If you're looking for tough, you don't have to look much further than to Mike Edwards.  After watching driver
after driver click off lower and lower et's, Edwards turned up the wick
on his ART/Young Life Pontiac GXP to keep his place on the top of the
ladder in the Pro Stock division during final qualifying for the Lucas
Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd Int'l Raceway.

Greg Anderson, second quickest at 6.708, 204.91, predicted from the top
end that Edwards was going to knock him from the top spot.

“I am scared to watch Mike Edwards come down the track,” said Anderson
after making the fastest run of the weekend. Edwards quickly proved
Anderson's fear was legitimate with a near perfect 6.694, 205.39 mph
lap.

Mike Neff didn't mind sitting through a three-hour rain delay. With each passing moment and each droplet of rain conditions
improved. So much so, that by the time he made his run, the only Funny
Car not to get down the track before the rain started, his publicist
Elon Werner was confidently predicting a pole winning run during the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals.

When the board flashed with Neff's time and speed, Werner was a hero
and Neff gave everyone still at Brainard Int'l Raceway at taste of what
was to come.

“Today’s run went really well and worked to our advantage with that
rain delay because the track was cooler than it was when everybody else
ran,” Neff explained. “To run what we ran … could have probably been
run by anyone else … but it worked out. It was a good solid run and it
feels good to be number one.”

 
After
three rounds of qualifying, Bruce Boland of Hamilton, Ontario set low
time with a 4.092-second, 179.24-mph pass in the Stratford Spectacular
Hot August Nationals at the Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, Ontario.
 
Running in eighth-mile competition, 2008 PMRA Champion Boland just
edged by Ike Maier of Schomberg, Ontario, who posted a 4.095-second
clocking at 179.39 mph with his 1963 Corvette. Boland, driving the
B&B Racing 1967 Chevy Nova, also posted top speed at 181.15 mph.

Matt Hagan's crew chief, Tommy Delago, confirmed on Friday afternoon in
Brainerd that the mandated “safety box” he took from Hagan's Dodge
Charger in Seattle and sent back to the factory was found to be in
working order.

Pro Stock racer Jason Line’s other racing assignment, piloting a car
for a friend in Stock Eliminator during the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., came to an end on Saturday with a
red-light start in the second round.  Even so, he enjoyed the
opportunity to once again race in the same category as his father,
mother and two brothers.

The Southern Outlaw Series, a gathering of outlaw style Pro Modified doorslammers, raced this weekend in Montgomery, Ala. CompetitionPlus.com Director of Photography Roger Richards made the trip down Interstate-85 to bring the event to you through his camera lens.

SOUTHERN OUTLAW SERIES PHOTO GALLERY 

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Sometimes what a driver doesn’t know can work in their favor.

Ashley Force Hood used a 4.178 second pass to land in the third spot in the field.

The second-generation drag racer was only able to get one run in on
Saturday before rain washed out the second session of Funny Car
qualifying during the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

At this point in the season, Pro Stock racer Kurt Johnson is pulling
out all of the stops in trying to find new ways to go quick. Saturday’s
abbreviated qualifying at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals showed him what won’t work.

"We haven't showed them everything yet," Johnson said. "We were
struggling with the motor tune-up, trying some new parts and new
carburetors and it just didn't quite want to go. We got it put back a
little bit better this morning. The car made a decent run but didn’t
want to get up on the tire. We have the core that we need to go fast,
we just need to get the right parts in the right places. Slowly we're
putting this ACDelco Chevrolet back to the way it used to win races,
believe it or not, so I think we'll be in pretty good shape for
tomorrow."

Morgan
Lucas raced to his second No. 1 qualifying position of the season
Saturday in a rain-shortened day at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at
Brainerd International Raceway.

NHRA officials were forced to cancel the final qualifying session for
all but Pro Stock Motorcycle when persistent rain showers moved into
the area near mid-day, continued off-and-on in the late afternoon and
intensified into the early evening as darkness moved in.

Mike Neff, Mike Edwards and Hector Arana also will lead their
categories into Sunday’s 11 a.m. eliminations as the No. 1 qualifiers
at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event.

While most drivers already have their finger placed squarely on the
panic button, or at least darn close to it, that isn’t really the case for Pete Berner.

In fact, Berner actually prefers to be in the position of the hunter instead of the hunted, especially this late in the season.

After all, this is all very familiar territory for the two-time IHRA World Pro Stock Champion.

“The last two championships I won were by narrow margins and when I
came in second the year before last it was also by a matter of just a
few points,” Berner noted. “They know as well as I do that I am going
to put as much pressure on them as possible. If they are going to win
the championship they are going to have to earn it.

“I don’t give up until the very end.”