Jay Payne remembers the first time he ever saw a Pro Modified in person.

The year was 2001, and he was awaiting his turn to qualify in the Top Alcohol Funny Car [TAFC] division. A gathering of 24 invited Pro Modified cars were on hand to showcase their skills for the first time in NHRA drag racing since the class was first debuted and recognized as a professional category in 1990.

“I sat there and watched this 1949 Mercury do a burnout, swap lanes – come over in the other lane, hit the other car – go back to his lane, and back up,” Payne explained. “Then this guy in an Indian suit ran around the car, tapped on it and then they made the run.

Pat Musi has a whole country behind him, literally.

The multi-time Pro Street champion from Carteret, NJ., and team owner Frank Brandao of  Curacao in the Netherland Antillies plan to make their ADRL Pro Nitrous debut this weekend in Houston, Tex., representing the country of Curacao.

Ashley Force Hood, the first woman to win drag racing’s most important Funny Car event and one of America’s most popular drivers, will be the Newsmaker of the Week on The Race Reporters radio show, Wednesday, March 17, 7 p.m. EDT, on www.PowerUpChannel.com.

Force Hood finished second in last season’s NHRA Full Throttle standings, with two wins in the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang. One of those victories came at the U.S. Nationals, the series’ most prestigious race. The daughter of 14-time Funny Car champion John Force also advanced to six other final rounds and had six No. 1 qualifying runs. She was NHRA’s top rookie in 2007.

This will be Force Hood’s second appearance on The Race Reporters, the top-rated program on the PowerUp Channel.

Two-time Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon, hit hard by the country's downward economic spiral and that of General Motors in particular, said in a Saturday interview with WFO Radio that he has some sponsorship help to continue racing and has a possible deal or two in the works to keep him competitive.
 
He also indicated that he hasn't completely let go of the problem he had with former boss John Force that erupted last Labor Day at Indianapolis. He also hinted that he isn't afraid to stand up for his opinions again.
 
Pedregon said he and two-time titlist brother Cruz Pedregon, who share a shop in Brownburg, Ind., are "trying to figure out how to survive, how to remain competitive. One thing Cruz and I have been able to do is win championships, be competitive, and be very efficient. We've been able to do a lot with very little, and you can only do that for so long. We can't even get close to outspending the John Force team and the Don Schumacher team and some of the other competitors we face."

DMP Awnings, a division of Minnesota-based Dubbin Racing Products, has teamed up with Charles Carpenter Racing in an associate sponsorship role for the 2010 season. Not only will the DMP logo appear on Carpenter’s unmistakable Pro Nitrous ’55 Chevy, but a new DMP Awning will be outfitted to the Carpenter team’s rig.

The partnership was initially brought to life shortly after Carpenter’s devastating crash at the season-opening ADRL Dragpalooza V a year ago. Dubbin was one of the first to pitch in and offer to help Carpenter get back on track anyway he could, despite having never met him.

Now that Carpenter is back and poised to make a run at the ADRL Pro Nitrous championship in 2010, Dubbin has stepped up his support to help him achieve that goal. During their first face-to-face meeting at December’s Performance Racing Industry trade show, the two came to an agreement for DMP to become involved as an associate sponsor.

MMPSA again partners with one of the industry’s leading manufacturers. TEK Headers and the MMPSA are proud to announce the creation of the “TEK Headers Very Quick 8” program designed to recognize and reward the first eight MMPSA drivers to lay down a quarter mile pass in the teens. The first driver to accomplish this feat will receive a free set of TEK Headers. If they do it with a set of TEK Headers on the car, they will receive an additional $2,000.00! The remaining seven drivers will receive a certificate for $1,000.00 off a set of TEK Headers.

Houston Raceway Park hosts its first major drag race of the year this weekend (Mar. 19-20), as the American Drag Racing League (ADRL) arrives for its 2010 season-opening ADRL Universal Technical Institute Dragpalooza VI presented by Safety-Kleen.

ADRL teams in five professional classes—Pro Extreme Motorcycle, Extreme Pro Stock, Flowmaster Extreme 10.5, Pro Nitrous and Pro Extreme, the quickest and fastest eighth-mile “door cars” in the world—will converge on the Baytown, Texas, track from all across the country, bringing with them race vehicles equally at home in a car show as they are on the track. From a standing start they will cover the ADRL’s 660-foot race distance in as little as 3.6 seconds at speeds up to nearly 210 miles per hour.

Two of Drag racing most innovative men have teamed to present the Inaugural 6 Race Outlaw Doorslammer Series in 2010. George Howard, the owner of Holly Springs Motorsports Park and best known for his $1,000,000 race and Roy Hill, the Hall of Fame Racer and owner of Roy Hill’s Drag Racing School have created a powerful 6 event Heads-Up Series this season at 5 tracks throughout the Southeast.

The series begins with the Spring Fling April 29-30 and May 1 at Holly Springs Motorsports Park in MS and continues with the South Carolina Spectacular at Orangeburg Dragway in SC June 4-5, the Georgia Rumble at Silver Dollar Dragway, Reynolds, GA July 9-10, Summer Thunder at  Piedmont Dragway, Greensboro, NC August 13-14, Fall Bash at Palm Beach Int’l Raceway, West Palm Beach, FL September 17-18 and Holly Springs on October 15-16 and 17 with the Big Buck Outlaw Finals.

Northeast Division racer Karen Stalba has announced plans to return to NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster competition this season.

Stalba, a two-time national event finalist and winner of the 2005 Lebanon Valley Lucas Oil Series event, along with her husband, Tom, a six-time division
champion in Super Comp and Super Gas, recently purchased the nitro-burning A/Fuel dragster formerly driven by current Top Fuel star Morgan Lucas. The Stalbas expect to officially debut the car at the upcoming Northeast Division event at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa.

Rick Stivers, driver of the Brad Anderson-tuned Trane 2006 Stratus, was unable to attend the NHRA Gatornationals last weekend due to complications arising from routine medical screening he underwent a week before the first Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series event in Gainesville, Fla.  He said he wanted to thank concerned drivers and fans for their encouragement and support since his operation.
 
While undergoing a routine annual colonoscopy, the Kentucky native was found to have cancerous polyps that required an emergency surgery. What was then scheduled to be a laparoscopic procedure turned into an operation called a "right hemicolectomy," requiring a 12-inch incision from sternum to pelvis and ultimately led to the removal of more than a foot of both his intestine and colon. After five days of hospital treatment and care, he was released to go home to recuperate.