Daniel Wilkerson had been waiting his whole life to do what he did in late May this year.  He was in Topeka, racing a nitro Funny Car, and was doing it at a national event on the NHRA Full Throttle tour.  To cap it off, he even out-qualified his dad, running a 4.215 to take the 8th spot while his pop, popular Funny Car contender Tim Wilkerson, landed 12th.

Now, as the tour approaches this weekend's running of the O'Reilly Mid-South Nationals in Memphis, Wilkerson can say "I've been waiting my whole summer for this" as he comes back again for his second pro start, almost exactly four months after his debut.  Wilkerson will again field a second Levi, Ray & Shoup entry as he fights for a spot in the field and success on race day.

Since last June, NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car drivers have not had the chance to earn 20 bonus points for setting a national elapsed-time record. The course shrank from 1,320 feet, or a quarter-mile, to 1,000 feet, and the sanctioning body chose not to keep records.

The NHRA didn't explain its reasoning, whether it was considering the 1,000-foot mandate as temporary. Nor did it explain in its Labor Day announcement why it will start recognizing 1,000-foot records.
 
But that's what it will do, using Tony Schumacher's 3.771-second pass last October at Richmond as the baseline for the Top Fuel class and Ron Capps' 4.023-second run this February at Phoenix as the Funny Car standard. Neither Schumacher nor Capps received the 20 points retroactively.
 

Richard Petty once said that the only autograph he ever sought out was one for his son, Kyle Petty, who was 12 at the time.

Ron Capps has a daughter, consequently autographs are not all the big. Little girls want to meet their idols and in Capps case that meant just about going to the ends of the Rock and Roll world to get backstage to meet a children's group called “The Wiggles”.

Capps himself is a collector of special memorabilia. Guitars, football helmets and stuff like that. But, when his daughter wanted to go backstage to meet “The Wiggles” the challenge was almost more than Capps could pull off.

Little did Paul Trussell realize when he was just 12 years old, how much the course of his life would change through one event.

"I remember when I was 12, and  my dad bought me my first car," Trussell said. "He bought me a 1932 Ford five-window coupe."

As the story goes, Trussell's father obtained the car to settle a $300 debt. To this day, Paul still owns that car and many, many more.

Technicoat Companies, a longtime associate sponsor with Kalitta Motorsports, will be the primary sponsor on the dragster driven by Doug Kalitta for the remainder of the 2009 Full Throttle Drag Racing Series starting with this weekend's NHRA Mid-South Nationals in Memphis, Tenn.  
 
Las Vegas-based Technicoat Companies specializes in hi-tech performance coatings and floorings, wearing surfaces for pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic, as well as new and existing roofs. Technicoat’s President Bob Coffman and C.O.O. Glen Williams, a.k.a. “the Cowboys”, are fixtures in the Team Kalitta pit area at most NHRA national events with their trademark cowboy hats. Technicoat Companies and Kalitta Motorsports began their marketing partnership near the end of the 2002 NHRA season.

What exactly is the rule for testing? Even this late in the season, many teams are still confused over the testing policy.

The NHRA, after the confusion surrounding Robert Hight’s fifth test session in Brainerd, Minn., - he ran in John Force's car with Force's team - established that the tests go with the car and team, and not the driver.

What is not clearly defined is what happens after a team tests for a fifth time. Everyone knows the team is penalized based on the points they earn in the next event. But, what happens after a sixth test, or a seventh test?

Among the hundreds of interesting stories relived at the 9th annual Old Racers Reunion held this weekend in Montgomery AL, was the history of Speedy Ball and "Big Iron" Aubrey Padgett.

Seventy Four year old Speedy Ball, which is the only name we know him by, began racing in 1958 and has raced every year since. He currently drives a SBC powered Ford Probe that he has painted like the Motorcraft Cars that Bob Glidden drove. Ball estimates this is only his sixth race car he has ever owned.

Hundreds of drivers are expected to compete this weekend for thousands of dollars in prizes as Maple Grove Raceway runs its annual Pro Eliminator Footbrake Nationals.
 
There will be races on Saturday and Sunday with different prize amounts for each day.
 
Saturday’s race, the “10K,” features a guaranteed $10,000 for the winner, with a $3,000 payout to the runner-up. Round money, starting at $100, will begin in the fourth round.

One of Piedmont Dragway's [Greenboro, NC] most anticipated events kicks off Thursday and extends through Saturday with the North vs. South Big Dog Shootout. A healthy $50,000 purse is on the line when eight of hottest cars north of the Mason Dixon Line travel to North Carolina to face eight of the baddest hot rods from the south. This is the largest event on the track's schedule.