Ashley Force Hood, the first woman to win drag racing’s most important Funny Car event and one of America’s most popular drivers, will be the Newsmaker of the Week on The Race Reporters radio show, Wednesday, March 17, 7 p.m. EDT, on www.PowerUpChannel.com.

Force Hood finished second in last season’s NHRA Full Throttle standings, with two wins in the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang. One of those victories came at the U.S. Nationals, the series’ most prestigious race. The daughter of 14-time Funny Car champion John Force also advanced to six other final rounds and had six No. 1 qualifying runs. She was NHRA’s top rookie in 2007.

This will be Force Hood’s second appearance on The Race Reporters, the top-rated program on the PowerUp Channel.

Ashley Force Hood, the first woman to win drag racing’s most important Funny Car event and one of America’s most popular drivers, will be the Newsmaker of the Week on The Race Reporters radio show, Wednesday, March 17, 7 p.m. EDT, on www.PowerUpChannel.com.

Force Hood finished second in last season’s NHRA Full Throttle standings, with two wins in the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang. One of those victories came at the U.S. Nationals, the series’ most prestigious race. The daughter of 14-time Funny Car champion John Force also advanced to six other final rounds and had six No. 1 qualifying runs. She was NHRA’s top rookie in 2007.

This will be Force Hood’s second appearance on The Race Reporters, the top-rated program on the PowerUp Channel.

Host Michael Knight will be joined for the journalists’ roundtable by Holly Cain, of AOL Online Sports and AOL Fanhouse; and Corinne Economaki, president and publisher of National Speed Sport News.

The Race Reporters can be heard “live,” downloaded into an iPod, or accessed for listening on a delayed basis by clicking on the show icon at www.PowerUpChannel.com. Listeners can bookmark the show and sign-up to receive a free “E card” with news on upcoming guests, at the show’s home page, http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1549 . The show also re-airs several times later in the week (check PowerUp’s daily programming listing.)

Knight is a 40-year motorsports industry insider and award-winning publicist and journalist. The one-hour show’s format is a “good, hard, honest, Constitutionally-protected conversation on the issues of the day.” Previous Newsmaker guests have included Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty, John Force, Ashley Force Hood, Dario Franchitti, Joey Logano, Gil de Ferran, Tony Schumacher, Brad Keselowski, Scott Pruett, Adrian Fernandez, Graham Rahal, Larry Dixon, Ron Capps, Antron Brown, Robby Gordon, Hurley Haywood, AJ Allmendinger, Bob Tasca III, Terry Angstadt, Scott Atherton, John Daly and Chris Economaki.

PowerUpChannel.com was launched last June by VoiceAmerica.com, the largest producer of original Internet talk radio programming in the world.

For more information on The Race Reporters, go to: http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1549 .

The Race Reporters podcast on iTunes