NHRA Drag racing is on the brink of a historical moment.

The NHRA is hosting the inaugural Four-Wide Nationals Thursday through Sunday at zMax Dragway in Concord, N.C. This is the first time in the modern era of drag racing Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars will race in four-wide competition at an NHRA national event.

Not lost in the excitement of the upcoming event is if the NHRA is going to push the envelope even farther.

Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, had a choice to make. He could venture to Italy with his lovely wife, on a rare weekend off from the grueling 38-race Sprint Cup schedule or he could haul his Super Gas car to Sonoma.

He's going to Italy. But, he's not giving up on drag racing.

Irwin Tools will be the primary sponsor of veteran Top Fuel driver Doug Herbert for 2010 NHRA races taking place at zMax Dragway, just outside of Charlotte, NC.

Herbert will first showcase the famous blue and yellow colors of Irwin Tools on his “Top Fuel” dragster this weekend during the inaugural NHRA 4-Wide Nationals. He will will continue his association during the NHRA Carolina Nationals taking place September 16-19, 2010.

“Our team is really excited to kick off this program with Irwin Tools,” said Herbert, a 10-time winner in the NHRA. “This is Irwin’s first venture into NHRA, so we want to make them proud. Irwin has a great history of winning in motorsports, so our hope is to continue that tradition. Irwin’s tools are simply the best, and I am proud to be going to zMax Dragway this weekend to fight for the win with the Irwin colors on our dragster.”

Creating drag racing history will generate more than the average share of challenges, according to the NHRA’s leading professional drivers scheduled to participate in this weekend’s NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway in Concord, NC.

This will be the first national event in NHRA history in which teams will compete in four lanes instead of the traditional two. Drag racing’s basic rules will be in place, except this time four professional vehicles will roll to the starting line for each round.

All four will perform their burnouts side-by-side-by-side-by-side and launch the same in each qualifying session and elimination round; Sunday’s eliminations will consist of three rounds instead of the traditional four.

Like many others, I was looking forward to a weekend of great racing in Houston at ADRL’s season opener after a cold and dreary winter.  However, Mother Nature had other plans for us.  I was planning to spend the weekend with Pro Extreme Motorcycle World Champ Scott Gray but since our weekend was cut short and I want to do his story justice, I’ve arranged to hang with their team in Valdosta.  Instead I will just write about some

Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher spent part of Wednesday morning sitting in a race car, talking to drivers and touring the garage area.

But the smell of nitromethane wasn’t in the air. Instead, there was the smell of high-octane Sunoco racing gasoline as Schumacher wandered around the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage during testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Schumacher spoke with team owner/driver Tony Stewart and even crawled in Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet.

“Those machines are pretty awesome,” Schumacher said. “I told Tony, ‘I’m lighter. I could go around that track, too.’ The only problem I have is the ADD. I get around the second turn, and I start looking at the squirrels and stuff.”

Rhonda Hartman-Smith will compete this weekend at the inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Concord, NC.

Hartman Motorsports, teamed up with Hartley Racing, is excited about being a part of the first ever Four-Wide National event.

“We have been working on different sponsorship opportunities to get us back out on the track this season and with this race being so close to home it seemed like the perfect opportunity to entertain some of them and showcase our abilities, ” said Hartman-Smith.  “The Hartley’s are a great family-oriented team so it was a perfect fit for us to combine our efforts.   We are working towards having a multi-car team in future years and we would like to see Joe and Allen being a part of that.”

NHRA announced today that it will “unleash” ticket sales in a few weeks for its newest major attraction, NHRA Unleashed, a celebration of pure American horsepower, coming to an NHRA facility near you this summer.

 The first of four inaugural NHRA Unleashed events will be held June 11-13 at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga. Tickets for this historic event will go on sale April 3rd.  Disrupt/ive Studios, the producers of the hit TV show “PINKS ™”, will produce a television series celebrating every aspect of these exciting events, highlighting the passion and lifestyle of NHRA competitors and fans.

They were celebrating in the Team Aruba pit Friday night. By Saturday, the party was still going strong despite the rains that washed out the ADRL Universal Technical Institute Dragpalooza at Houston Raceway Park.

Friday's celebration was in recognition of the March 18, 1986 independence of the island country from the Netherlands. Saturday's was in recognition
of Trevor Eman's best ever qualifying effort in his Extreme Pro Stock '06 Ford Escort. He concluded qualifying as the fifth quickest with a 4.09 elapsed time at 177.30 miles per hour.

"We were making better and faster runs every time we made it to the starting line," said Eman, who is in his sophomore year of driving Extreme Pro Stock.

When you have a car performing in this manner, it only adds to the natural celebrations such as Aruban Flag Day.

Michael Martin walked across the stage on Friday evening during pre-race at the ADRL Dragpalooza in Houston, Tx, the longtime drag racer turned Pro Mod tuner joining eleven of his friends and fellow racers, honored for their role in advancing the Pro Modified division.

Twenty years ago, Martin was playing on another big stage as one of the pioneering drivers of the new Pro Modified class. Martin not only qualified for the inaugural Pro Modified at the 1990 IHRA Winternationals but reached the semi-finals.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long ago but it has,” said Martin, who was No. 17 on Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com All-Time Drivers List. “The fondest memory that I have of that day is that we were running good.”