Having already defied conventional wisdom simply by climbing back into
the cockpit of his 330 mile-an-hour Castrol GTX® High Mileage™ Ford
Mustang, John Force tries to take his remarkable comeback one step
further this weekend on a Firebird Raceway quarter mile on which he has
gone to the final round 10 times in the last 14 seasons, more often
than at any other track in the NHRA POWERade Series.
 
Although he still walks with a limp, the result of injuries suffered
Sept. 23rd in a spectacular and widely-documented crash in Dallas,
Texas, Force isn't merely a sentimental favorite in this week's 24th
annual Checker/Schuck's/Kragen Nationals.  He's the real thing: a
threat to extend to 22 the number of consecutive seasons in which he
has won at least one NHRA tour event.
 
A semifinalist two weeks ago in the season-opening race at Pomona,
Calif., one in which he posted the quickest race day time of 4.805
seconds, Force returns this week to the track where he first mashed the
gas on his reconfigured Funny Car during last month's pre-season test.

Maybe the sportswriter at the Del Rio, Texas, newspaper was being
facetious long ago when he typed the identification lines under the
photograph of a father and his son.

It said: Buddy Bradshaw, 1972 Pro Stock world record holder, and Alan Bradshaw, future record-holder, 2002. 

Alan Bradshaw was four years old at the time.  “I had my dad’s helmet
on my head and it was sitting on my shoulders,” Bradshaw says now.

Then again, maybe the sportswriter had an unobstructed view of the future. 

By 2003, Alan Bradshaw did record-setting one better.  He was NHRA’s
Lucas Oil Top Alcohol Dragster world champion driving an A-Fuel
dragster.  Five years later Bradshaw realized his ultimate goal – to
contend for the Top Fuel championship.

OLD SPICE ROOKIE STOKES CONFIDENCE FOR RETURN TRIP TO FIREBIRD

Rookie driver Mike Neff is entering the 24th annual Checker, Schuck’s,
Kragen NHRA Nationals, his second race of the 2008 POWERade season,
with more of the most valuable element any driver needs.

Confidence.

“I think we will be better. I know I’ll personally feel a little bit
better since we were able to make some full runs. We have more runs
with the Old Spice Mustang now after (Pomona). I feel good about it,”
Neff said. “I think we had a pretty good weekend despite the fact that
we went out first round. For everything that we have changed and the
minimal amount of test runs that we made to go to Pomona and qualify
not too far off the pace is impressive.”

One year ago Rockstar Energy Drink Dodge Charger Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver
was sitting on the sidelines preparing his team to compete in what was left of
the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. This year Toliver enters this
weekend's NHRA Nationals at Firebird Raceway No. 10 in the point standings
following one national event, with a very quick race car.
 
What a
difference a year makes. Tolliver is now in his first full season of NHRA
competition since 2004, after joining Don Schumacher Racing in
2008.
 
"Any time you walk away from a race in the top 10 is an
achievement," said Toliver, who posted the quickest Funny Car elapsed time of
the weekend, 4.790 seconds, at the season-opener in Pomona, Calif. "You can't
set your sights too high and you can't win them all and, unfortunately, we had a
parts failure in the clutch department that took us out in the first round.

IHRA and Torco Racing Fuels entered into a three-year agreement in
October that will turn the Torco Racing Fuels Pro Modified Shootout and
the Torco Racing Fuels Pro Stock Showdown into $100,000 contests that
will pit the eight top drivers in each respective class against each
other with $50,000 first prizes on the line. The runner-up will take
home $20,000 while each semifinalist will pocket $9,000.
Quarterfinalists will claim $3,000 each.

The Pro Modified
Shootout, which is a point-based eight-car qualified field, will be run
off at the Torco Racing Fuels Northern Nationals held at Knoll Gas
Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich. in August. The Pro Stock Showdown,
with the same qualifying points structure, will be run off at the
Amalie North American Nationals in Epping Sept. 5-7.

Drivers in
both classes accumulate points through qualifying position at each
Knoll Gas Nitro Jam event. The drivers must display the proper decals
on their car to accumulate points. The new Shootout and Showdown
structures will be in place through the 2010 Knoll Gas Nitro Jam season.

Michael Baker has been promoted to IHRA Senior Director of Racing
Operations. Baker, who has spent the last decade as Director of
Competition and Technical Services, will have expanded duties that
include acting as internal liaison between IHRA’s Competition and
Communications departments.

He will retain all responsibilities
regarding development of IHRA rules, supervision of IHRA’s six Pro-Am
divisions and on-site national event rules enforcement.

Eight more deaths in a street racing incident this past weekend and many more
seriously injured. I don't understand it.  Just a few weeks ago,  we had two
of our fellow racers and friends killed right here in Alabama.  As a matter
of fact, one them drove right past MMP just to have a fatal street racing
incident 90 miles away. .

I am a rookie track owner-operator, so every
place I go I ask people, "Do you like drag racing?" Last Saturday,  I got an
answer that scared me. I was talking to a  young lady (an employee of a local
business) and I asked her the same question,  "Do you like drag racing?"  She
said "I have never  been to a drag strip but my friends and I enjoy watching
the street racing that goes on in Montgomery".  I asked if she heard about
the people who had been killed the night before; she had not and it scared
her to death!

I gave her free tickets to Montgomery Motorsports Park and
invited her and her friends to come out and enjoy running their cars and
watching during one of our Friday Test and Tune sessions (beginning March 7),
to race in a safe and controlled environment. She was very excited at that
idea.  But I want to do more.

FRAM Top Fuel dragster driver Cory McClenathan is looking to carry the momentum
of his consistent performance at the season-opening Winternationals into this
weekend's NHRA Nationals at Firebird Raceway.
 
McClenathan enjoyed a stellar weekend in Pomona, Calif. (Feb.
7-10), making seven runs in the 4.50-second elapsed-time zone en route to a
runner-up finish to Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tony Schumacher. The
45-year-old racer left Pomona in second place in the Top Fuel point
standings.

With the first of 24 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series national events of 2008 in
the books, "Fast" Jack Beckman is poised for an improved performance of the
Valvoline/Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car he drives for Don
Schumacher Racing in this weekend's second national event of the
year.

Beckman advanced to the quarterfinals at the season-opener in
Pomona, Calif., and left tied in fifth place in the point standings with three
other drivers. Not a bad way to start off a season, despite experiencing some
new-car glitches. This weekend's NHRA Nationals at Firebird Raceway, just
outside of Phoenix, should see a revitalized team effort.

"We're a top-10
team right now," said Beckman, who still holds the national speed record of
333.66 mph he set in 2006. "We didn't run as well as we would have liked to have
run in Pomona, which is the bad news. The great news is that before the
Valvoline/MTS guys loaded the car to leave we found what the problem was in that
second round. We had a fuel control valve that was sticking. We could make a
good, hard, fast run and get good data on the computer, but in the next run it
would go out and drop a cylinder, and the data wouldn't match. We
trouble-shooted that with the help of the other DSR crew chiefs and the
Valvoline/MTS guys narrowed it down.

Gordie Rivera finished last in Pomona's qualifying but that didn’t hurt
his feelings one iota. In fact, he'll be in competition this weekend
during the NHRA CSK Nationals in Phoenix, Arizona.

The longtime veteran from Yuma, Arizona, has been pulling the gears in
NHRA Pro Stock competition since 1970. He used to run in the
competitive circles and finished as high as fifth place in the points
during the mid-1980s.

“Well, we'd like to be a little more competitive even though we don't
have the financial backing to kind of do that stuff in research and
development,” said Rivera. “For what we do I think we get it out of
there. We're doing pretty good with what we've got.