If Michael Phillips proved anything Friday night at the Mile-High Nationals it is that he is not easily distracted.

On Wednesday his feud with fellow Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Matt Smith intensified amid allegations of racial prejudice by Phillips and Smith calling Phillips a cheater.

Phillips, who won the Fram-Autolite Nationals last Sunday in Sonoma, responded by capturing the provisional pole Friday night at the Mile-High Nationals in grand fashion.

The feud between Michael Phillips and Matt Smith is a hot topic in the Pro Stock Motorcycle pits.

The rivalry intensified to a new level this week amid an allegation of racial prejudice and cheating.

Smith believes Phillips is cheating namely because Smith thinks Phillips can’t legitimately make the power he’s making with the motors he is buying from Vance & Hines.

Last Sunday at the Fram-Autolite Nationals at Sonoma, Calif., Phillips won the event and during his semifinal victory over Eddie Krawiec, Phillips also set a new national speed record for Pro Stock Motorcycles at 197.65 mph. Phillips then beat Andrew Hines in the finals.

With his left-side headers acting like outriggers, towering showers of sparks flew behind Jason Scruggs’ ’68 Camaro as he struggled to keep it from crossing into Terry Leggett’s lane during their third Pro Extreme qualifying attempts for the inaugural ADRL Texas Drags.

Here are the very first production images of the first-ever Mopar ’10 Challenger.

Mike Edwards and Allen Johnson have been like Siamese twins during qualifying lately. One tosses up a number and the other matches it.

Edwards, in his Penhall/K&N/Interstate GXP, drew blood in the first round of qualifying, but it was Johnson, in the Mopar/J & J Racing Avenger, who took the top spot at the end of the day in the cooling temperatures of a setting sun by a scant one thousandth of a second – 7.020 to 7.021 seconds. Johnson also had the fastest speed at 197.19 miles per hour.

“The conditions got a lot better,” Johnson explained. “I think the track temperature was 20 degrees cooler. (We) just put some gear ratio in there, revved it up and got after it. (The) track is pretty awesome.”

Last Sunday in Sonoma (Ca.), Antron Brown’s race day ended abruptly.

Brown, who drives the Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster, was upset by Terry McMillen in the first round.

Brown’s Don Schumacher Racing crew obviously has a short memory.

Brown rebounded to take the provisional pole Friday night at the Mile-High Nationals in Morrison, Colo., with a 3.961-second pass at 286.19 mph.

John Force raced to the qualifying lead in Funny Car Friday at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway near Denver.

Season points leader Force powered his Castrol GTX High-Mileage Ford Mustang to a 4.191-second run at 296.76 mph to move into position to claim his fifth No. 1 at this event, fourth of the season and 135th of his career. Qualifying continues Saturday with two sessions that will set the field for Sunday’s 11 a.m. eliminations.

“We really choked it down on the first run just to make it go A to B to see what would happen,” Force said. “At half-track I’m thinking, ‘This is almost embarrassing.’ But the crew chiefs are making the decisions and it’s very critical to get down there. Coming into this race No. 1 in the points put us at the rear of the pack [in the first session] and allowed us to watch the rest, then that run put us low and put us at the rear of the pack [in the second session] to watch the rest. (Del) Worsham stepped up and ran a great number, then we went out and did it and got it on speed.”

Frankie “Mad Man” Taylor has already put his brand-spanking-new, Larry Jeffers-built  ’05 Corvette through the spin cycle after adding it to his racing stable just a week ago.

The ADRL Pro Extreme ET record holder found an ignition problem in the car that surfaced only during the hard acceleration of a launch, so yesterday, just one day prior to the big double-race weekend at Houston Raceway Park, Taylor and crew visited nearby Houston Motorsports Park for a quick shakedown. Trouble was, the track was soaked with rain.

Gary Gardella, an Import Drag Racer hailing from Jackson, New Jersey, was taking Import Drag Racing by storm in 2007.

A champion that year, with backing from Red Bull, Dupont, and General Motors, it looked like he and his team would be contenders in drag racing for years to come.

Unfortunately, near the end of the same year, everything changed.

After about a decade-long run, with the National Import Drag Racing (NIRA) series its predecessor, the NHRA folded their sport compact division, leaving Nopi, a rival series with similar rules and regulations, the lone series in the discipline. But, only a few months later, Nopi folded, leaving all competitors seemingly out in the cold.

Joshua Smith is your typical seven year old boy.

He has a favorite football team in the Washington Redskins and a relentless admiration for cartoon superheroes. He is the grandson of Pro Stock crewman Gary Futrell, a member of Robert Patrick’s team.

He also has a brain tumor; categorized as Glioblastoma Multiforme, it is one of the most aggressive of brain tumors.