Cruz Pedregon leads the Funny Car points
standings for the first time since April 25, 1998. Seven different
drivers have reached a final round in the category with just four races
in the books, including Del Worsham, who broke a two-year drought with
his win in Houston after not making the field at the first two races of 2008.

Need a story line? It's take your pick in Funny Car, where as
predicted no team has yet emerged dominant and giants no longer sleep.

The NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series stops in Las Vegas
for the ninth annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at
Las Vegas Motor Speedway April 10-13. The event is the fifth of 24 on
the tour. Brandon Bernstein (Top Fuel), Robert Hight (Funny Car), and
Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) are the defending winners of the event in
their respective Pro categories.

Dictionary.com defines versatile as - capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of

Scott Palmer races Top Fuel from the heart. (Roger Richards)

various tasks, fields of endeavor.

IHRA Knoll Gas Nitro Jam racing defines versatile as Scott Palmer.

Palmer races an 8,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragster on at least 12
weekends of the year and when not, chances are you’ll find him driving
a 2,500-horse, suspended chassis Pro Modified doorslammer.
 Each combination is unique in its driving challenges.

“My biggest problem in the Pro Mod is I tend to drive to the center
line and get out of the groove,” Palmer said. “I have to be really
careful when I drive the doorslammer and pay extra attention to what
I’m doing.”

Bob Tasca III will participate in Thursday night’s Grand Opening of the
Shelby Corner Café on the campus of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Tasca,
along with Carroll Shelby and Don Prudhomme, will be on hand for a
driver autograph session from 7 – 8 p.m.

Pro Stock icon Bill Grumpy
Jenkins is recovering from complications related to a drop in blood pressure on
Sunday. Doctors performed a stent procedure and inserted three balloons inside
the arteries to expand passageways.

Jake Barbato of Jenkins
Competition confirmed Jenkins’ condition with the NHRA’s John Jaudaga on
NHRA.com.

Ah, Las Vegas, where fortunes are made and lost every day, providing, of course,
one frequents the many games of chance that are available.
 
Melanie
Troxel isn’t into gambling, but the driver of the Simayof Jewelers Dodge Charger
R/T Funny Car does know something about rolling the dice when it comes to
race-car combinations. 
 
Four races and several test sessions into the
2008 NHRA POWERade Series, the first-year Funny Car driver believes a
competitive combination is just a few rolls (or qualifying runs, in this
instance) away. She and the Gotham City Racing team have four quarter-mile laps
to solidify the tune-up when qualifying action commences Friday for the ninth
annual SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor
Speedway.
 
Troxel has a special affinity for the track. Her second Top
Fuel victory came here in 2006. The Strip is where she successfully completed
her Funny Car licensing in January and put in a number of test runs following a
six-year, 86-race Top Fuel career, during which she earned four victories in 15
final rounds and series finishes of fourth (2006)and ninth (2007).
 
“The
Las Vegas track actually has been good for both Tommy (Johnson Jr., her husband
and fellow Funny Car driver) and I,” said Troxel.  “Obviously, it’s one of the
premier facilities on the tour. As drivers, that’s probably one of our favorite
tracks . . . and you are in Las Vegas, so it kind of makes for a great weekend
all around.”

Ron Capps has two positive things going for him as he heads to The Strip at Las
Vegas Motor Speedway for this weekend's NHRA Nationals: the NAPA AUTO PARTS
Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car he drives for Don Schumacher Racing is showing
promise after four straight first-round losses, and the quarter-mile at The
Strip has arguably one of the best racing surfaces in the country.

Capps
credits crew chief Ed "Ace" McCulloch and the NAPA crew for the team's newfound
confidence after experiencing a "technical" epiphany before eliminations at the
last event in Houston. Despite losing the opening round to a strong opponent,
Capps' run was solid and straight and boded well for the future.

A.J. Ashe followed up his San Antonio Raceway IHRA Top Sportsman Pro-Am victory
in March with a near duplicate finish at last weekend’s IHRA Amalie Sportsman
Nationals at the same facility. Ashe, a veteran bracket racer with several big
dollar victories under his belt, drove his All In Motorsports Grand Am into the
final round where he met up with defending IHRA World Champion Jason
Lynch.

After
a strong season-opening effort in Florida, the ROUSH® drag racing team
continued their assault on the NMRA’s index classes with another
hard-fought effort during a weekend of weather uncertainty at Silver
Dollar Raceway in Reynolds, Ga.

Susan Roush-McClenaghan followed up her final round appearance at
Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park with another final round berth
against perennial tough contender Tom Motycka. After a strong 0.014
reaction time during the rain-aborted qualifying sessions landed her in
the seventh qualified spot, Susan powered all the way through the
field, missing out on the top spot by the slimmest of margins - eleven
ten thousandths of a second at the stripe.

Susan, despite not having the drag racing experience of some of her
racing peers, is quickly establishing herself as a force to be reckoned
with in the ROUSH Performance Modular Muscle class. As is the case with
any drag race, there has to be a winner and a loser, and after Susan
met up with Roush teammate Donnie Bowles in the second round, she moved
on to have a third-round bye before narrowly winning over Georgia’s
Charlie McCulloch to advance to the final against Motycka. The
heartbreaking loss in the event’s final stanza didn’t temper Susan’s
spirits; she was upbeat and cheery after cementing her class points
lead with this strong showing, the third final-round appearance of her
career.