NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car driver Del Worsham heads into the 2010 season confident he can make the field to compete in the Countdown To The Championship, like he did in 2009, driving for Al-Anabi Racing.

In his first season at Al-Anabi Racing, Worsham made the Countdown for the first time in his career and finished seventh in the final standings - 195 points behind eventual champion Robert Hight.

“I didn't know what to expect going into my first year at Al-Anabi Racing but we had great results and it was definitely a building block for (2010) and the future.”

Drag racers by nature know the danger present in their sport every time they get behind the wheel.

Tim Nimmo, a 25-year racing veteran, faced the danger first hand this past Saturday at Palm Beach (Fla.) International Raceway.

Nimmo was racing his dragster against Jerry Baxter, who was piloting a race-modified Corvette-looking machine, during first-round eliminations of the Super Pro class.

Leesburg, Georgia resident Wheeler Davis found his love for the sport of drag racing in 1994 when he started taking his street car, a 1971 Nova, to the local track.

It didn’t take long before Davis became a serious bracket racer. “I’ve tried a lot of other things in life, but once I got started, I found out that drag racing is for me.”

In 2006, Davis “begged and borrowed” from his wife to purchase the car he still races today, a 1973 tube chassis Nova, with a 406 small block Chevy.

One of the main theories in winning a drag race is power. The more power a car makes, the quicker it can get down to the finish line.
 
But since the advent of the sport, racers have also tried to reduce weight in their cars. The lighter a car is, the faster it will go.
 
Over the past few years, reducing the weight of the car body in racing has been an important element in producing quicker times. Working through light metal and fiberglass from the past, today’s builders of Pro Modified and Top Sportsman bodies work with the strong yet light carbon fiber.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com has confirmed the NHRA will use an RF-controlled automatic shutoff system in the Nitro ranks in 2010.

The RF-system was tested last year by the Force Racing teams with varied results. The system is not meant to replace the normal actions of the driver. It is meant to assist in the prevention of a catastrophic accident should the driver be incapacitated.

NHRA officials, based on the track, will place the RF device at least 200 feet past the finish line. The system shuts off the fuel, ignition and deploys the parachutes in cases where the driver is unable or has not yet performed those tasks. A redundant system, placed around the 1600 foot mark is also being considered.

The NHRA contends their testing of the spec nitro engine is a data-gathering process aimed at learning more about nitro engines. Unfortunately, two of the runs this week at Firebird Int'l Raceway have been an exercise in what not to do. This was the result of Wilkerson's first run today. Yesterday the testing wounded an engine. (Roger Richards)

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Mike Neff is getting behind the wheel of a Funny Car. The Castrol Ford Mustang of John Force to be exact.

Neff, who has served as a tuner for three days during testing at Firebird Int'l Raceway, will run all but the first run today in the Force car.

Until today, it has only been speculated Neff would start the season as Force's tuner. Now the question is will Neff finish the season as Force's tuner.

When the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season begins, Rodger Brogdon and the Steve Kent Racing Pro Stock team will have a whole new Attitude when they roll through the gates for the first race of the year in Pomona, CA.

The team's new Jerry Haas Pontiac GXP will feature the bold new colors, look and logo of Attitude Apparel, the clothing line that Brogdon purchased mid-season last year.

NHRA Full Throttle Series star Melanie Troxel will headline this week's WFO Radio NHRA Tuesday with host Joe Castello, live at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday, January 26.  To listen, go to http://www.wforadio.com

Troxel will appear on WFO Radio NHRA Tuesday following the recent announcement that she will return to national Funny Car competition along with popular sponsor In-N-Out Burger.  Troxel, who drove for In-N-Out Burger in the late 1990s in the Top Alcohol Class, will race the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car for R2B2 Racing in the eight NHRA national events that take place in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas in 2010.

Mike Neff won the first race for Ford’s BOSS engine at the last race of NHRA’s 2009 Full Throttle season, in Pomona, and all the John Force team Mustangs are using it this year.

So why doesn’t Ford stalwart and Rhode Island dealer Bob Tasca III have the BOSS in his Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang?

Turns out Tasca might have a “better idea” – branding his own version of the Cobra Jet engine his grandfather made famous in the 1960s.