Those seeking signs that the economy is on the mend need look no further than Steve Earwood’s Rockingham Dragway which, in the midst of the current recession, attracted record numbers to its eight fall events.

 In the fall quarter, The Rock drew 2,890 racing vehicles and more than 105,000 fans for events as diverse as the IHRA Team Finals, a competition for entry level, grassroots racers; the American Drag Racing League’s Dragstrock VI, featuring the extreme Pro Modified and Pro Stock vehicles; and the IHRA World Finals, last event in the IHRA NitroJam Series featuring 320 mile-an-hour Top Fuel dragsters.

  “It was a very gratifying quarter,” Earwood said.  “The economy being what it is, we were very happy with the numbers.  Everyone in business is challenged right now, but our position is that in times like these, people need to be entertained more than ever and, thankfully, drag racing is a great outlet.”

Robert Hight’s first world championship is the tenth overall championship for John Force Racing in a Ford, eclipsing the previous mark held by Pro Stock icon Bob Glidden.

Glidden and Hight are worlds apart in terms of accomplishments and the breed of race vehicles they drive. However, for Hight, sound advice is a great thing to have regardless of how much horsepower your race car generates.

“He’s always been so cool to me,” Hight said of Glidden, an 85-time winner in NHRA Pro Stock. “I would always try to be up there, walking the starting line, when the Pro Stocks were running. For whatever reason, he took a liking to me. He always would come up to me and I learned a lot from him. I have so much respect for Bob Glidden.

The Professional Racers Owners Association, PRO, has gotten a facelift. A fresh new look but not a change in direction.

What many believe has been a owner's organization is making sure the constituency knows it is a “racer's organization” and not specifically an owner's organization.

“When PRO was first formed most of the racers were owners,” explained board member Bill Miller. “They were owners and racers at the same time. Now, they are just owners and no longer racers.”

Truthfully, they are still racers at heart. They just don't strap into a race car. What they stopped being is drivers.

Final results from the Street Car Super Nationals V in Las Vegas.

For every story of unprecedented courage told here on the pages of CompetitionPlus.com, there are millions of others that will go untold.

The first lady of drag racing Shirley Muldowney, fourteen-time world champion John Force, second-generation Top Fuel driver Brandon Bernstein and cancer survivors Jack Beckman and Steve Torrence have all shared with CompetitionPlus.com their innermost struggles and fears coupled with undying determination to live.

Their stories could easily appear on Real TV’s I Survived series.

Capitol Auto Group, a Salem Oregon-based auto dealership, will continue to sponsor Rich Bailey’s blown alcohol dragster team for the 2010 season. The sponsorship, which started in 2000 is one of the longest running of any current NHRA sportsman racing teams.

Bailey attributes the long standing partnership to making the race team’s marketing program equal to a full time job.

“When I first received this sponsorship I never thought I would get another opportunity like it again so I made sure to over-deliver on exposure and put marketing ahead of everything else,” Bailey said. "Marketing means getting the car out in front of as many people as possible and being a good representative for the company.

R2B2 Racing, a leading Pro Modified team, has an employment opportunity available.

Following the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series year-end banquet in Los Angeles on Monday, "Fast" Jack Beckman traveled to Las Vegas to fly with the United States Air Force Thunderbirds.

As a guest of the Air Force, Beckman fulfilled a dream he's had since he was a kid and a sergeant in the Air Force by taking the back seat of an F-16/ Fighting Falcon for an hour-long adventure in the skies surrounding Las Vegas.

After completing a three-hour flight physical and safety training program, he and pilot Lt. Col. Derek Routt, the Thunderbirds Operations Officer who has logged more than 2,500 hours of flight time in the F-16, launched from Nellis Air Force Base.

American Drag Racing League (ADRL) stars Von Smith and Mike Castellana made their 14-hour, one-way trips to Doha, Qatar, pay off by winning the Pro Extreme and Pro Nitrous event titles, respectively, in the 2009-10 season opener for the Arabian Drag Racing League.

In the Pro Extreme final for supercharged entries, Oak Ridge, Tennessee’s Smith overcame a 19-thousandths of a second starting-line advantage by Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani to win with a 3.758 pass at 205.69 mph over the eighth mile at the Qatar Race Club. Sheikh Khalid ran 3.860 at 198.06 mph to record a runner-up finish in his first appearance as a Pro Extreme driver.

Pro Modified turns 20 years old in 2010 and while spending our usual time browsing YouTube.com, we fould this ESPN video gem dating back to 1990. This video features quarter-final action from the 1990 IHRA Fallnationals in Bristol, Tenn. Tim McAmis would eventually go on to win the title. This video features many of the first year players including Ronnie Sox, Blake Wiggins, Fred Hahn, Scotty Cannon and Ed Hoover.