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.

The NHRA’s technical department wasn’t prepared for the M4.

The M4, Pro Mod racer Harold Martin’s self-built and self-manufactured automobile, failed to pass tech at the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville. Martin was one of 28 Pro Modified teams invited to participate in the first recognized series event for the Get Screen America Pro Modified division.

Martin refuses to pass the buck, accepting the blame for his inability to participate.

So what caused the M4 to get bounced from tech? A longtime rule of pre-submission of new car designs, initially imposed by the IHRA’s tech director Mike Baker in the formative years of the Pro Modified division within his sanctioning body, did Martin in.

NASCAR Sprint Cup headliner Kurt Busch has captured a series championship in America's most popular motorsports arena and earned close to $40 million in his still-young stock-car racing career.
 
But going through the National Hot Rod Association's tech inspection Tuesday and "getting that little decal that said participant of the Gatornationals -- that was a big moment for me," he said.
 
"I felt like an eight-year-old schoolboy," Busch said. "It's been an honor and a privilege to be part of the Gatornationals."

Melanie Troxel was among six Pro Modified drivers who met with the Gainesville media, and during the press conference she was asked if a blown doorslammer was essentially a Funny Car with doors.

Troxel was the most qualified driver at the NHRA Gatornationals to answer the question.

“I’ve never driven two different cars on the same weekend, so it has been a challenge,” Troxel explained. “Originally my concerns were with the different driving styles going down the track but after the Phoenix event I got to drive the Pro Modified for the following days in Florida.”

The largest concern for Troxel headed into the weekend was the different starting line demands.

On a weekend where the motorcycle combination provided no apparent significant advantage, past NHRA Pro Stock champion Eddie Krawiec felt fortunate he had the winning bike.

A Suzuki established a new world record [6.855] and qualified No. 1.

Buells accounted for two of the first four spots in the qualified field.

In the end of the day, a Harley-Davidson rolled into the winner’s circle and the NHRA Gatornationals trophy provided a nice addition to Krawiec's trophy bearing mantle which already holds six Wallys.

Past NHRA Pro Stock champion Jason Line is all about putting his best foot forward. At the NHRA Gatornationals, his best foot proved to be the left one.

Line became the first Pro Stock driver in 2010 to stop the Mike Edwards steamroller. The KB Racing driver dumped the clutch .052 of a second quicker than Edwards on the starting line with the advantage accounting for a half-of-a-car length at the finish line.

“I guess right now the only way to beat Mike (Edwards) is with your left foot,” Line said. “We can't do it with the right, that's for sure. He's definitely faster than everybody. He's got us covered. Fortunately for us he gave us a little bit of room and we managed to get it done somehow.”

Line used a 6.580 elapsed time to fend off Edwards’ much quicker 6.556.

When you’re the all-time Top Fuel winner and a seven-time series champion, chances are you’re going to bring out the best in your competition. But, for Tony Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster, the level of the challenge might be close to bordering on unreasonable.

Schumacher scored his fourth career NHRA Gatornationals title by stopping teammate Antron Brown.

“I go out in the first event of the season – [lose in a] tie race [with Larry Dixon] – then we go into the second race and [Steve Torrence] runs his quickest ever,” Schumacher explained. “If you look back into the books our team is responsible for all of maybe the lesser budget teams running their best ET’s.

“[Today] Terry McMillen runs a 3.86 [in the second round]. We do not stage our car and think it is an easy run. These guys are good. When they come up and the car isn’t going down the track, they try things. They turn things here and there and it sticks when you have a great race track like this. Unfortunately you get some good side-by-sides.”

Wilkerson reunited with his “old girl” and all is good in his world.

Wilkerson’s “old girl” is the Springfield, Ill.-based Funny car driver’s chassis that he ran in 2008, the same year he finished second in the championship standings on the strength of six wins in seven final rounds.

Wilkerson and his reliable chassis certainly had a certain kind of magic at the NHRA Gatornationals, the third race on the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season. He stopped teammate Bob Tasca III in the final round with his second quickest run of the weekend, a 4.097 at 303.78 miles per hour.

He believes he and the broken-in race car had a measure of mojo throughout race day.

Canadian flags waved in the grandstands at historic Gainesville Raceway Sunday as Manitoba’s Kenny Lang made drag racing history as the first to win a Wally in the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series.

Lang became the first winner in NHRA’s newest national touring series as he drove his green 1953 Corvette to victory over Sweden’s Michael Gullqvist, who drove the ProCareRX 1968 Camaro owned by series supporter Roger Burgess.

“This is a great event and I am thrilled to win it,” said Lang who qualified sixth and defeated a tough group of drivers in earlier rounds including JEGS.com’s Troy Coughlin, In-N-Out Burger ’63 Corvette driver Melanie Troxel and Qatar’s Khalid Balooshi.