ESPN analyst Mike Dunn has selected four finalists from each of the four pro categories and fans will be able to vote online for their favorite

No sport does a better job of treating its fans as partners than the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series so it should come as no surprise that the league is turning to its fans to determine who will win “The Quest for the Full Throttle Moment of the Year” and the combined purse of $70,000.

NHRA Fan Fest hosted by Universal Technical Institute (UTI), the official kickoff to the 2009 season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals, will take place Saturday, Nov. 7, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the UTI campus at 9494 Haven Ave. in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

Gary Naughton accomplished a feat Sunday that's known in drag racing as "running the table."
 

Lined up on the roof of Dave Hance's fancy black '93 Mustang were three World Street Nationals trophies.
 
One was for being the $3,000 Mickey Thompson Drag Radial class winner -- and recipient of a championship jacket that will make him the envy of racers and fans and his friends in his Long Island neighborhood of Inwood, N.Y.
 
Another was for the "Clean Sweep Award" -- along with a $1,000 bonus -- he earned for being the winner, No. 1 qualifier, and driver to set low elapsed time at the 17th annual door slammer extravaganza at Orlando Speed World Dragway.

Andrew Hines felt he had nothing to lose heading into the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals.

The three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion from Brownsburg, Ind., entered the event fifth in the championship point standings with no realistic chance of pulling off a fourth title.

“I was relaxed today,” Hines said. “For some reason, I get all caught up into these races and the points and the battles … the rivalries. I had nothing to lose today. I knew I needed to get into the final round.”

Reliable sources reported to CompetitionPlus.com that Ford Motor Company and NHRA were unable to retrieve any data from the “crash box” installed on Daniel Wilkerson’s Funny Car following his wreck in Memphis.  Daniel’s father, Tim, confirmed that this was the case, blaming the problem on the fact that his team had but one charger for the system that had to be shared between the two cars.  “We charged the unit completely on Thursday (of race week),” Wilkerson said, “but by Sunday it must have run down.”

Jeff Dobbins might have been kidding when he spoke to newly crowned Extreme Pro Stock champion Matt Hartford, but then again, he may have been serious.

Hartford stood on the roof of the Billy Dingman Racing Chevrolet Cobalt, the same Wilson Manifolds-sponsored Extreme Pro Stocker celebrating his third career world championship.

Hartford won't drive the car next year, Dobbins will.

Chevrolet unveiled five dramatic Camaro concepts at the annual automotive aftermarket extravaganza known as the SEMA Convention, each representing a different vision of style, personalization and performance.

The Camaro concept vehicles include:

• A race-ready, twin-turbocharged V-6 concept built for talk show host and auto enthusiast Jay Leno
• The Camaro Synergy concept that reveals a new, limited-production exterior color for spring 2010 and is accented with a number of production accessories and custom touches
• The Camaro Chroma, an SS-based concept with a number of future accessories
• The Camaro Dusk, which incorporates current and proposed accessories to create a contemporary tuner aesthetic
• Camaro Graphics, highlighting six proposed accessory graphics packages, with online voting by the public to gauge interest in potential future production of one or more of the packages.

Tony Schumacher has become accustomed to winning the crucial rounds. On Sunday at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals, when matched against the No. 3 points earner Cory McClenathan, Schumacher lost by .008 of a second.

Adding the pain is the fact that McClenathan is Schumacher’s teammate.