"Nitro Nick" Boninfante, owner of the U.S. Male nostalgia nitro Funny
Car, announced today that he's selected journeyman Funny Car driver, Phil Burkhart, to drive the U.S. Male for the 2009 season.
 
Boninfante, who has already booked seven match races for the U.S. Male
this year and is expecting to add at least four more dates to the
schedule, needed a driver he could count on to get the car down the
track and Burkhart was the obvious choice.
 
Burkhart, who has four NHRA Funny Car wins during his career, has
driven for Del Worsham, Paul Smith and most recently was the choice to
fill in for multi-time NHRA Funny Car champ John Force after his
serious accident in Dallas in 2007.  Burkhart jumped in the seat and he
drove Force's car to the finals of the season ending NHRA World Finals
at Pomona, Calif. where he lost to team Force driver Robert Height in
the final round.

Daniel Wilkerson, the 21-year-old son of NHRA Funny Car star Tim
Wilkerson, will make his National Hot Rod Association

professional
debut at the upcoming O'Reilly Summer Nationals, May 29-31, at
Heartland Park Topeka.  The younger Wilkerson earned his nitro Funny
Car license in 2007, was the No. 1 qualifier and runner-up at his
first, and only, IHRA event in Milan, Mich. in May of '08, and also
defeated Ashley Force in an all second-generation final round at the
popular Norwalk Raceway "Night Under Fire" match race last year, when
he posted an e.t. of 4.173 seconds at more than 297 mph.  In addition,
he has successfully competed as a sportsman racer in the NHRA Top
Alcohol Funny Car class since 2006, winning the Division 3 TAFC
championship in '07.

Wilkerson will drive a second Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car in
Topeka, and will compete with his own crew, with additional help from
his father and the LRS Shelby Mustang team.  While it will be his NHRA
national event debut, Wilkerson is not planning to make all of the
allotted qualifying runs on Friday and Saturday, as his father
explained.

"It just seems like the right time to get Daniel out there and get his
feet wet in the big leagues, so we're going to take it one step at a
time and not overwhelm him or any of the guys on his team," the senior
Wilkerson said.  "Right now, the plan is to make one qualifying pass a
day, to make sure he and his guys are buttoned-up and ready for each
lap.  We're not trying to stun the world, we just see this as a great
time to get him out there and make his debut.

Tommy Gray and the Undertaker Team set a new Pro Mod record at Maryland
International Raceway last weekend at The Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod
Association running a record setting 5.90, 243mph.

"We
are so thrilled with Our Vanishing Point Race Car and our Jan Cen power
plant," Gray said. "We have run 2 NEOPMA events and been to the final
in both. With a record setting crowd waiting for the final round the
rain came and unfortunately the race was canceled.

Jamie Stoneman takes commanding TNT Super Series points lead at Toronto Motorsports Park

Jamie
Stoneman ruled the field at the Joe's Transmission TNT Super Series
events this past weekend at Toronto Motorsports Park (TMP).  A regular
in TNT Super Series competition, the Cheektowaga, New York racer found
his way to the winner's circle in both Saturday and Sunday's events
presented by Rosehill Auction House.

"I can't believe it," said Jamie in the TMP Winner's Circle.  "Two
weeks ago, the cab, engine and transmission weren't even in the
chassis.  We thrashed to get the truck ready for the season opener last
week and got a runner-up finish.  Here we are winning the next two in a
row.  Awesome!"  The 555 cid big block Chevy-powered 1993 S10 qualified
third Saturday, first on Sunday and then busted up the field all
weekend long.

Bandimere Speedway, located outside of Denver, Co., kicked off its 2009
racing season recently with the “Night of Fire and Thunder” presented
by NAPA auto parts.

Among the thousands of race fans who packed the grandstands, were
several kindergarten through sixth grade students from 64 schools, who
participated in Bandimere’s “Race to Read”® program. “Race to Read”®,
which is lead by Tami Schrader, is a six-week reading program, designed
to encourage literacy by providing an exciting race-themed incentive
for elementary-age students. This year approximately 25,000 students
read over 170,000 hours in six weeks to earn a free ticket to the
“Night of Fire and Thunder”.

Highlighting the racing portion of the event were exhibition runs by some of the most exciting vehicles in drag racing.

NAPA Auto Parts stepped up to the plate to sponsor the new Quick 32 Sportsman Series with the season’s first race this past weekend at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario.
 
The Hyde Racing Team was ready for a great weekend and it proved to be just that.
 
Driver Spencer Hyde did not disappoint, along with crew chief Rich
Ingram and his team of Jim McCann, Ron Hyde, Jack Hyde and Peter. This
was a big weekend for Spencer. It was the first race in his new car in
the new division (for him) of Top Dragster, and he competed in the
first race of this brand new series, pulling out a win against Mitch
Elliott of Woodstock with a 6.854-second, 199.85 mph pass down the
Cayuga quarter-mile.

John Force Racing East, the Midwest  headquarters of the most
successful team in Funny Car drag racing history, will open its doors
to the public Saturday, May 23rd , from 10 a.m.-to-2 p.m. as part of
the 3rd annual Brownsburg Motorsports Network Open House.

Fans will be permitted to tour the spacious team race shop that
includes the race shop, machine shop, fab shop, and paint shop.  John
Force’s Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang, Ashley Force Hood’s
Castrol GTX Ford Mustang, Robert Hight’s Auto Club Ford Mustang, Mike
Neff’s Ford Drive One Mustang and Eric Medlen’s Castrol Syntec Ford
Mustang will be on display in the shop for fans to view and snap photos.

Classic. California. Cool.

From the classic images of Harrison Ford in American Graffiti to James
Dean to The Fonz in Happy Days, the car – the hot rod – has always been
at the center of Hollywood’s projection of what it means to be Cool in
California.

Off the big screen, the roots of the southern California car culture
are deepest at historic Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, where in February
of 1961 NHRA founder Wally Parks hosted the first-ever running of the
now-historic and iconic Winternationals.

Fast forward half a century and hot rodding’s past will meet its
present when the 0-to100 mph in less-than-a-second, 7,000-horsepower
hot rods of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series descend on Auto
Club Raceway at Pomona Feb. 11-14, 2010 for the 50th running of the
Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals.

Harry “Uncle Harry” Hoppes never drove a race car or attended the drag
races for the matter, yet he was one of CompetitionPlus.com's biggest
supporters.

Uncle Harry, brother of Diane Cartee, CompetitionPlus.com office
manager, and uncle of publisher/editor Bobby Bennett, passed away this
morning after a brief illness. He was four days shy of his 76th
birthday.

Elite group in the running for JEGS Crown trophy

An
elite field of 15 highly skilled sportsman drag racers are in the
running for the coveted JEGS Crown trophy, a special award which could
be bestowed upon one or more of them at the upcoming JEGS NHRA Northern
SPORTSnationals, Sept. 25-27. The JEGS Crown is a specially designed
trophy that was painstakingly handcrafted by Dan Dreisbach, of Naked
Sculpture (www.naked-sculpture.com). It is considered by many to be
drag racing equivalent to an Olympic Gold Medal simply because it is so
difficult to obtain. The only way to win the JEGS Crown is to win an
eliminator title at two of the three JEGS NHRA SPORTSnationals events
held each year; the JEGS NHRA Cajun SPORTSnationals in Belle Rose, La.,
the JEGS NHRA Pacific SPORTSnationals in Fontana, Calif., and the JEGS
NHRA Northern SPORTSnationals in Columbus, Ohio. Since it’s creation in
2005, the JEGS Crown has been claimed just once, by former Pro Mod
racer and current Top Fuel team owner Mike Ashley.