David Reher didn’t even try to suppress his smile Friday evening during the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va.

Mark Walter/Dragstory.com

The former Pro Stock engine building icon, who has reinvented himself
in Pro Modified, was overjoyed with three of his clients atop the
sixteen-car Pro Nitrous field. The Al Anabi Awesome Motorsports team
put two of their three cars in the final four with Khalid Al Balooshi
scoring a runner-up finish in one of the great final rounds of the
event.

Mike Castellana, Shannon Jenkins and Balooshi ran within .02
from first to third, and .03 from the next closest competitor on Friday evening.

Chuck Ulsch stuck to his guns throughout the weekend and the decision netted Gil Mobley’s Extreme
10.5 driver his first win of the season during the ADRL U.S. Drags II at Virginia Motorsports Park. Friday, after coming
hundredths of a second away from being the first driver in the class to
record a three second run in competition, the hired gun and his team
opted to focus on winning a race and contending for a championship over
the chance to be a part of drag racing history.

“This was mission accomplished,” Ulsch said following his win over Gary
White, the super quick Inline Six racer who remains a contender for the
same three second milestone.

“We would have liked to have had that three-second run but we qualified
No. 1 and won the race. That was 516 points. That’s the most you can
get. I like that.”

First-round pairings for professional eliminations Sunday for the
22nd annual FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway, the 15th
of 24 events in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.  Pairings
based on results in qualifying, which ended Saturday. DNQs listed below
pairings.

If there was a defining race for the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va., Jim Halsey and Khalid Al-Balooshi made sure they earned the title.

As burnout smoke lingered in the air above their potent Pro Nitrous
doorslammers the finalists provided those in attendance, the majority
of whom entered on a free ticket, with enough excitement that they’d
have willingly paid $100 apiece to see the run.

“I was telling my guys that it was 10:30 P.M., and there wasn’t an
empty seat in house,” Halsey said. “It was the coolest thing to race in
front of that many people. I’ve never raced in front of that large of a
crowd.”

Larry Dixon and Spencer Massey both fell to lesser funded teams in the
first round of eliminations in the FRAM Autolite Nationals at

Mike
Strasburg keeps paces with Morgan Lucas in the Sonoma quarter-finals.
Lucas smoked the tires, fell behind, enabling Strasburg to advance to
the semis. (Bob Pelligrini)

Infineon
Raceway.

Dixon, in the Al-Anabi dragster, was headed to an easy victory over
Mike Strasburg until he struck the tires around the 300 foot mark.
Strasburg's 3.949 second, 275.96 mph run was the second slowest of all
the first round winners. Massey, in the U.S. Smokeless dragster, struck
his tires at almost the exact same spot during his run against Joe
Hartley, who posted the slowest run of the session – 4.175 second,
249.90 mph.

Vance & Hines Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson V-Rod Pro Stock Motorcycle teammates Eddie Krawiec and Andrew
Hines met in the final round of the 22nd FRAM Autolite Nationals at
Infineon Raceway, where it was all Hines from start to finish.

Line cut a .007 light on the way to a 6.972 second, 189.82 mph run over Krawiec.

“It's such an honor to race your teammate in the final and to be able
to win with your buddy over there,” said Hines. “We fight back and
forth in everything we do, whether its qualifying, racing each other,
at the shop on reaction timers; we're very competitive. When we go up
there somebody is going to come out of there with a double oh light,
whether its red or green. In Denver I was double oh eight red and he
was on his game with a double oh one green.”

Greg
Anderson raced to the No. 1 qualifying position in Pro Stock Saturday
at the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals with a track record performance of
6.571 seconds at 210.11 mph in his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP.

With the qualifying effort Anderson became the fourth driver in his
category to secure a position in the Countdown to 1, NHRA’s playoffs.
It was his fourth No. 1 of the season, 73rd of his career and his sixth
at Infineon Raceway.

Mike Janis covered the Virginia Motorsports Park eighth-mile in rapid
fashion, his 3.762-second, 203.22 mile per hour run putting him atop
the Pro Extreme field. More importantly, his rapid pace moved his car
out of harm’s way.

Jason Scruggs took delivery of his spare race car just a few minutes after 4 am Saturday morning, the final

Mark Walter/Dragstory.com

day of the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va.

Ten hours later he was leading the Pro Extreme division.

The defending ADRL Pro Extreme champion crashed his primary race car, a
new 1967 Camaro from Garrett Race Cars during Friday practice, and
after discussions with his crew, called a fellow farming friend Matt
Hutchison to deliver his championship-winning Dodge Stratus.

Extreme 10.5 driver Chuck Ulsch came to
Virginia with one mission in mind. He wanted to be the first to run a
3-second lap in ADRL competition. He came closer Friday night to the
historic run than any one of the other sixteen contestants competing at
the ADRL U.S. Drags II in Dinwiddie, Va.

Ulsch drove Gil Mobley’s brand new Vanishing Point Race Cars 1968
Camaro to a 4.010 elapsed time at 195.73 miles per hour to claim the
provisional No. 1 qualifying position. He will have two more sessions
to improve his position in less advantageous conditions on Saturday.