As expected, there were no changes atop the Pro Stock qualifying ladder.

Mike Edwards, the reigning world champ ran a 6.638-second time at 206.99 mph on Friday night and it held for him to grab the No. 1 qualifying spot.

The time and the mph were both Heartland Park track records. This is Edwards’ seventh pole of the season, 29th of his career and second in a row at Topeka. No one was a threat to unseat Edwards because of the windy and warm conditions Saturday.

When Antron Brown captured the No. 1 qualifying position in Top Fuel Friday night at the 22nd annual O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals, he thought it was going to stick.
He was right.

Brown’s 3.785-second time at 321.96 mph left him on the pole. Both are track records at Heartland Park. It was also was the sixth fastest speed at 1,000 foot since the NHRA moved to that distance from the quarter-mile in July of 2008.

Those numbers were not challenged because of the hot and windy conditions Saturday.

Things couldn’t be going much better of late for Robert Hight.

The reigning Funny Car world champ won at St. Louis and Commerce, Ga., and then captured the pole Saturday at Topeka with his 4.095-second effort at 308.21 mph on Friday night. Both are track records.

Those numbers were untouchable Saturday because of the hot and windy conditions.

Consider Paul Taylor and Billy Stocklin as the ADRL’s merchants of speed and performance, at least for this weekend at the ADRL U.S. Drags III in Richmond, Va.

“He provides the horsepower and I manage the horsepower,” Stocklin told ADRL.us.

The duo of crew chief and team manager, respectively, put both members of their two car team into the record books as the new Pro Extreme elapsed time and speed record holders.

If the ADRL U.S. Drags III event was staged in Las Vegas, Brian Gahm would have had long shot odds.

Gahm, the 2009 ADRL Extreme Pro Stock series runner-up, opened the first qualifying session with a tire-rattling aborted run which left him unqualified. The second session was no better. By the end of the day he was a paltry 14th, well below the past champion’s standards.

Gahm and crew chief Cliff Moore checked, double checked and triple checked every nook and cranny of the team’s Mustang. Obviously the car had an abundance of horsepower and the chassis combination appeared to be on the up and up.

Quain Stott is teaching lessons to the Bush Motorsports team from top to bottom. From the driver down to the guy adjusting the valves on the engine.

“Everybody’s got their own way of doing it so I have a system to where you can’t forget,” said Stott, prior to Friday’s qualifying at the ADRL U.S. Drags in Richmond, Va., of his valve adjusting methods.

Stott, the new tuner for the Mel Bush-owned car driven by Tommy D’Aprile, is busy putting his stamp on the team.

Billy Glidden learned barn finds can be pretty cool.

Billy, while poking around the back of his Whiteland, Ind.-based race shop, found a pair of old valve covers his dad used to run back in the day. Back in the day, in this instance, was 1982 when his father, Bob Glidden, the 10-time Pro Stock champion, converted his small-block engine program over to 500-cubic inches.

When Ron Capps and Matt Hagan made a side-by-side run in the first qualifying session Friday, both Don Schumacher Racing Funny Cars had the same problem. Capps’ NAPA Auto Parts Dodge had its parachute come out a few moments after he left the starting line. Then, basically a second later, Hagan’s parachute on his Diehard Charger also came out.

This season, Pro Stock driver Larry Morgan made the switch from Dodge to Ford, and it hasn’t been a smooth transition.

The veteran pilot has failed to qualify in five races this season, including four in a row.

This weekend at the 22nd annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan., Morgan is optimistic his countless engine woes in his Lucas Oil Mustang will vanish.