If 2009 was Top Fuel driver Morgan Lucas’ coming out season, what is this year?

“This is our trying to repeat last year tour,” answered Lucas, who qualified fifth at the NHRA Winternationals. “We’ve had so many bad years in drag racing that last year inspired us to be as good as we were. We want to win more races than three; we want to finish top three or top five. The bottom line is that beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a tough sport, and a tough class. All we want to do is keep making improvements, remain consistent and represent our sponsors as best we can.”

Showcasing first-year sponsor Geico, Lucas won three races in three finals, finishing seventh in the championship points battle last year.

Top Fuel driver Spencer Massey, the 2009 rookie of the year who has no NHRA ride this season, was one-up on his employed colleagues as he visited them in the Pomona pits Thursday. He already had one complete event under his belt -- the International Hot Rod Association's Nitro Jam series opener at Florida's Palm Beach International Raceway. Massey returned to the IHRA to compete in fellow Texan Mitch King's dragster -- the one in which he began driving in the nitro ranks in 2008 and took to the championship that year.
 
However, with his former NHRA boss Don Prudhomme's retirement, Massey admittedly there is "not really anything at the moment" in the works on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series side. He said he came to Pomona because "it's good to keep my face out here" and because "I'm always a drag-racing fan -- I can't miss a drag race."

Rockingham Dragway owner Steve Earwood, Ian Prince, Manager of Real Estate and Sustainability of Roush-Fenway Racing, Bobby Rice, Executive V-P of the Rick Hendrick Companies, Bill Paterson, Executive V-P of Richard Childress Racing, and former State Representative Karen Ray are among the auto racing industry leaders named to the new North Carolina Motorsports Advisory Council established by Governor Bev Perdue.

 As the name suggests, the council was created to advise the Governor on ways in which to strengthen the industry, recruit new motorsports business to North Carolina and create new motosports-related job opportunities.

The Mountain Motor Pro Stock Association has gotten many favorable looks from mountain motor racers across the country. One such team is the very successful father/son duo of Dean and Cary Goforth. Hailing from Holdenville, Oklahoma, this team has committed to the MMPSA and is looking forward to its inaugural season.

"We at Goforth Racing are excited to be a part of the MMPSA,” stated son, Cary. “Quarter mile racing is where our roots are, and to have a place to continue to race quarter mile is very important to us at Goforth Racing. We look forward to being part of this series for many years to come."

In the final results from Bradenton Motorsports Park and the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, Duane Shields, Boulder City, Nev., and Mickey Ferro, Stamford Conn., took home the wins in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car respectively.

Shields worked his way through the field and ran 5.384 seconds at 2.72.97 mph in his final round victory over Darren Nicholson, Mission Viejo Calif., who clocked in at 5.391 seconds, 262.31 mph.

Ferro faced off against Steve Harker, Gainesville, Ga., with Harker fouling away his chances as he left the starting line early.  Ferro coasted to victory in his ’08 Monte Carlo, after knocking out Alexis De Joria, Venice, Calif., in round one with a time of 5.579 seconds at 255.17 mph.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster pilot Chris Demke grabbed his first national event win at one of the most prestigious events in history, the 50th Anniversary Kragen O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals this past weekend at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.  Demke, Sunland, Calif., out ran Joey Severance, Woodburn , Ore., in the Top Alcohol Dragster final with a lap of 5.223 seconds at 269.67 mph for the win and the trophy.  Demke, who runs the Peen-Rite dragster owned by Jerry and Dixie Madern, has been in eight previous national event final rounds.

Sean O’Bannon, Ontario, Calif., picked up where he left off at last year’s Automobile Club of Southern California Finals taking his second win in as many events at Pomona.  O’Bannon clocked in with the quickest run of the event at 5.541 seconds, 259.96 mph in the final of Top Alcohol Funny Car against Doug Gordon, Paso Robles, Calif.  Gordon had the lead early but was a tenth of a second slower than O’Bannon with a 5.643 second, 159.16 mph lap.

Wendy Tysinger Stallings never imagined her summer internship at Roy Hill’s Drag Racing School as a recent University of North Carolina graduate would lead to all this.

Stallings, the founder of Tysinger Promotions Incorporated, and her staff are celebrating a decade of providing turn-key event management and first-class hospitality services while emerging as an industry leader.

“This is all the result of hard work, perseverance, and identifying and taking advantage of opportunities that we saw for improved promotions services in a wide array of industries, the most notable being motorsports,” said Stallings. “I never could have done it without my incredible staff. As we take a look back at where we started, we’re even more excited about what the future holds for TPI.”

What’d we tell you?  “We are expecting…someone named Force playing a major role in the event’s outcome.”  Can we pick ‘em or can we pick em?

In retrospect every pick seems easy, but there was just something about the way the entire Force gang was acting this weekend that let anyone who was paying attention know that this year is going to be different.  As we wrote yesterday, Force appears more energized than he has in the last couple of years.  That’s one factor, and the other is, without question, the addition of Mike Neff to the operation.  Make no mistake about it, Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly are still the primary guys, but Neff provides the physical ability to check every nut and bolt on the car, and that’s been lacking.  He goes over every inch of the car to make sure things are right – and they couldn’t have been much “righter” than they were on Parker Avenue on Sunday afternoon.

We also wrote that Ron Capps was on the way up, and he sure was.  He did a great job of reaching the finale, but let’s face it, this was a race that was destined to be Force’s.  We can’t explain it, but you just knew that Force was not to be denied.