After several months of being on the market, Piedmont Dragway was
officially sold yesterday. The new owners, Jim Turner and Bob Harris,
are both former owners of the central North Carolina facility. Turner,
a retired educator and coach, grew up near the drag strip that was
built in 1957, and visited the facility often during his teenage years.
Turner later bought the facility in 1982, owning it until 2001. Most of
the modernization of Piedmont Dragway happened under Turner's first
tenure as owner.
 
Joining Turner for a second term of joint-ownership is racer and
business man, Bob Harris, who first partnered with Turner in 1995,
later buying the track outright in 2001. Harris brings years of drag
racing passion to the table, and with it, the steadfast desire to
improve an already quality facility. Near term improvement plans
include resurfacing the track and adding a more modern fuel station.

Former NHRA Nationals and March Meet winner Ted Cyr, who with original
partner Bill Hopper had one of the most successful teams in the country
during the late 1950s and early 1960s and who later fielded a modern
Top Fuel car with Flip Schofield, died Dec. 2 of pharmaceutical
complications following heart surgery in July. He was 79.

Sheikh Khalid's Al-Anabi Awesome Motorsports 1957 Chevy driven by Von
Smith and tuned by Howard Moon set a new track record in testing for
the next event in the Bahrain Drag Race Championship series.

Jeff Perley, a successful Pro Stock crew chief, will return to the NHRA
Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Pro Stock community in 2009 as co-crew
chief for Allen Johnson’s Mopar team.

Perley will team up with the existing powerhouse combination of Mark
Ingersoll and Johnson’s engine builder and father Roy Johnson.

Perley’s resume includes a stint with Kurt Johnson (1997 – 2001) and four championship runs with KB Racing.

“I probably over-killed things a little bit.”

This is what Kenny Barnes, the owner of the new Dallas Raceway, said
when asked about the construction of his new all-concrete facility 24
miles east of Dallas, Texas. Barnes, who undertook the construction of
Dallas Raceway with his eye on building a successful place to spend his
retirement, has been meticulous in every detail of his facility. He
hired engineers to test the concrete that will make up his racing
surface, he plotted and planned, taking the steady approach towards the
construction as opposed to throwing something together and worrying
about fixing it later. And the result, when all is said and done, will
be one of the nicest drag racing facilities in the country.

Antron Brown and Lee Beard will continue to lead championship-contending NHRA race team

3B Racing (owned by Tim Buckley) and David Powers Motorsports (owned by
David Powers) announced today an agreement that will see 3B Racing as
the sole owner of the Matco Tools Top Fuel Team driven by Antron Brown.
The transition was completed in an effort to align the financial
estates of Buckley and Powers. Powers remains the owner of Hot Rod
Fuller’s Caterpillar team.

The Matco Tools and Caterpillar teams will continue to operate from the
team’s Brownsburg, Ind. race shop in the heart of NHRA drag racing near
Indianapolis. The structure of the team remains intact with Lee Beard
as the crew chief and Brown, an 18-time NHRA winner, as the driver of
the Matco-backed rail. The Matco Tools and Caterpillar teams will
continue to operate on a shared technology basis. The configuration of
the 3B Racing/DPM pit setup also stays with the popular Iron Eagle Club
hospitality area located between both the Matco Tools and Caterpillar
Top Fuel teams.

When Chad Head left the NHRA’s employ years ago to join the Indy Racing League he wondered if he’d worked his last job in

Chad
Head (right) poses for a picture with his dad Jim Head, a noted nitro
racer. The second-generation Head returns to drag racing as the team
manager for Alan Johnson's Al-Anabi operation.

drag
racing. Shortly before Alan Johnson’s announcement that he’d signed an
agreement to field a two-car nitro team in conjunction with Al Anabi
Motorsports, his questions were answered.

Head is the team manager for Johnson’s Alan Johnson/Al Anabi
Motorsports team scheduled to debut in January 2009 when testing opens.
He can say with a high amount of certainty that he’s happy to be back
in drag racing.

“Alan called me when he was putting the team together and asked me if I
would be interested,” Head said. “Considering the long-standing
relationship between my dad, myself and the Johnson family the decision
was really a no-brainer. The toughest part of the decision was leaving
the Indy Car series and the person I worked for -- Brian Barnhart.”

Alan Johnson/Al Anabi Motorsports team manager Chad Head would love to
earn a dollar for every time someone has inquired or tried to get the
inside scoop regarding who will drive the team’s Top Fuel dragster in
2009. He’d be a rich man.

“We’re still working on that and Alan’s got it narrowed down to a
couple of people,” Head admitted. “I think he’s just trying to put the
finishing touches on a few things. We could have an announcement within
a week or so.”

Racers for Christ is currently conducting an eBay auction for an
autographed John Force helmet along with an NHRA Fan Experience for an
upcoming 2009 Full Throttle Drag Racing Series national event of the
winning bidder choosing. The helmet was recently autographed by the
14-time Funny Car champion at the conclusion of the 2008 NHRA POWERade
season.