Four consecutive days of rain and cold weather combined with a less than favorable forecast for the remainder of the week has forced the postponement of the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway.

Despite lengthy delays during the first three days of competition the professional categories were able run their rounds to completion on Sunday, but the wet weather combined with a record car count for the Champion System Sportsman Nationals presented by VP created a no-win situation for the remainder of the week.

NHRA announced today its technical initiatives for 2010, which are designed to improve safety, as well as reduce unwanted downtime at events due to leakage on the track.

Highlighting the changes in 2010 will be the implementation of a new Eject Helmet Removal System in all four professional categories, as well as Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.  The system uses an inflatable bladder located in the top of the helmet to make removal of the helmet by safety personnel after an incident easier and safer.

Keep up with the latest action at this weekend’s World Street Nationals in Orlando, Fla., through CompetitionPlus.com’s same day coverage presented by Pro Systems Carburetors.

Pro Systems will serve as the primary marketing partner for in-depth coverage of the long-running street car drags event hosted by Orlando Speedworld Dragway.

“All of us at Pro Systems would like to thank Competitionplus.com for their continued support of the drag racing community,” said Patrick James, founder and President of Pro Systems. “We appreciate the opportunity to sponsor the coverage of the Orlando World Street Nationals.  This provides our racers with the opportunity to stay up to date on the latest happenings on a daily basis just by stopping into Competitionplus.com.”

Division 7 Top Alcohol Funny Car driver Ron August Jr. will take the wheel of a Mitch King Motorsports Top Fuel dragster in addition to driving his family-owned Top Alcohol Funny Car this weekend during the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals to be held on ‘The Strip’ at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nev. Both entries will be sponsored by Lescure Company, a complete mechanical services company based in Lafayette, Calif. This marks the first time August has driven both cars in competition.

“I never thought I’d have the opportunity to drive in Top Fuel, never mind driving the fuel and alcohol car at the same race,” said the driver from Pleasanton, Calif., who won the spring 2006 Las Vegas event in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class. “I’m very lucky to be doing this, and I appreciate the support of Mike and Susan Lescure, my parents, and everyone involved with both teams. I’m realistic enough not to say that we’re going to take on [Tony] Schumacher or anything like that. My goal is to have both cars racing on Sunday.”

Charles Carpenter loves racing at the Texas Motorplex and with good reason. Twenty-three years ago the famed facility provided the Pro Modified pioneer with one of his fondest drag racing memories.

  Saturday evening, Carpenter of Charlotte, NC, drove his way to the Pro Nitrous final round at the season-opening ADRL Len-Mar World Finals. That was his second proudest moment at the track.

The famed facility located outside of Dallas, was where he earned the title as the King of the ’55 Chevy, by beating west coast racer Dave Riolo in a head-to-head competition sanctioned by Super Stock and Drag Illustrated to determine the best 1955 Chevy driver.

Unofficial final point standings (top 10) for IHRA professional categories following the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway, the tenth of 10 events in the 2009 Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series -

Final round-by-round results from the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway, the tenth of 10 events in the 2009 Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series:

Three different winners and three different champions were crowned in the professional categories during final eliminations at the IHRA World Finals Sunday at Rockingham Dragway.

Del Cox Jr. (Top Fuel), a rookie, and John Montecalvo (Elite Motorsports Pro Stock), a seasoned vet, each clinched their first career championships while Kenny Lang (Pro Mod) claimed his second consecutive title during the wild weekend.

And while all three were busy winning championships, Bruce Litton (Top Fuel), Chris Russo (Pro Modified) and Bob Bertsch (Elite Motorsports Pro Stock) took care of winning the race during the championship finals Sunday in Rockingham, N.C.

Mike Brown beat Mark Koehler, Judson Massingill took out David Lezear, and Edgar Perez ousted Jason Walker at this past weekend’s GM Performance Parts Third Annual LSX Shootout held in conjunction with the NMCA World Finals at Memphis Motorsports Park.

In Drag Radial, Brown, driving a ’98 Trans Am qualified fifth and beat number one qualifier Steve Turely in round one with an impressive 7.51 at 190 mph to Turley’s 7.98 at 192 mph and in the second round bested Jim Filipowski, running 7.47 at 194 mph to Filipowski’s 7.58 at 197 mph. In the final, Brown faced Mark Koeher who advanced after beating Michael Meeks and last year’s winner Steve Fereday. In the final stanza, Brown got an early .016 to .176 reaction time advantage and continued in front of Koehler to the finish line tripping the beams at 8.10 at 189 mph to Koehler’s losing 8.23 at 185 mph.

In LSX All Motor competition, Judson Massingel of Houston defeated David Lezear in the final. Massingill who has been shutout from the win the past two years, qualified on top of the field with an event record-setting run of 8.654 at 156 mph with Lezear qualifying a distant second with a 9.41 effort. In the final, Massingill took a huge .152 to .351 starting line advantage and stretched out to a 9.077 win at 156 mph with Lezear stopping the clocks at 9.49 at 143 mph.

No class in all of IHRA drag racing produced more drama this season than the Elite Motorsports Pro Stock class.

And that certainly didn’t change on Sunday.

With three drivers in contention for the championship at the start of the day it was only fitting that it would all come down to one race to decide the 2009 IHRA World Championship as John Montecalvo held on for his first career championship and Bob Bertsch took home the victory Sunday at the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway.