The recipe for winning NHRA world championships includes many ingredients – one being off-season testing.

With that in mind, the Al-Anabi Racing team is sending its two cars – the Top Fuel dragster driven by Larry Dixon and Top Fuel Funny Car driven by Del Worsham – to Palm Beach (Fla.) International Raceway Jan. 11-15 for testing. Each day test sessions will be taking place from 10 am.-7 pm. Eastern Time.

The Al-Anabi Racing team has rented the track exclusively and the test sessions are not open to the public or the media.

“We’re there to test and we’ve invited 12 other cars to join us (at the test),” said Chad Head, the director of racing operations for the Al-Anabi Racing team.

Would you believe us if we told you the stunt drivers for this epic drive-in movie from the late 1970s included "240" Gordie Bonin and NHRA Vice President of Operations Graham Light? Better believe it. Never believed a Funny Car could do all that they did in this movie.

For Alex Hossler and the rest of his Canton, Illinois based team, things could have hardly came together any better, especially considering the third event on the Arabian Drag Racing League marked his debut, and it’s location in the Doha being some 8,000 miles from his home in the United States. After the dust settled from two full days of heads up drag racing action at the state-of-the-art Qatar Race Club, Alex Hossler met 2009 Arabian Drag Racing League world champion, Von Smith, in an extraordinary final showdown.

Utilizing a considerable starting line advantage, Hossler was able to stay out in front during the entire trip down the QRC’s all-concrete eighth-mile, taking the win with a 3.77-second, 204.38mph to Smith’s quicker, but losing 3.76-second effort.

Every year since Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com began publication in 1999, this Internet magazine has offered race fans the chance to choose the best driver/individual suited for awards based off their performances on and off the track. The following are the results of our reader ballots offered during the Christmas holidays.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com, with the assistance of a key group of Pro Modified historians and enthusiasts, has compiled a list of Top 20 all-time drivers based on their contribution to the class, historic achievements, statistics and fan appeal.

Starting on Friday, January 11, 2010, we will reveal the list, announcing two drivers per week, until the No. 1 driver is unveiled on Saturday, Mar. 13, during the ADRL Dragpalooza in Houston, Texas.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com narrowed the list from hundreds of drivers down to 20. However, today we will reveal five Honorable Mentions to the all-time list.

Bob Tasca Sr., an automotive enthusiast, Ford dealer and drag racing innovator, passed away on Friday, January 8, 2010, his family announced today.  Tasca Sr. was 83 years old.

An automotive businessman for more than 60 years, Tasca achieved fame as a record-setting automotive dealer and as an internationally-known designer of high-performance race cars.  Tasca Sr. is credited with helping create the Ford Thunderbolt drag racing car, and bringing the Cobra Jet 428 engine to NHRA in the 1960s.

“Bob Tasca Sr. had three important aspects to his life – his family, his friends, and Ford Motor Company,” said his grandson, Bob Tasca III.  “Those were the touch points in his life and for that we’re thankful.  We are grateful and privileged to have had so many years with him, and it’s hard to say goodbye.

The most difficult reality to swallow is the harsh reality of the end.

“It's life,” said a very pragmatic Spencer Massey, the day after Don “Snake” Prudhomme announced his retirement from drag racing after over 50 years in the sport as both a driver and a car owner.

“We all knew it could happen. But, as a team we all stuck together and we all knew it was a gamble.”

Less than six months ago, in the midst of the biggest drag race of the year, the U.S. Nationals, Prudhomme let the world know he was losing US Tobacco as a sponsor and the prospects for going forward did not look good. Prudhomme outlined at that time how he either needed to find a new sponsor, a business partner or an auctioneer.

If they were drag racing, the quarter-final match between Pat Musi and Gary Densham would have been a photo finish. Fifteen minutes before voting ended the storytelling combatants were deadlocked in a 50 – 50 percent tie. That was the first time a race has been that close in the history of the competition. The largest lead between the two at

The lead changed hands another two times in those final fifteen minutes and within the last five minutes, Musi edged ahead by five votes to win 50.4 to 49.6.

Louis Force didn’t have as hard of a battle with Gordie Bonin, but he didn’t have it easy either.

Ask even the most casual of motor sports fans who the biggest name in drag racing is and you are almost always sure to hear one name – Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. A true legend of the sport, Prudhomme, 68, concluded his 47th year in drag racing in 2009, his 15th season as an owner after logging 32 seasons behind the wheel as one of the sport’s elite drivers.

Snake’s remarkable driving career began in 1962 with his first Top Fuel victory at “Smokers March Meet” in Bakersfield, Calif., before ending with 49 NHRA career victories – the sixth most in NHRA history – following his farewell “Final Strike Tour” in 1994.  For his career, Prudhomme reached the finals 68 times, posting a remarkable 35 wins in 45 Funny Car finals (.777 win percentage) and 14 wins in 23 Top Fuel finals rounds (.609 win percentage). Overall, he won 389 of 589 rounds of competition for a .660 winning percentage.

Matthew Brammer, who most recently held the position as series administrator for the Get Screened America NHRA Pro Mod Challenge, will join the Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com staff as Editor, Social Media.

Brammer’s objective will be to increase the electronic magazine’s awareness within the growing social network communities, namely Facebook, Twitter and grow our weekly e-mail newsletter.

Brammer represents the second major hiring for Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com this week, and its bid to further increase its presence in the world of drag race reporting. Brammer is a Baylor University graduate and owns Active Marketing, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based marketing firm that specializes in drag racing. He will continue to operate his Active Marketing firm which services a handful of leading drag racing teams.