Carolyn Melendy wonders sometimes if her place in drag racing history is destined to be one of the best kept secrets in the sport.

Twenty years ago, Melendy, now a Super Stock racer from Bayville, NJ, was Pro Modified’s first female driver.

Credit the late Vinny Napp, owner of Raceway Park with providing the inspiration, then Robby Vandergriff for leading her in the right direction.

The guts to go racing against some extremely hard core male drivers were Melendy’s, exclusively.

This transition usually goes the opposite direction.

Dave Connolly, a championship-contending Pro Stock driver from 2004-2008, returned to his bracket racing roots the past two seasons, but it wasn’t an easy switch, at least initially.

“Racing in the Sportsman class can be a little tough to take after racing Pro Stock,” the 27-year-old Connolly said. “I found myself going out there and kind of going through the motions last year. I really didn’t do that well in the Sportsman ranks and I kind of got on myself a little bit. I thought if I’m going to keep racing, I have to take this seriously. Those guys in the bracket racing and Sportsman racing they’ve just got tougher and tougher and the cars have got better and better.”

With the 2010 season about to start for the West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association, teams are getting ready for the Funny Car Fever at Sacramento Raceway Park, April 23 - 24, the first race of the year. Sacramento Raceway has also had some track updates done to the starting line surface over the last few weeks and many racers say that it is the nicest that Sacramento Raceway’s track/starting line has ever looked.

With the unpredictable weather this winter in California it has been a struggle for most teams to test. Drivers such as Rod Burbage, Jay Diedrich, Marc Meadors, Scott Bailey, Bret Williamson, Dan Myers, Tim Henry and Michael Irwin gained a reprieve and if the testing that was done is any indication to how the 2010 year will be for the West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod guys, it should be a great year of racing for the group.

The second stop of the season for the Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series takes place this weekend during the 23rd annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park. For past Pro Street world champion Troy Coughlin, this trip to the Lone Star State offers a chance to reel in his supercharged counterparts in the popular Pro Mod class, which became an official category this year.

"We saw some incredible numbers being posted at the first race in Gainesville (Fla.)," Coughlin said. "Some teams just blew the world record out of the water. That usually doesn't happen in drag racing. I mean, you'll see people gain a thousandth of a second here or there, but we saw improvements close to a tenth of second. It was remarkable.

"Our nitrous-powered JEGS.com Camaro is brand new and it was running pretty well but we have some work to do to catch up. We're a few hundredths off the top NOS racers, and they're almost nine hundredths off the best supercharged cars."

Quarter-mile Mountain Motor Pro Stock racing is still very much alive and is ready to hit the track again this coming weekend at Rockingham Dragway with the MMPSA’s inaugural event. John Montecalvo, who clinched his first ever IHRA Championship last fall at Rockingham, will be wearing the #1 in the MMPSA and looking to defend his reign as the quarter-mile champ.

“Rockingham Dragway is the place where I’ve had the most success,” told Monte. “The highlight of my career was winning the Championship there last fall, so now I think it’s only fitting to come back to Rockingham for the start of this new organization. Quarter-mile Mountain Motor racing is a longstanding and well-loved tradition in drag racing and I really think we racers need to make sure this type of racing continues for generations to come.”

The MMPSA kickoff is entitled ‘Rumble at the Rock’ and is the feature of Rockingham Dragway’s Civil Wars event, which is also host to Quick 8 and bracket races, a car show and a gigantic swap meet.

Tony Schumacher is heading to a track where he’s had success before. The multi-time champion has two wins to his credit at Houston Raceway Park, the most recent of which came last season.

“The win last year was pretty special,” he said. “It was the first victory with what was at the time my new team and crew chief (Mike Green). Of course, we went on to score four more wins and the world championship. But, it was the race at HRP that kick started everything.”

The list of panelists that will conduct the second RRDC/FIA Young Drivers Symposium in Long Beach, Calif., has been released. It includes a lineup of the sport's and industry's most distinguished experts.
 
The workshop, supported by a grant from the FIA Motor Sport Safety Development Fund, will take place on Saturday, April 17, at the Hilton Hotel, 701 West Ocean Blvd., in Long Beach, Calif., from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., during the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. It is open to drivers from all motorsports disciplines and there is no cost to attend. However, registration is required and space is limited. Participants are asked to register early at www.rrdc.org. All workshop materials, including a comprehensive workbook, will be provided.

The American Drag Racing League (ADRL) is pleased to announce that Hardee’s, the leader in the quick-serve industry in both quality and taste, has been named Official Fan Fuel of the ADRL and is returning for the third consecutive year as title sponsor of the next event on the ADRL’s 2010 tour, the ADRL Hardee’s Georgia Drags VI on April 23-24, at South Georgia Motorsports Park in Cecil, Georgia.

“Our sponsorship of the Hardee’s Georgia Drags for the past two years received such positive feedback from customers and employees alike that it was an easy decision to continue the relationship,” said Bobby Medlen, vice president of operations for Biscuits & Burgers, a Georgia Hardee’s franchisee. “We’re happy to be a part of bringing such action-packed entertainment to our fans.”

NHRA Funny Car driver Matt Hagan and ESPN stats guy Lewis Bloom will headline tonight's WFO Radio NHRA Tuesday with Joe Castello, live at 7 p.m. ET.  To listen live or on-demand, go to http://www.wforadio.com
 
Hagan, who drives the DieHard Dodge Charger Funny Car for Don Schumacher Racing, is coming off a fourth place finish in the inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at ZMax Dragway.  The second-year NHRA Full Throttle Series driver currently sits in fourth place in the NHRA Funny Car championship point standings.

Despite the hype, and no doubt in part because of rain, NHRA's Four-Wide Nationals didn't do much to move the ratings on ESPN2.
 
Saturday qualifying, in good weather, produced a 0.4 rating. That's the same as the average of last year's qualifying shows. The 0.4 translates to a household average of 409,000 and 556,000 viewers.