Paul Richards Racing has signed National, Tire & Battery as a sponsor on their Nitro Funny Car for the upcoming IHRA
Amalie Oil North America Nationals in Epping,
New Hampshire, August 10-12. Veteran tuner,
driver and former IHRA Top Fuel national event winner Mike Smith will be making
his return to the cockpit behind the wheel of the NTB Chevy Camaro at popular
New England Dragway. Smith last drove in San
Antonio this past March. The team plans to test before
the event. Here is a peek at the new paint scheme that will be making its debut
in Epping.

Capps to run
limited schedule; Looking for the opportunity

Sometimes the toughest
decisions made in drag racing are made when you’re straddling the fence. No one
knows that better than Jon Capps. You know Jon, the sibling of NHRA POWERade
Funny Car points leader Ron Capps. Ron is already there. Jon is the aspiring
one.

Jon is the one who cut the
legs from underneath his own dream. From the outside, one might think he made a
mistake. But not Jon, he made the right decision in the best interests of the
company who has trusted his expertise. It was a no-brainer, he concluded.

Jon serves as a product
brand manager for the upstart Vegas Fuel energy drink. He had a choice to
continue racing or play close to the vest and make a sound business decision.

The toughest part for
Capps is that he had to make the decision to limit his drag racing program.

“The demands of staying
ahead of the product got the best of us,” Capps said. “It is going so fast that
it was going to be tough to stay ahead of the brand. It’s going to be smarter
to cut back our schedule this season. It’s financially smarter for us to stay
put.

Veteran Top Fuel professional Cory McClenathan has started his own race team
with help from Don Schumacher Racing. The popular Fram-backed driver has managed
to keep all of his sponsors and will operate a team that will lease all of its
equipment from Schumacher, who fields the Top Fuel dragster of four-time
champion Tony Schumacher and six other professional-level
entries.

McClenathan hopes to keep his current crew, who has been racing
for the past several events through Scott Griffin Motorsports. Griffin will stay
involved with McClenathan's team through the hospitality program.

"This
is something I've wanted to do for some time now and the opportunity presented
itself recently and I jumped at the chance," McClenathan said. "When the people
at FRAM, Autolite, Prestone, and Bendix, along with JEGS.com, GMC, Mac Tools,
Lucas Oil, and Nordic Boats promised their continued support and encouraged me
to follow my dream at this point in my career, that's what made my mind up for
me.

Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Ryan Schnitz has been MIA since the start
of the season, as has his bike owner Rob Muzzy, but not for the usual
reasons. Muzzy has been developing the new ZX-14 Kawasaki for
competition as the Team Green manufacturer returns to the NHRA POWERade
wars after a four-year absence.

Muzzy's bike didn't even exist seven months ago. The Trim-Tex-sponsored
machine made its debut at Bandimere Speedway near Denver earlier this
month. After the motorcycle passed technical inspection in its premier
appearance, Schnitz took it down the Denver track twice. The first time
he didn't make weight and on the second occasion there was a
miscommunication on lights. The third try, Schnitz didn't even leave
the line and there was no fourth try.

The Swedish round of the FIA
European Drag Racing Championship managed to get in the only complete non
washed out event of the tour so far this season and even this suffered rain and
thunder storms making hard work for the track crews. But cool air helped the
event secure a new European Top Fuel record and numerous track bests. On the
woeful side there was one Pro Stock crash and two Pro bikes managed to scrape
the guard rail all with, thankfully, no casualties.

In FIA Top Fuel, Britain’s
Andy Carter in the Lucas Oil machine recorded a new European record with his
4.732 that also led the field of ten entries by almost a tenth. Of the eight
qualifiers only two remained outside the four second zone with Sweden’s Jöran
Persåker sitting on the bump with a 5.074, a fact that made it Europe’ quickest
ever bump spot.

Round one pitted Norway against Sweden with Thomas Nataas
experiencing a small fire in the lights on his winning 4.916/303 as Micke
Kǻgered pitched the blower belt off at three quarter track slowing to a
6.244/139. Finland’s Tommi
Haapanen ran his best ever with a winning 4.890/294 as Switzerland’s
Urs Erbacher lost the blower belt at one hundred feet out. Finland’s ski jumping Champion Janne Ahonen ran
a great 4.881 in qualifying but experienced problems starting and came to stage
too late after ignoring short burnout instructions and was told to shut off
allowing Holland’s
Lex Joon to record an easy solo of 6.445/131 to take the win. Andy Carter also
had problems starting but did manage in time then zipped off a 4.740/308 to
oust any chance from Jöran Persǻker’s 5.057/263 to end the round.

Prestolite Wire Corporation announced today their acquisition of the well-known
Mr. Gasket Performance Group.  

Mr. Gasket will become a division of
Prestolite, and will continue to  operate the entire Mr. Gasket family of high
performance and racing  brands.

Veteran Gary Scelzi had a scary moment last week, and it had nothing to do with his Oakley Dodge Charger.

Scelzi was racing his son, Dominic, at the go-kart track at Infineon
Raceway earlier in the week when the two drivers bumped into each other.

At the beginning of this season, Geno Scali
was the development rider for Vance & Hines Motorsports' Suzuki
fuel injection system, as he's using one of their bikes, built at the
VHM skunkworks in Brownsburg, Ind. and owned by the company. As the
Suzuki runners begin to move into the 21st century with fuel delivery
systems already used by their Buell and V-Rod competitiors, Scali, the
2003 Pro Stock Motorcycle champion, became the test bed for VHM's EFI.

A close look at Scali['s positioning in the Countdown for the
Championship (11th coming into Sonoma) tells the tale of the tape. "I
changed back to carburetion a few races ago," Geno said. "Can't you
tell by the results?"