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.

When it comes to consistency, few are better than Chris Russo.
Not always the quickest or fastest during the race weekend, Russo makes a living by making consistent passes down the race track and so far that approach has worked wonders for him.

Already with one win this season using his conservative approach, Russo showed why is one of the best in Pro Mod racing today on Sunday with his second victory of the season at the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway.

Bruce Litton may not have had a shot at winning the championship on Sunday, but he did the next best thing.

With Del Cox Jr. locking up the 2009 IHRA Top Fuel World Championship on Saturday, Litton went out and made the best of his situation and took something into the offseason to build upon by winning the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway on Sunday.

Litton eliminated Cox in the semifinals and then took down top qualifier Todd Paton in the final to pick up his third win of the season and the 16th victory of his career.

Hundreds of racers in 11 categories commanded the strip this weekend at Thunder Valley Raceway, which completed the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series for the South Central division.  In the end, Top Alcohol Dragster pilot Brandon Lewis of Broken Arrow, Okla., took home the final win light and locked down the division Championship. Top Alcohol Funny Car driver Chris Foster out of Davenport, Iowa, also picked up a victory and is making a last minute push for the West Central division title.

Lewis kept the momentum going this weekend as he picked up his third Top Alcohol Dragster victory in a row. He laid down a healthy 5.319 second, 271.00 mph pass to drive around Richard Putz of Earlville, Iowa, and grab the NHRA Wally trophy.

In the all Iowa final, Foster’s 5.735 second, 248.07 mph lap was more than enough to take out the struggling Lance Van Hauen of Reinbeck.  This marks Foster’s third divisional win of the year and places him in strong contention with Andrew Bohl for NHRA’s division five title.

The IHRA’s longest consecutive running professional division, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, will remain intact for at least three more seasons as part of an agreement between the newly formed Mountain Motor Pro Stock Association [MMPSA], IHRA national event track operators and the management of the sanctioning body. The IHRA announced a major restructuring of their race format and as a result, the original division, was legislated out of full-time status for next season.

The agreement for the Pro Stock division to return in 2010 was brokered at the IHRA World Finals in Rockingham, NC, the final event of the 2010 season.

According to an IHRA press release issued on Sunday afternoon, the MMPSA will govern a program in which 16-car fields will be qualified at most events in the Nitro Jam Series from a pool of more than two dozen race cars representing all the major American manufacturers. The Pro Stockers will adhere to the new two-day format by running three qualifying sessions on the first day and traditional eliminations on the second.