 seconds at 330 feet. The finish line numbers, 3.529 seconds at 213.50 mph, certainly indicates there is more to be gained for Taylor in the first two seconds of the run.

Incredibly, the run was anything but perfect. The yellow Chevy used up quite a bit of the racetrack causing Frankie to exclaim, "If it woulda gone straighter, it woulda been faster!". Of note was the fact the run included a "backhalf", (the elapsed time between the 330-feet mark and the 660-feet finish line), of 1.154, no quicker than on his 3.559 pass on January 18. His 2.375 ET at 330 feet is still six thousandths of a second slower than Hossler's best elapsed time at half-track. "Our car just loves this torque converter!", said  an ecstatic Cindy Taylor, Frankie's wife and team manager, referring to the Neal Chance unit the team put back in the automatic transmission after being replaced for the second event. "The second converter we used is very finicky and needs more testing but, since we're very limited on parts over here in Qatar, we decided we'd test that converter more when we get back to the United States".

The Tennessee team of Von Smith in Howard Moon, whose new Bickel-built "Rage" '69 Camaro was runner-up in the second series race with a best-ever 3.555/212.43, struggled through most of the week but was positively elated by the return to the track Wednesday of team member Terry Hope who suffered a heart attack in the QRC pit area during qualifying on January 31. "It looks like I am going to have to make some changes in how I lead my life", said Hope after the incident. "I have never been more scared of something in my life than I was on Friday. The doctors want to check a few more things but, so far, I've been extremely lucky. There was not enough arterial blockage that I needed a stent".

Smith and Moon posted a 3.56/210.70 test run on Monday which included a phenomenal, (and career-best), 0.887 "sixty". However, the duo has been chasing an electrical gremlin which kept the top speeds of the new Al Anabi team car suspiciously low. "We're really not sure what's going on", said an obviously concerned Smith after the Monday pass. "Since the 3.56 run...in fact, even on the 3.56 run...the engine has developed an electrical 'miss' on the top end. Now, on every attempt since we discovered the 'miss', it gets worse. We've replaced every ignition item on the car! It's extremely frustrating". Using multiple test passes on Wednesday, Moon apparently found the problem and clocked another 3.56 but at a career-best 212.93 mph. Said Smith, "The 'miss' is gone but now we have to start all over trying to manage a lot more power!".

Likewise, Joey Martin has been working to improve the performance of the new Garrett Race Cars-constructed '69 Yenko Camaro of the Al Anabi team which the Florida star was recruited to drive for the 2013 Arabian series. With two perfect 0.000 Reaction Times, a best of 3.61/210.83 and a stunning 0.885 "sixty" in testing, Martin opened the QRC season with a runner-up to Taylor on January 18. Since then, however, Martin admits, "I've been sucking, We tried a different converter on Tuesday and had a string of great 'sixties' with a best of 0.897 but we still didn't get down the track. For testing on Wednesday, I'm going back to what I know". On Wednesday, Martin posted a best "sixty" of 0.894 seconds but no complete eighth-mile passes.

Billy Vose, the multi-time U.S. champion in Pro Extreme Motorcycle, finds himself in a dead heat for the 2013 Arabian point Championship despite missing the second event of the series when he was called home to the U.S. due to family issues. During the Arabian winter series which includes stops at the fabulous Yas Marina facility at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and the Bahrain International Circuit, Vose recorded a fabulous 3.98-second run which puts within reach the 3.964-second American record set by Ashley Owens in September, 2011. Back in Qatar for the February 1 event, Vose reset the QRC record with three consecutive 4.02 blasts at over 176 mph.

During Tuesday testing aboard Mohammed Bourashid's Kuwait-based MRB Performance Suzuki, Vose pounded out a 4.03 at only 160 mph. However, the fastest PXM rider ever, (180.77 mph in the U.S.), admitted the pass was on its way to being far quicker. "On the run, I had to get off the throttle way early because a nitrous oxide fogger nozzle got turned in the cylinder head and leaned out a cylinder. It still coasted to a 4.03 at 160, but the 330-feet time, (2.62 seconds), was quicker than on my 3.98 pass earlier this season in Bahrain". Vose's point rival in the series, Meshal al-Saber's Kuwait Hayabusa, ran a Tuesday best of 4.08 seconds. On Wednesday, Vose tuned Bourashid to a 4.09/173.52 which included a phenomenal "sixty" of 1.009 seconds.

Todd Tutterow, who leads the Outlaw 10.5 Eliminator point championship by five rounds with only six rounds of competition remaining, posted the quickest elapsed time yet recorded in testing at a blistering 3.987 seconds at 192.49 mph on Wednesday. While the Outlaw 10.5 entries are not weighed to confirm the required 3000 pounds minimum weight, it was the second time the supercharged Al Anabi team 2010 Corvette has dipped below four seconds during the Arabian season in the test periods. Tutterow set the official series record at 4.019 seconds during last week's third consecutive event victory.

Mike Castellana, whose Shannon Jenkins-tuned Al Anabi 2012 Camaro has dominated Pro Nitrous Eliminator competition, continued to suffer problems on Wednesday. The new Rick Jones Race Cars mount clocked incredible 3.721/200.74 World Records en route to winning the first two events but developed control issues during last week's program while scoring a runner-up to rival Khalid al-Balooshi's blue-and-silver SpeedTech '68 Camaro. On Wednesday, a trio of drivers dipped under 3.8 seconds. While United Arab Emirates star al-Balooshi posted a 3.799/197.74 best, it was South Carolinian Stevie "Fast" Jackson who wheeled an Al Anabi team '68 Camaro to a career-best 3.794/193.63. Bahrain's Khalid Abdulla, whose red E-Kanoo '68 Camaro recently clocked 3.82-second, 242 mph quarter-mile numbers in its home country, produced a career-best 3.796/197.22. Also of note was the career-best 3.806/196.30 by UAE racer Sultan al-Zaabi in his blue Qatar Racing Club '68 Camaro.

Qualifying for the fourth event in the 2013 Arabian Drag Racing League International Championship event begins Thursday, February 7, with eliminations on Friday, February 8. Competition Plus will present updates and complete coverage.

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