It would certainly be understandable if Warren Johnson simply wanted to put the 2008 season behind him.  After all, the six-time
champion has candidly admitted that this year’s POWERade Drag Racing
campaign has been one of the most challenging of his Hall of Fame
career.  Therefore, he could simply be approaching this weekend’s Auto
Club of Southern California Finals in Pomona, CA as nothing more than
the final stop on the schedule before preparations begin in earnest for
2009.

However, one of Johnson’s trademark qualities is his unbridled
determination to succeed in any and every venture he undertakes.  As
such, the GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP crew will arrive at the Auto
Club Raceway at Pomona with the single-minded purpose of ending the
year in the winner’s circle.

Justin Humphreys has decided to begin his off-season one race before the other NHRA Pro Stock regulars.

The second-year driver from Monrovia, Md., said Wednesday his RaceRedi
Motorsports Pontiac GXP team will not be competing in the season-ending
Auto Club Finals at Pomona, Calif., Nov. 13-16. 

“We’re sitting this one out. There’s no reason for us to be racing
because we aren’t in the top 10,” Humphreys explained.  “With the way
the economy is, it’s better for our team to save our resources for
2009.  We will definitely be back next year.”

For every story of unprecedented courage told here on the pages of CompetitionPlus.com, there are millions of others that will go untold.

In the days to come, CompetitionPlus.com will bring you five stories of incredible bravery, dedication and determination. Stories of people who did not let accident or illness end their dreams of racing.

The first lady of drag racing Shirley Muldowney, fourteen-time world champion John Force, second-generation Top Fuel driver Brandon Bernstein and cancer survivors Jack Beckman and Steve Torrence have all shared with CompetitionPlus.com their innermost struggles and fears coupled with undying determination to live.

This second chapter of our three-part series deals with the emotions from the battles with cancer that Beckman and Torrence endured.

Mopar hasn’t announced yet, but Avenger will be next Mopar Pro Stocker

Greg Russell's artist concept of what the new Dodge Avenger should look like.

If
you’re betting on one of those new Dodge Challengers to roll into the
Pro Stock wars in 2009, don’t put the farm up for collateral. This tip
comes from a source deep within Mopar’s Pro Stock efforts. A safer
wager will be the re-introduced Dodge Avenger, also introduced as part
of NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow program.

ADRL Completes Mid-East Goodwill Tour

Call
it a working vacation, but American Drag Racing League (ADRL)
co-founders Tommy Lipar and Kenny Nowling, who also serves as president
of the O’Fallon, Missouri-based series, are heading home after a
whirlwind, week-long tour of Doha, Qatar and Dubai and Umm Al Quwain,
in the United Arab Emirates.

Accompanied by ADRL Executive Assistant Jessica Alcoke, the trio were
guests of Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, an oil-rich
peninsula nation abutting Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. The Sheikh
is intent on globalizing the sport of drag racing and has invested
millions of dollars in building race facilities and teams at home and
recently expanded to assembling a multi-car ADRL Pro Nitrous team with
connections to New York, West Virginia and Alabama.

Pomona will likely be the last event Jerry Toliver drives for Don
Schumacher Racing. With that said, the Rockstar Energy Drink-sponsored
driver wants to end the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series with a
victory this weekend at the 44th annual NHRA Finals at Pomona (Calif.)
Raceway. More than anything, he'd like to add a fourth career win at
this facility to his resume and the first of the year for the Rockstar
Energy Drink team. The California native boasts triumphs in Pomona at
the season finale in 1999 and at the season openers in 2000 and 2004. 
 
It’s been a long season for the California native who joined Don
Schumacher Racing in 2008 and endured a year void of racing luck,
despite driving a car that has demonstrated strong performances
throughout the year. The one thing that has remained solid for Toliver
is his hard-working crew. Led by crew chief Phil Shuler, the Rockstar
Energy Drink team’s determination throughout the season has never been
in question. Coming off a strong No. 3 qualifying effort at the last
event in Las Vegas, Toliver wants to reward his crew with a victory.

Toliver plans to race next season, the destination undetermined at this time.

In the words of the Grateful Dead, “What a long strange trip it has been,” for rookie Mike Neff and the Old Spice Ford Mustang team.

Pressed into service for the final two races of the 2007 Neff entered
the 2008 season with high expectations but also a very grounded senses
of self. As the newest member of John Force Racing Neff was still
getting acclimated to his 8,000 horsepower Ford Mustang as the season
opened up in Pomona. The rookie driver was quickly tested over the
first third of the season never making it past the first round in the
first eight races.

Then there was the breakthrough weekend in St. Louis which saw the
former crew chief not just win his first round of competitive
competition as a driver but reach his first final before being narrowed
beaten by Tim Wilkerson. The same day that Neff notched round win
number one team leader and boss John Force won his historic 1,000 round
in the pair that preceded his run. Force seemed as equally excited
about Neff’s first win as his 1000th at the top end.

No matter what the outcome of this weekend’s, Nov. 13-16, annual running of the Auto Club of Southern California NHRA
Finals
at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona (Calif.), Hillary Will, driver of the
Palm Beach Int’l Raceway/KB Racing, LLC Top Fuel dragster, knows that
she will finish the 2008 POWERade Drag Racing Series in the highest
points position of her three-year career.

Will, the world’s fastest female, is currently in second place in
POWERade points with only 41 points separating her position and Larry
Dixon in fifth place. If Will and the Jim Oberhofer-led (crew chief)
Palm Beach Int’l Raceway team qualify for the 16-car eliminations
field, they will be guaranteed a top-five finish, a remarkable
turnaround from the Ken and Kenny Black-owned team that finished last
season in 13th place and in 10th in 2006.

Two round of racing. Forty points. Less than nine seconds. That is all
that stands between Robert Hight and his first Funny Car POWERade
Championship.

All season long Hight has been the focus of the championship hunt. He
opened the season with a win in Pomona at the Winternationals and he
followed that with a runner-up finish in Phoenix. He led the points for
the fourth year in a row, something only he has done at least once
during the last four seasons in the Funny Car class.

Then there was a bit of a swoon as Hight and his team struggled to work
out some performance kinks that had plagued the championship caliber
team. His team was consistently a top qualifier and still struck fear
throughout the Funny Car ranks but the early career dominance that
propelled him to the 2005 Rookie of the Year Trophy and back-to-back
championship runner-up finishes was hit or miss on race day.

With the final race of the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing season this
weekend and five riders still mathematically in the fight, the POWERade
Pro Stock Motorcycle world championship could very well come down to
the final pass of the season at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club
Raceway in Pomona.