Angelle Sampey is still pushing for her first win aboard a Buell.

Making their third
consecutive appearance in as many events, Angelle Sampey is ready for a good
finish on a track she has only seen once before in her career in Pro Stock
Motorcycle.

"We have room to
improve and are on the right track of doing that," crew chief Bryce said
after the team's second round loss to former champ Andrew Hines. "We're
gonna go to Norwalk
and keep improving."

"This is only our
second year racing at Norwalk,
so this is a very new track to us," said Angelle. "Anytime we go to a
new track it takes some getting used to. I'm still not really familiar with the
surface of the track or how we need to run there. Especially being with a new
team, we're gonna have to figure that out together. We're gonna have to figure
out what it takes to get the bike as straight as possible down the lanes. From
what I remember it's a very good track, both lanes, so I don't think we'll have
any issues.

Melanie Troxel has a full plate at this weekend's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals.

As the lead-driver for the Gotham City Racing team, she is tasked with
defending team co-owner Mike Ashley's 2007 victory, and at the same
time, she is working to break into the top-ten to make the Countdown to
One playoffs.
 
In addition, this will be a difficult weekend in drag racing, the first
event since the tragic death of veteran champion Scott Kalitta last
weekend, and Troxel will join her colleagues as they all work to focus
on their jobs wile trying to make personal peace with the tragic loss.
 
"It's like a family out here, so when something like this happens, it
affects everybody and we all feel it. We all know, however, that we are
out here to do a job, something that we all have chosen to do," Troxel
said.

KP Components, a leading
manufacturer of sport-truck suspensions, has been acquired by Chris Alston’s
Chassisworks.  Founded in 2000,

With three decades of drag racing experience, a Funny Car world
championship, and 27 national event victories to his credit, Cruz
Pedregon certainly knows how to be successful at the top level of the
sport. That's why it's so easy for him to get excited about this
weekend's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Norwalk Raceway
Park.

"We're right where we want to be," Pedregon said. "We've gone back to
basics and we're ready to make some serious moves in Norwalk."

Pedregon attributes his upbeat mood directly to his decorated crew
chief, Rahn Tobler, who calls the shots on his Advance Auto Parts
Toyota Solara.

It's understandable why three-time Pro Stock champ Greg Anderson has
this weekend's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing
Equipment Motorsports Park circled on his calendar.

As they do for each of the NHRA POWERade Series' 24 races, Anderson and
KB Racing teammate Jason Line will each be strapping themselves into
Summit Racing Pontiac GXP team cars, so a win here would obviously hold
significant meaning. Anderson enters the Buckeye state coming off of an
impressive performance last weekend at Englishtown, capturing both his
64th career No. 1 qualifier and 54th career win. 

"Summit Racing Equipment has been terrific to this team," Anderson
said. "This week, we'll be competing at the Summit Racing Equipment
NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park, so you kind
of get an idea why this race is so important to everyone on our race
team.  With this event being right in Summit Racing's backyard, just a
few miles down the road from their headquarters in Tallmadge, Ohio,
this race has become the biggest race of the year to us.  They bring
their employees over to the event, they take a lot of pride in the
facility and in the way the event runs.  Doing well there makes it very
important to us.

Three-time IHRA Funny Car world champion Rob Atchison will begin the search today for a new major sponsor for 2009 and beyond.

Erickson Manufacturing notified Atchison notified the Canadian drag
racing icon they will not renew sponsorship of his team past 2008.

Rodger Comstock, president and CEO of Mail Terminal Services, which sponsors
Jack Beckman's Valvoline/MTS Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car in the NHRA POWERade
Drag Racing Series, said that every box of military mail that was sent out on
Monday from MTS's Military Mail Terminal in Newark, N.J., included a note
saluting Scott Kalitta and wishing him “Godspeed.”

Also on each box on
the 299 pallets sent was a photo of the DHL Funny Car and team. The 47,102 kilos
(103,840 pounds) of military mail were transported by Kalitta Air to Bahrain and
from there distributed to American troops in the war zones.

Greg Anderson will lead the K&N Horsepower Challenge field as the
No. 1 seed for the fifth year in a row as the lucrative
race-within-a-race bonus event takes center stage June 28 during the
second annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing
Equipment Motorsports Park.

A purse of $76,000 is available for the eight drivers competing in the
24th annual K&N Horsepower Challenge. The winner of the K&N
Horsepower Challenge will earn $50,000. The runner-up will earn
$10,000, the two semifinalists $3,000 each, and the four first-round
finishers $2,500 apiece.

The combination of a sluggish economy and skyrocketing fuel prices
isn’t discriminating between the higher financed teams and those of
lesser means.

The rising cost of doing business has the large teams such as the one owned by John Force looking closely at their spending.  (Roger Richards)

Is this just a passing season of financial tightness or have tough times set in for the long haul?

Bill Corwin of Sunoco Race Fuels says such a forecast is tough to determine.

“It’s hard to say because I was around in the 1970s,” said Corwin. 
“Everything was inflated, but if you were working your salary would go
up to cover it. What we were used to paying isn’t as important. If
you’re living on a fixed income then it becomes a larger issue.”

While Corwin is likely talking about the average consumer and not a
race team, his point also hits home with those professional and
sportsman race teams who negotiated sponsorships years ago based on
23-races with a greater economy. Some teams are forced to accept the
higher operating costs on budgets forecasts prepared years ago.

The ground-pounding fury of NHRA Championship Drag Racing is literally
about to invade your living room via the technology offered by
ButtKicker. Working in conjuction with Scott "Woody" Woodruff of Team
JEGS, technicians with the Westerville, Ohio-based company are
conducting beta tests with Jeg Coughlin Jr. this weekend at the
national event in Norwalk to advance their work in conveying a much
more realistic drag racing experience to viewers at home.

Utilizing a small motor attached to the furniture or floors in the end
user's home, ButtKicker will transfer low frequency audio through the
viewer's body to simulate the feeling of being in a racecar during a
high-speed, quarter-mile pass.

The 10-year-old company already brings concerts and numerous other
sports to their customers through their unique systems, which cost
between $350-$400 at most chain audio-visual stores, but this is their
first foray into motorsports.

"Racing is actually the most logical sport for us to bring to the
living room because there's a lot of vibration and movement involved,"
said Ken McCaw, the founder of the company who spearheads product
development. "Although nothing will ever exactly replicate that feeling
of being in the stands or down on the starting line when two cars take
off, I believe we can enhance the viewing experience quite a bit.
That's why were exploring this further with Woody and Jeg Coughlin to
see what we can do for NHRA fans."