Four winners walked away with big paychecks after last weekend’s Thunder Valley Bracket Challenge at Bristol Dragway.

Chad Hedgecock of Loudon defeated Milton’s Chad McKee on Thursday to take home the top prize. Hedgecock’s winning run included a .013 reaction time, with a 4.724 elapsed time (4.71 dial-in) at 141.68 mph. McKee ran a little faster than his dial-in (4.754 E.T. on a 4.76 dial) to receive the disqualification.

Jason Lynch of Pleasant View earned Friday’s victory at the Bracket Challenge. Lynch defeated Sevierville’s Carrol Click with a .006 R.T. and a 5.314 second run (5.29 dial-in) at 127.01 mph. Click’s losing effort had a .015 R.T. and a 4.726 E.T. (4.71 dial-in).

Extended winning streaks in the ultra-competitive world of NHRA Funny Car racing are very rare.

The competition is simply too tough.

In a single Funny Car season, the most consecutive races ever won is five. The three drivers in the history of NHRA competition who have accomplished that feat are widely recognized as three of the sport’s greatest champions: Don Prudhomme (1976), Cruz Pedregon (1992) and John Force (1993 and 1994). Another NHRA legend, Kenny Bernstein, won four in a row in 1987. Force also won four in a row in the 2000 season.

Those four drivers are the most successful Funny Car racers in the history of the sport, accounting for 24 world championship titles since 1975.

Cory McClenathan, driver of the FRAM Top Fuel Dragster in the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series, will participate in a charity softball game on June 3 in Indianapolis, in memory of his young friend Caroline Symmes, who passed away from cancer at the age of 5 last December.

Gates will open at 5 p.m. for the Tony Stewart Foundation Presents the Caroline Symmes Memorial Celebrity Softball Challenge, benefiting the Indiana Children's Wish Fund, at Victory Field in Indy. Besides McClenathan, Colts all-pro defensive end Robert Mathis and Pacers forward Roy Hibbert will join a group of other local Indianapolis celebrities to play in the event.

Mother Nature put an end to the racing action this past weekend for the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series and the LORDCO B.C. Nationals at Mission Raceway Park.  NHRA and track officials finally postponed and re-scheduled the event on Monday morning with rain continuing to fall in Mission.

Top Alcohol Funny Car will complete their elimination rounds at the NHRA Full Throttle National event July 9-11 at Pacific Raceways outside of Seattle during qualifying for the NHRA Northwest Nationals.  The Sportsman Motorcycle class presented by Harley Davidson along with Super Pro will run eliminations on July 24 at the Mission Raceway National Open event.  All remaining classes including Top Alcohol Dragster will complete the event on Thursday, August 19, prior the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Olympics of Drag Racing event at Pacific Raceways.

If you're in the Carolinas on the weekend of June 4 - 6 and you're looking for some hot doorslammer racing, then make the trip down to Organgeburg Dragstrip for the second scheduled stop on George Howard and Roy Hill's OutlawDoorslammer Series. This event will be sponsored by Attitude's CompetitionPlus.com and presented by Hooters.

Melanie Troxel's competitive day at the FIA Main Event at Santa Pod Raceway was short, but she didn't leave the fans disappointed.

After losing in the first round of eliminations, Troxel returned for an exhibition run where her R2B2 Racing Camaro ran the fastest Pro Mod pass in European drag racing history -- a stunning 5.937 at 242.42 mph. Aside from the historic speed, her elapsed time was just the second five-second run on European soil.

The pass was the cherry on top of an interesting racing adventure for Troxel and team members Al Billes, Jim Elliott, Daren Mayer, Johnny Maguda, Mark Savage, Travis Rice, and Craig Wack, who all made the trip across the Atlantic.

Bob Yonke wants to become a killer—on the starting line, at least.

Back in the mid-‘80s, Yonke was a defensive-minded shooting guard for the Emporia State University Hornets basketball team, a position that taught him a lot that still applies to his new role as a first-year NHRA Pro Stock driver.

“From an individual standpoint, basketball’s a game of concentration and from a team standpoint you’ve got to get along with others and understand what they bring to the table, what their strengths and weaknesses are, just like a drag racing team, whether they’re driving, or setting the clutch, or adjusting the four-link, or tuning the carburetors,” said Yonke, who after nine races this season has made it to a pair of final rounds (Phoenix and Charlotte), but also suffered five first-round losses and a couple of DNQs.

Bill Reichert and Frank Manzo led this weekend’s winners for the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series at Maple Grove Raceway.  Both are the current NHRA Lucas Oil National Champions and Reichert of Owosso, Mich., is also the defending event champion in Top Alcohol Dragster.

Reichert qualified No. 4 and took out Arthur Gallant, Boxboro, Mass., and Dan Mercier, Laprairie, Quebec. in rounds one and two before meeting up with John Finke in the final round.  Reichert ran his best pass of the weekend at 5.369 seconds, 268.06 for the win while Finke had trouble and slowed to a 9.820 second pass.

Manzo, Morganville, N.J., qualified No. 1 and ran low elapsed time of each round posting laps of 5.58, 5.56, and 5.56 during eliminations.  Manzo’s 5.568-second, 259.81 mph run gave him the win over Thomas Carter, Cuero, Texas, in the final of Top Alcohol Funny Car.

In the final results from Thunder at the Lakes event at Brainerd International Raceway and the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, Chris Demke, Sunland, Calif., and Kirk Williams, Glenwood, Iowa, took home the wins in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car respectively.
Demke worked his way through the field and ran 5.375 seconds at 269.83 mph in his final round victory over Scott Palmer, Marionville, Mo., who clocked in at 5.686 seconds, 235.93 mph.

The 2010 Rockabilly Rod Reunion/NHRA Heritage Series weekend at The Las Vegas Motor Speedway now is history and Tim Boychuk is celebrating all the way back to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, after winning the Nitro Nostalgia Funny Car final over Utah’s Steve Macklyn. Boychuck qualified fourth in a field of 25 entries to make the eight-car cutoff. Boychuk blazed the quarter mile in the first round of eliminations – 5.777 sec./247.20 mph – despite the fact that his opponent, Mark Sanders of Maple Valley, Wash. fouled on the starting line. In the second round, Boychuk put Steve Rajcic and the L.A. Hooker Plymouth Arrow on the trailer with a pass of 5.87 sec./240.38 mph.