On the strength of a track record 6.571-second elapsed time recorded on his third attempt on Saturday,
Greg Anderson qualified his Summit Racing Pro Stock Pontiac in the No.
1 position for Sunday’s final eliminations of the FRAM Autolite
Nationals in Sonoma, CA. This is Anderson’s fourth No. 1 qualifying
performance of the season.

“To be honest, this is the bright part of my season so far,” said
Anderson. “The Summit Racing team has been doing great, Jason’s been
doing a tremendous job, and we’ve had some really good cars, while, to
be honest, I’ve just been struggling. I needed a boost, something good
to happen to get my confidence back and give me a better attitude, and
today was it.

“I didn’t plan on this happening, because, quite frankly, we’d been
getting outrun lately by Mike Edwards and Allen Johnson. But our KB
Racing crew obviously executed a little better than they did today, and
that shows that we can go out tomorrow, get both Summit cars in the
final and win this race. That’s always our goal, but right now, it
feels more realistic than it has all year. That’s the thought I’m going
to go to bed with tonight. This will probably be the happiest Saturday
night I’ve had all year.”

After
struggling some early this year, Bubba Stanton (far lane) and his
“Widow Maker” team rebounded with a winning performance July 25, in the
Pro Extreme final against Todd Tutterow in the ADRL NATIONALGUARD.com
U.S. Drags II at Virginia Motorsports Park.

Virginia is
for lovers of National Guard ADRL racing. At least that’s what it
looked like July 25, as a record-setting crowd witnessed Bubba Stanton,
Jim Halsey, Chuck Ulsch, Lance Hines and Brian Gahm each collect a new
Minuteman trophy from the ADRL NATIONALGUARD.com U.S. Drags II at
Virginia Motorsports Park (VMP).

The 600-acre facility south of Richmond issued a news release Saturday
evening, stating attendance “overwhelmed everyone involved with the
event.” The release further said that since opening in 1994, VMP has
hosted 14 other major-league drag racing events, “but the National
Guard ADRL this weekend far surpassed crowds in the past,” according to
track general manager Bryan Pierce. In fact, Pierce pointed out for the
first time in VMP’s 15-year history, track and state officials agreed
to close the entrance gates in order to reroute excessive traffic that
was creating a more-than-four-mile traffic jam extending to the nearest
Interstate.

Quain Stott was not overly concerned about what the oildown delays and the adverse conditions he faced were doing to his Pro Extreme combination on Friday during the ADRL U.S. Drags II at Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie, Virginia.

The provisional No. 1 qualifier had a more pressing situation.

The extensive delays were cutting into his end of the day beer time.

Matt Hagan, a contender for the 2009 Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award
as an NHRA rookie-of-the-year frontrunner, hung on as the Funny Car
class low qualifier through the final two rounds of qualifying today at
the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals.

Driving the shelor.com Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing, Hagan collected
his first career No. 1 and faces No. 16 qualifier Cruz Pedregon in the
opening stanza of Sunday's eliminations. This is an important round, as
Hagan stands 10th in the points, while Pedregon is in 11th. Only the
top 10 in the rankings vie for the championship in the final six events
of the season in the Countdown to 1 playoffs.

Following his two Friday passes of 4.213/287.78 and 4.068/307.51,
earning him the pole, today's attempts produced a 4.236/293.47 and a
4.195/294.75 (third quickest of the round).

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.”