Rodger Brogdon and the Attitude Apparel / Kent Services & trucking team will roll into Bandimere Speedway for this week’s NHRA Mopar Mile High Nationals looking to have a weekend as special as last year’s event was.

“This time last year we were beginning to get our feet under us as we were working our way through our first full year of Pro Stock racing,” commented Brogdon. “And we knew we had a pretty good car coming in. The 6 second barrier was still an obstacle in the thin, mile high air of Bandimere Speedway, yet everyone felt going in that 2009 was the year the mark would be broken. Once qualifying was completed we were one of the 6 cars that broke into that magic zone last year and as such we ended up #6 qualifier, our best effort yet as a new team.”

“Race day at the 2009 event found us coming up on the short end of a holeshot loss to Rickie Jones and while that loss was a bitter pill to swallow, we also rolled out of Denver knowing that we were continuing to make progress. This year’s event finds us in much the same position as we are continuing to develop our new chassis set up. We’ve made numerous changes since our crash in St. Louis and our crew chief change in Bristol and we’re continuing to refine that setup. In Seattle we learned some things that worked, yet in Sonoma we went back a couple of steps, but isn’t that how you make progress in this class?”

Fresh off a victory in Northern California's wine country, five-time world champion drag racer Jeg Coughlin Jr. arrives at Denver's Bandimere Speedway confident he's got a car that can win again.

"We had a helluva race in Sonoma," Coughlin said. "From the time we got there until I pulled the 'chutes in the final round Sunday afternoon everything went extremely well for us. The plan is to keep that momentum going at Bandimere.

"We approached the race with a slightly more aggressive tune-up with the thinking that we want to have this JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt perfect for the start of the Countdown to 1, which is just around the corner. Obviously, we feel much better after taking the win and now the goal is to keep ourselves at that top level."

When the team from Attitude's CompetitionPlus.com descends on an event, the primary goal is to convey to the readers, the intensity and inside stories from an event. Just as our talented reporting team searches high and low for the scoops, our lensmen wait patiently for those explosive shots. Here's a few samples from what proved to be an expensive NHRA Fram Autolite Nationals in Sonoma, Ca., for some racers.

The rivalry between Pro Stock Motorcycle riders Michael Phillips and Matt Smith has blown up into an intense feud.

On Sunday, Phillips beat Smith in the second round of the Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals. Following his win, Phillips’ feelings about Smith became apparent in an interview with NHRA announcer Al Reinhart.

“We’re out here just trying to go rounds,” Phillips said. “Matt’s got a little racial issue with me, but I’m not worried about it, he can’t get me out of my game.”

The celebration of Mark Niver's life will take place Friday, July 30, at 7 p.m. at Scottsdale Airpark, 15100 N. 78th Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85260. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Racers For Christ (P.O. Box 1208, Gilbert, AZ 85299-1208) or The Phoenix Rescue Mission (P.O. Box 63005, Phoenix, AZ 85082-3005).

For Corning, Calif. NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Katie Sullivan, racing this weekend at the 31st running of the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo. is a prime opportunity to improve over last week’s lack-luster performance in Sonoma, Calif.

The 19-year old NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle sophomore enters the event after failing to qualify at her home-town race, last weekend at the Fram-Autolite NHRA Nationals contested at Infineon Raceway. Sullivan was only able to muster an event best 7.318 second elapsed time recorded in Friday night’s second qualifying session due to electrical problems encountered the entire weekend. Be that as it may, Sullivan is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to race in the rare-air of Bandimere Speedway.

The Inaugural ADRL Texas Drags is fast approaching. This doubleheader weekend will certainly provide lots of action and Pete Berner hopes that part of that action will be to bring his efforts in Extreme Pro Stock to fruition.

The annual North Central Division Lucas Oil Series event at National Trail Raceway will once again feature a host of familiar yellow and black race cars as the JEGS Mail Order team descends on their home track en masse. The event, which is the fifth of six events on the 2010 NHRA North Central Division schedule, will include  John Coughlin racing in Comp and Top Dragster, Troy Coughlin Jr. in Super Comp, and no less than three JEGS entries in the Jr. Dragster class with cousins Cody and Jack Coughlin, being joined by their niece, McKenna Brown.
           
“We will be very busy this weekend, that’s for sure,” said John Coughlin, the reigning Division 3 Top Dragster champion. “I’m pretty excited to be racing here at National Trail Raceway again. This is our home track and our team has always done well here. We recently made some changes to my Comp car in an effort to get it to go straighter and make it more consistent. Our engine builder, Jeff Taylor, along with our crew, Greg Cody, Tony Collier and Rick Rossiter have been working with my dad [Jeg Sr.] and they have made a lot of improvements to this car. We not only worked on the chassis but we’ve also found more horsepower so I’m really excited to try it out. We’re going to test on Wednesday before the race so we should be very well prepared.