Bennie McDonald described his emotions following the first qualifying
session at the ADRL Dragstock event as both happy and upset.

McDonald, a Pro Extreme racer from Locust Grove, Ga., was in the second
pair of cars in the first qualifying session, when his Corvette ran a
tenth quicker than his personal best. Unfortunately for him, his
incredible .870 sixty-foot time, threw up a red flag to race officials
who disqualified the run citing the car caused the timing system to
malfunction.

The second quickest short time of the session was a .934.

The ADRL doesn’t field any Funny Cars but their Pro Extreme division produced two fires that would have made the

The
remnants of the engine block Frankie Taylor wounded on Friday event.
The engine explosion engulfed the car in flames momentarily.

flopper contingent green with envy. Frankie Taylor and Tommy D’Aprile
had their respective cars become engulfed in flames just shy of the
finish line after violent explosions.

“It broke a rod,” Taylor explained, as his crew thrashed in the
background. “It caught on fire I guess and it cleaned up. I don't know
just a bunch of work.”

After
dodging rain showers during a majority of the afternoon, New England
Dragway’s luck finally ran out just an hour shy of the second session
of pro qualifying and the track and IHRA were forced to pull the plug
on the opening day of qualifying Friday at the Amalie Oil North
American Nationals presented by New England Dodge Dealers in Epping,
N.H.

With frigid temperatures and light rain plaguing the afternoon, the
afternoon’s only round of pro qualifying saw a few surprises on top of
the charts as Fidelio Montrond (Pro Modified) and Mark Martino (Elite
Motorsports Pro Stock) topped their respective divisions after one
round of qualifying.

In the first rounds of qualifying at Atlanta Dragway, local Ronnie
Davis of Suwanee, Ga., grabbed the No.1 qualifying position in the
division’s Davis Golf Carts Top Sportsman category. This weekend’s NHRA
Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event, which runs through Sunday, is the
fifth of six in Southeast division competition. Top Alcohol Dragster
and Funny Car qualifying is set to kick off tomorrow afternoon.

Davis jumped into the top spot by laying down a 6.352 second, 219.04
mph pass.  He currently sits in fourth place of the divisional points
standings with the event’s No. 9 qualifier, Jeffrey Barker of
Warner-Robins, Ga., holding onto the lead.

Rockingham
Dragway has a well-deserved reputation as a fast track and racers at
the National Guard ADRL’s Flowmaster Dragstock VI reinforced that
reputation Friday night with some of the quickest and fastest fields in
series history.

Pro Extreme qualifying climaxed with a stellar 3.71-seconds pass at
205.10 miles per hour over the Rockingham eighth mile by Jason Hamstra
in his supercharged ’68 Camaro, representing the quickest and fastest
pass ever by a torque converter-equipped car. It marks the first time
Hamstra has ever officially led a National Guard ADRL qualifying round.

“We stepped it up a little bit at night, but it was far from a perfect
pass,” the 21-year-old driver from Demotte, Indiana, said. “It moved
around quite a bit out there. Our computer shows it pulled 2Gs lateral
movement at one point. My teammates pointed out I missed my shift point
a little and I told them that was because I was kind of busy driving!”

If Pro Nitrous racer Mike Castellana had been racing in another sanction, his Friday evening qualifying
attempt at ADRL Dragstock would have been disqualified. Under the ADRL’s liberal rule
system, not only was Castellana’s run legal, it was also a provisional
ADRL world record.

Castellana rode the left lane outer boundary marker all the way to the
finish line for a 3.861 elapsed time at 185.21 miles per hour. His run
will go into Saturday as the provisional ADRL Pro Nitrous world record.

“It was a good run but the car kept drifting to the left,” said
Castellana of the record run. “It got close to the wall and I stayed
with it as long as I could. It got loose, but I knew I had to stay with
it in order to make a good run in the late session.”

Persistent rain through out the morning and into the afternoon have
forced officials to cancel the racing action for the opening day of the
NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at Old Bridge Township Raceway
Park.  The event is the sixth of seven in the NHRA Northeast Division
with drivers earning points toward both national and divisional
championships.

Multi-car teams have always been the way to go in the highly competitive world of motorsports.

From oval racing to drag racing and everything in between, multi-car
teams have always had an advantage on the field thanks to information
and part sharing and that is exactly the impact that team owner Mitch
King had hoped for when he started up a multi-car team a few years ago.

Beginning with a two car operation three seasons ago, King has had a
ton of success in a very short amount of time. Over the past two
seasons King and company have recorded seven wins and a Top fuel World
Championship coming in 2008.

For the first three weeks in July, Pro Modified driver Ed Hoover was riding the high of his life.

With two straight wins at national events in Edmonton and Grand Bend,
Hoover rocketed to the top of the Pro Mod point standings ahead of
defending champion Kenny Lang and looked poised to pull away in the
chase of his first career championship.

Then July came to an end.

The Northern Nationals started innocently enough, with Hoover wrapping
up one of the most successful months of his career third on the
qualifying charts entering Sunday’s final eliminations, but with a new
month came a few new challenges for Hoover and his team.