If you walked through the offices of Valvoline on any given Friday lately,
chances are pretty good you would be walking in a virtual winner's circle of
denims.
 
It's a novel twist on the "casual Friday" phenomenon where
employees of Ashland/Vavoline at its Lexington, Ky. campus can wear blue jeans
the Friday following a Team Valvoline victory on either the NASCAR or NHRA
circuit.
 
To date there have been 15 professional wins by Valvoline
drivers and the NASCAR and NHRA seasons have yet to reach the halfway mark.

Smith selling Mountain Motor Pro Stocker; Blown Pro Mod car coming for Indy 

The phone call sounded like it came from next door, but former JEGS ProMod
Challenge champion "Tricky Rickie" Smith was actually on the other side of the
world in the tiny Middle Eastern island Kingdom of Bahrain.

As a guest of
King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifah's second son, Smith had a simple request of the
organizers of the JEGS ProMod Challenge -- if the Sheik had a new car built in
time for the Mac Tool U.S. Nationals, could Smith compete on his former
champion's exemption. The answer was yes.

"Those Sheiks were about as
happy as you could be," Smith said in his deep, southern drawl. "I told them
that Indy was the biggest drag race in the world and they said, 'Then we must
race there.' That's when I made the call. I'm just glad Troy Coughlin and his
guys let me into the race. From what I hear, you generally don't want to say no
to the Sheik very often."

NHRA  drivers Antron Brown, Hilary Will, Alan
Bradshaw, Jim Yates, Dave Connolly and Allen Johnson will be among
those meeting fans at Jeremiah Bullfrogs Live Thursday, May 29 for
an autograph session to provide fans the opportunity to meet their
favorite drivers in an intimate situation the day before the O'Reilly
NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka.

The autograph session will take place from 6-8 p.m. Jeremiah
Bullfrogs Live is located at 4115 SW Huntoon St, right on the corner of
Huntoon and Gage.

For Scott Richardson of Greenbrier, Tenn. winning the World Footbrake
Challenge is becoming a habit.  For the second year in a row,
Richardson piloted his 1984 Chevy S-10 to a $50,000 payday and a visit
to the winner’s circle at Bristol Dragway last weekend.

Richardson used a .024 reaction time, coupled with a 6.865 elapsed time
(6.82 dial-in) at 92.03 mph to defeat Jacob Rutledge of Hoschton, Ga. 
Rutledge left the line with a .050 R.T. and completed his run with a
6.612 E.T. at 95.89 mph. 

Richardson drove the same truck to the win during Saturday’s action at last year’s World Footbrake Challenge.

The World Footbrake Challenge is a 1/8-mile event that forces racers to
depend heavily on their extensive skills to take home the top prize. 
In footbrake competition, drivers are not allowed to use electronic
equipment to help them achieve a perfect start.  “The World’s Greatest
Footbrake Race,” as it also is known, has been hosted by Bristol
Dragway during both years of its existence.

Dave
Connolly has been to the finals in two of the three races since returning to competition. 

But this is just the beginning.  Ten races remain before the top 10 contenders square off in a six-race title showdown.

The first, the O’Reilly Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka,
unfolds May 30-June 1.  Connolly has been to three consecutive final
rounds in his past three visits to the Kansas Capital city.  He won in
2006 and was runner-up in 2007 and 2005.

“Topeka has been a pretty good track for us,” said Connolly, driver of
the Charter Communications/LifeLock Chevy Cobalt for Victor Cagnazzi
Racing.  “Hopefully we’ll pick up four more round wins there.  That’s
what we have in mind right now.  We are coming off a high with a
runner-up and a win in our second and third races back.  We hope to
have a little faster race car at Topeka so we can put pressure on all
the guys ahead of us.  We’re still taking things one race at a time to
see how everything pans out.”

The popular A&E reality show Driving Force focusing on the private
lives of John Force, his wife Laurie and daughters Ashley, Brittney and
Courtney will return once the icon patriarch feels comfortable with the
progress they’ve made with safety and other issues since the
unfortunate testing accident which claimed the life of team driver Eric
Medlen.

“I still owe them [A&E] some shows, so I told them I needed to get
my race teams back together and get us the safety aspect up and
running,” Force said in a recent press conference in Charlotte, N.C. 
“I can’t focus on a TV show.”

Justin Humphreys’ RaceRedi Motorsports Pro Stock team finds itself in a
frustrating predicament, one that is not easily resolved.

His Pontiac GXP is without race motors and, therefore,
will not be competing in this weekend’s O’Reilly Summer Nationals at Topeka, Kan. 

Humphreys said Richard Maskin, who had been the engine supplier, “called
us and said he didn’t want to do this anymore and asked us to send his engines
back (from the team’s Maryland shop to
Detroit).  We had no forewarning . . . and we don’t have
any other engines available to us, so we won’t be in Topeka.”

In an effort to keep racing cost effective, the Flowmaster American
Drag Racing League (ADRL) presented by the National Guard is “seriously
considering” the implementation of a specified “spec” fuel starting in
its 2009 season, series president Kenny Nowling said. The decision
would affect racers in all three ADRL full-bodied car classes—Pro
Extreme, Pro Nitrous and Extreme 10.5—as well as its unique Pro Extreme
Motorcycle class.

“No agreement has yet been reached, but we are currently in serious
discussions with VP Racing Fuels, the Official Racing Fuel of the ADRL,
to become our spec fuel supplier for all four classes in the future,”
Nowling said. “VP has supported racing throughout its history like few
others. They’re dedicated to providing good performance and value in
the form of top quality products for fair prices, so it just makes
sense for us to take the next step with them.”

The ADRL announced VP Racing Fuels as its Official Racing Fuel last
December and the company now stations a fuel truck at each ADRL
national event, offering a full range of fuel products available at
special “event only” pricing that is lower than the prevailing retail
cost.

Ron Capps' journey so far in the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
is quite different from where it was at this time in 2007.

Last May he entered the NHRA Summer Nationals leading the Funny Car
standings by 120 points over his next competitor. This year, he's 192
points behind in No. 8. But that's OK, says the driver of the NAPA AUTO
PARTS Dodge Charger R/T who has won twice at Heartland Park Topeka
(1998 and 2006) and who's buoyed by the recent boost in performance of
the all-new NAPA Dodge tuned by Ed "Ace" McCulloch.

With the new Murf McKinney chassis - which will be mandatory by the
NHRA for the Denver event in July - reacting well to the tweaks and
changes McCulloch made to it at its debut in Bristol two weeks ago,
Capps and the NAPA team are aiming to be running strong when the
Countdown to the Championship kicks in after the U.S. Nationals on
Labor Day weekend.

It must have felt a bit like proving themselves all over again.

Melanie Troxel won her fifth career professional national event in Bristol and first in a Funny Car. (Roger Richard Photos)

In 2006, Melanie Troxel reached a stunning nine final rounds with two
wins in her first year of fulltime competition in Top Fuel, good enough
for a fourth-place finish on the year. Then she followed that with
another two-win season in 2007, firmly establishing herself as a
contender in Top Fuel.

Meanwhile Dave Connolly, one of the youngest drivers on the NHRA
POWERade Series Pro Stock circuit, quickly picked up a good reputation
as one of the fastest leavers at the starting line – drawing
comparisons to established starting-line dominator Jeg Coughlin. After
finishing 18th in the points his first season on the road, Connolly
turned in four consecutive top 5 finishes – three of which were
third-place seasons.