The month of May marks the monumental return of the American Hot Rod Association with two blowout events planned in the Lone Star State of Texas. Event tickets and competition pre-entries for the historic events are now available at www.AHRAdragracing.com.

Igniting the explosive action is the first-ever AHRA Nitro Showdown in Midland on May 15-16 at the new Desert Thunder Raceway, bringing a
display of Top Fuel, Pro Mod, Nitro Nostalgia cars and Jet Cars along with hundreds of sportsmen racers to the vast oil fields of northwest
Texas.

Sheikh Khalid Al Thani knows how to make the most of a test session.

Prior to the ADRL Georgia Drags this weekend, the Sheikh offered a free test session for his fellow racers, even going as far as retaining an emergency helicopter just in case something went wrong.

The Sheikh couldn’t have asked for a better test session on Friday as he blasted out the quickest run of the day with a 3.68 elapsed time at 206 miles per hour.

With one win already under its belt, the new Goodyear D2681, set to replace the D2550, will get a real workout today at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

SUNDAY - ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS!

Evidence of the Las Vegas area jobless rate – reported as being well up into double digits – was apparent both Friday and Saturday, when the spectator turnout at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was more than a little disappointing.  It appears that a lot of people saved their money for Sunday’s eliminations, which produced the largest crowd of the weekend.  Considering that most national events enjoy their largest crowds on Saturday (didn’t know that, did you?), one wonders if this is a turning point, with larger crowds for eliminations ahead for the balance of the year.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Strip is a magnificent facility in every way, but no matter how hard the track and the NHRA Safety Safari crews work to keep the traction sticky and the action moving forward, there’s not much they can do about excessive temperatures.  Yes, we’ve seen it hotter at previous Summitracing.com Nationals, but it was nevertheless pretty darn warm, and that made things tough on the tuners.

NHRA officials confirmed today they have sent out a directive to all of the Funny Cars teams regulating the location of the team body between qualifying and elimination rounds, and the location from which they can clean the clutches.

Mike Edwards is like a 1950's radio show – the hits keep coming. And, when they stop, he just drops another quarter in the juke box baby!

Nearly shut out at Houston, he lost in the semi-final round, Edwards rolled into Las Vegas ready to gamble, not on luck, but on the solid performance of his race team.

“My team, as the Interstate logo says, is outrageously dependable,” said Edwards, after running his way to the fourth win of the season in six events, 24th of his career in 44 final round appearances. “To come here and run the conditions that were 180 degrees different from Houston, to make the adjustments to make this car run like it did here – they did an awesome job.”

Tony Pedregon suffered his second major fire in as many races. Just one race after blowing the body off of his Funny Car during the NHRA Springnationals in Houston, the two-time Funny Car champion blazed up his flopper in the semi-finals against Del Worsham.

It was a near flawless day for Larry Dixon and the Al Anabi Top Fuel dragster in the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Dixon dispatched Steve Faria, Shawn Langdon and Doug Kalitta before squaring off again Cory McClenathan in the final round. McClenathan never had a chance. Dixon was out in front at the light and as McClenathan went up in tire smoke, Dixon cruised to his 51st career win with a 4.016 second, 313.37 mph pass.

The winningest driver in NHRA history, John Force, made more history at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He defeated former teammate and two-time world champion Tony Pedregon in the final round for his first Summitracing.com NHRA Nationals title and 129th national event win of his career. En route to the win Force defeated son-in-law Robert Hight, Houston winner Matt Hagan, and daughter Ashley Force Hood to reach the final.

Force faced a formidable foe in Pedregon in the final round. Even though Pedregon nearly burned his car in the semi-finals, the former Force Racing driver was at the line champing at the bit an hour later.

Melanie Troxel and the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car team have made a lot of progress during the first six races of the NHRA Full Throttle Series season.

After winning another elimination round Sunday and generally running well throughout this weekend's 11th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals, Troxel just hopes the team is able to land more funding so they don't have to break their momentum.