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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK - WINNERS CROWNED AS RACE #3 IS IN THE BOOKS

AN EMOTIONAL VICTORY - Pro Extreme star Tommy D'Aprile was racing for more than the win May 18, in the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA. He was racing in memory of Elizabeth Landry, wife of drag racing fan and part-time crew member Melvin "Fascat" Landry. Elizabeth passed away from cancer one month earlier and after D'Aprile defeated Quain Stott in the final round he immediately dedicated the win to her memory and to his friend, Fascat, who was in attendance for the race near his Louisiana home.

"Elizabeth was such a special lady; she inspired me," D'Aprile said. "Fascat, too, for him to even be out here, you could see he was still in pain, but he stuck around long enough to see us win. I put their names in my phone so I would see them when I got out of the car down there. I wanted to think of them both."

D'Aprile began the march to his first X-DRL win--but his fourth major event title since last October--from a second-place start in his Mel Bush Motorsports 2005 Corvette, but almost got derailed in round one of eliminations against the '70 Duster driven by Albuquerque, NM's Shawn Jones.

"The first round was crazy; that was a pedalfest all the way and I got more pumped about that round because it felt so good to give my team a win like that, to be able to drive it for them," D'Aprile said. "In fact, this whole win belongs to them and they deserve it. Our team owners Mel and Joanne Bush, Al, Alex, Jake, Mike; the win's not for me, it's for them, because I'm just so lucky to be doing what I do because of them."

D'Aprile benefited from a round-two bye in which crew chief Al Billes tuned up a 3.694 pass at 205.79 mph that narrowly provided lane choice over Todd Martin for the semis. Once there, D'Aprile left with a .031 holeshot and led stripe-to-stripe to advance with a 3.685 pass at 206.57 mph. Meanwhile, number-five qualifier Stott opened with a 3.788 at 201.04 win over Eric Clark, then improved to 3.752 at 201.91 in beating Dan Millen before meeting number-one starter Frankie Taylor in the semis.

Stott left with a .076 light and ran 3.743 at 202.42, while Taylor set low ET and top speed of the meet with a 3.641 at 208.10-mph pass--but a sleepy .213 reaction time doomed his efforts for the day.

"Man, I don't know what happened," Taylor admitted later. "I don't know if the tree came down fast or I was just plain late. I rolled into the second beam and looked up and it seemed like the tree was already coming down and I just wasn't ready. All I had to do was have one of my usual bad lights, a .125 or something, and we would've had him. It really sucks to let everyone down like that."

For the final, D'Aprile knew he held a significant performance advantage over Stott, but stressed he never considers who he's racing upon going to the line; instead concentrating only on doing the best he possibly can within his own car and letting the numbers take care of themselves.

"For me I don't change anything no matter who I'm racing; I race me," D'Aprile stated. "But Quain is the reason I'm out here; he gave me a shot in '06 and we did pretty well back then and that's pretty much how people got to know me, so when I race him now I am very much honored, and really that's the word I'd use because he's taught me so much--off the race track as well as on."

D'Aprile again got away first in the final with a .038 light, with Stott .058 on the tree. The gap widened from there as D'Aprile posted 3.673 at 207.34, his best pass of the weekend, against the 3.749 at 202.18 put together by Stott in his Lee Boy Paving '63 Corvette.

"I knew he'd have me on the tree; it was actually a little closer than I thought it would be because Tommy is known as a really good leaver," Stott said. "Me and Tommy are best of friends and we're all friends with the rest of his crew, so it's pretty neat to get to race him, but I would've rather beat him. But I knew I couldn't, not heads-up anyway. I told him and Al Billes before we run, 'One of y'all have got to make a mistake if I'm going to outrun you.'

"But we're happy, we really are. Any time we can go a couple of rounds and not break anything is a good weekend. Really, I'm not disappointed at all. I'm tickled to death and my hat's off to Tommy and his guys for doing a great job. They deserved this one."

MATHIS FINALLY MAKES IT HAPPEN - After several years of trying, Robert Mathis finally scored his first Pro Nitrous event win May 18, in the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA.

"Oh man, it feels good, but to be honest I don't think it's really hit me yet. It's been a hard day, it's been rough, but everyone worked so hard to make this happen," said Mathis, who lives in Baker, FL. "I can't thank everyone enough, from my crew to everyone at Nelson Competition who's been keeping my motor running, it's been hard, but it feels good."

After qualifying his Bickel-built '69 Camaro fourth in the eight-car field, Mathis beat Billy Glidden and outlasted number-one qualifier Jim Laurita in a semi-final pedaling contest before taking on Jeff Naiser out of Houston, TX, in the final round.

"Jeff is a good racer, a good person, and he's as tough as they come, so I knew I'd have to be on my game if we were going to have a chance at all," said Mathis, who overcame a .018 holeshot by Naiser to win with a 3.868-seconds pass at 194.18 mph while Naiser struggled for traction in posting an off-the-pace 4.528 at only 117.47 mph.

"He had me on the tree, he out-60-foot me, he was out there cutting my head off, but it looks like he just picked the wrong lane. I saw him get a little sideways and I started feeling a little tremble myself and then my last system (of nitrous) came in and it just started pulling," Mathis recalled of his career-first Pro Nitrous final. "I knew I had him then." 

Mathis said he experienced a mixture of elation, excitement and relief as he crossed the eighth-mile finish line at No Problem Raceway, but felt the win came as a result of hard work, "everybody on my team doing their very best," and "having the Good Lord behind me today."

"I didn't want to let anyone down when we had made it this far, so I was glad we ended out the day the way it was supposed to be," he said. "Thank the Lord."

NO NEW CAR BLUES FOR GOFORTH - Just three weeks earlier Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) driver Dean Goforth had stood in the pits at Tennessee's Bristol Dragway watching his battered '09 Pontiac GXP being offloaded from a flatbed truck after a severe crash in qualifying for the rained-out X-DRL event there. On May 18, he stood in victory lane at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA, having won the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou in his first race appearance with a brand-new Jerry Haas-built 2013 Camaro.

It marked the second time the Goforth family team had driven a Haas car to victory in its debut event, as Goforth's son, Cary, the reigning back-to-back ADRL Extreme Pro Stock world champion, did the same in 2011 at Martin, Michigan, with his current 2010 GXP.

"I don't know, I guess we just have a good crew, a group of very sharp guys who are able to make us look good," said Goforth, who qualified his new ride sixth of eight XPS entries in Louisiana with a 4.237-seconds pass at 172.10 mph. "I mean, we probably wouldn't have even brought it out unless we had it straightened out, but we tested at Tulsa for three days before we got here and felt pretty comfortable."

Goforth called the new Camaro, "the best car I've ever sat in," and credited the extra time he spent with Haas at his shop in Fenton, MO, fitting every control and feature in the cockpit to him personally for the exceptional comfort and confidence he feels after only a few passes.

"I pretty much spent an entire day up there with him taking care of getting the seat poured and making sure the pedals and every switch was exactly where I wanted them," explained Goforth, who lives in Holdenville, OK. "Usually I've done stuff like that in a hurry, flying in and out the same day, but this time I drove my truck up there and took my time and I think this is it already paying off." 

Goforth caught a break in the opening round when Todd Hoerner treed him by .068, but slowed just enough at the top end to allow Goforth's 4.172 at 174.44 to slip past and advance to the semis against Brian Self, who also serves as crew chief on both Goforth cars. Once more, Goforth was late off the line, but his 4.137 at 175.30 was again enough to get around Self, whose '07 Cobalt began smoking badly on the run.

On the opposite side of the ladder, Team O driver Rick Cowger was enjoying his best XPS outing, starting his '08 Cobalt from the number-five position and getting past Lester Cooper and Kevin Bealko to reach Goforth in his career-first final round.

Cowger left first, but this time by only .007, before running into traction trouble in the first 100 feet, while Goforth posted low ET for eliminations with a solid 4.121 pass at 174.57 to take his fourth career XPS win.

" I was nervous about all of them, but there are no easy rounds when you're 68-years old," said Goforth, who revealed he also had a little trouble in the final that could've cost him the win.

"Everyone had been telling me there was a little dip in the track that can pull you over to the center, but I hadn't felt it all weekend--until that round," he said. "It got me there and I was trying to edge it back to the right but it didn't want to go and I was afraid I was going to hit the finish line block and maybe even cross over (the center line). Jerry Haas told me it was so close that if there were any cobwebs on that block when I got there that they're gone now."

When people inevitably ask how long he intends to keep racing, Goforth said he keeps telling his family and friends that as long as he feels like he's still capable of contending for a win he plans to keep going.

"When I called home after this one and they asked what happened and I said I won, I then said, well guess what? And they said, we know, another year. Yep, another year. When you think about it seriously, though, I won one last year and I've won already this year, so there's no sense in quitting right now. I feel like I've still got a few more left in me."

TOP SPORTSMAN -- Bert Prejean of St. Amant, LA, lasted from the fourth position in a 16-car Top Sportsman field at the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou to defeat fellow Cajun Earl Folse in the final. Prejean ran 4.328 at 142.29 against a 4.28 dial-in, while Folse gave it away with a false start in a -.006 red light.

TOP DRAGSTER -- Keith Raftery from Lake Charles, LA, qualified fifth in the 28-car X-DRL Top Dragster field at No Problem Raceway, and lasted five rounds to run unopposed in the final after his intended opponent, Laramie Reid, crashed at the end of his semi-final win over top qualifier Michael Kile.
PRO TURBO -- Only two cars, both owned by Texan Todd Moyer, showed up to contest the X-DRL's unique Pro Turbo class at the Bash on the Bayou, with Moyer running 3.892 at 202.91 in his '63 Corvette to easily handle teammate Mike Murillo, who struggled mightily all weekend in wrestling his '68 Camaro down the eighth mile at No Problem Raceway.
EXTREME PRO MOD -- Just three cars were in his class, but rookie racer T.J. Tindle still did whatever it would take to win in Pro Modified at the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou, including making a late-night run to meet a friend 160 miles away Friday night and pick up a new rearend housing for his roots-blown '67 Mustang. With the new part installed just in time for Saturday's fourth and final qualifying session, the 19-year-old ran quickest of the three with a 3.960 at 187.11, then made a solo pass in round one before going 3.992 at 186.54 to defeat Kevin Rivenbark's quicker 3.964 at 184.70 with a . 036 holeshot in the final.

SUPERCAR SHOWDOWN -- The X-DRL SuperCar Showdown came down to a pair of Candies in the final as brothers Brett and P.B. Candies faced off in their Mustang Cobra Jets, with P.B. taking the win with a come-from-behind 5.753 at 120.53 beating his brother's 5.964 at 119.19 mph.

DISASTER STRIKES DURING SEMI-FINALS - The first serious incident of the weekend at the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou came Saturday night in the semi-finals of Top Dragster as Laramie Reid of Owl Park, TX, crashed at the end of his run against number-one qualifier Michael Kile. Adding insult to injury, Reid actually would have gone on to contest the event win against Keith Raftery in the final as Kile broke out by one-hundredth of a second.

Reid, the 24-year-old younger brother of X-DRL Pro Extreme racer Randell Reid, was in just his second race with the car, though he's been driving dragsters for nine years and currently leads IHRA Div. 4 points in both Super Comp and Super Gas with other cars.

"This car has got pretty aggressive brakes on it like the Pro Mod guys use and right before the stripe he came around me pretty fast about 500 feet and I grabbed some brake and it felt like they didn't release right away when I lifted my foot," Reid explained. "I'm not really sure of exactly all that happened; I just remember seeing sparks for awhile. Thank God I had my arm restraints on."

Running in the right lane, Reid posted a 4.660 at 137.79 mph as his car veered toward the right guardwall just past the eighth-mile finish line at No Problem Raceway and made initial contact with its right rear slick. After being tossed in the air and falling over on its right side, it then slid across the track well behind Kile and came to a stop against the left wall.

Reid said he got out of the car on his own even before rescuers arrived and was uninjured in the wreck, though he did complain of a "little bit of a headache." The car sustained obvious damage to all four wheels and the front clip, with some grinding down of the roll cage on the right side.

"I hate that this happened, especially after I just got the car. It sure wasn't anything planned, but when I saw him coming around me at 500 feet there isn't much else you can do because you sure don't want to follow him through and break out yourself," Reid said as he watched his wrecked ride being slid from a flatbed truck into the back of his race rig.

"I've been driving dragsters since I was 15 years old and I've never damaged anything like this before," he said. "It's just kind of disgusting to see them unloading my car like this." 

FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - IT'S TIME FOR A BASH ON THE BAYOU

TAYLOR BEST IN THE BAYOU - With a relatively soft tune-up in their Larry Jeffers-built 2005 Corvette, brothers Frankie and Paul Taylor went straight to the top of Pro Extreme (PX) qualifying for the X-DRL's Bash on the Bayou May 17, running 3.734 at 205.51 mph over the eighth mile at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA. Of 11 entries making that first pass they had the only car to run in the .70s and the only one to exceed 200 mph.

"This is our first real hot race of the year, so our crew chief, Paul, just wanted to make sure he got some data to work from," Frankie Taylor said. "We were actually hoping for a .70 or .71 there, but it got us going and set us up pretty good for that second run."

His second attempt yielded the 3.70 he was initially looking for, but again Taylor said he was looking for a couple-hundredths better than the 3.700 at 206.45 that flashed across the No Problem scoreboard.

"It  was definitely better, but we knew there was still more there. That's why we had it pretty hopped up for that third round at night," he said. "It should've gone a mid-.60 there."

Instead, the blower belt on his screw-blown Hemi snapped at the first hit of the throttle and Taylor barely moved off the starting line. Regardless, he remained at the head of the qualifying list, followed by Tommy D'Aprile with a 3.713 at 200.74 in another late-model Vette, Taylor's teammate Tim Tindle (3.718/206.20) in just his second race with a new Jeffers '68 Mustang, Dan Millen (3.726/202.88) and Quain Stott at 3.749 and 200.92 mph in his Lee-Boy '63 Corvette.

"I feel more lucky than good right now," Taylor admitted at the end of the night. "A little stupid, too, because my guys, they wanted to change the belt for that run, but I said no, it would be alright, we knew we were already in the show and it only had those two runs today on it. Those things are a couple of hundred bucks each and we'll be changing them a lot tomorrow, so I thought we could save a little money. We just tried to push this one a little too far."

Taylor also was the number-one qualifier at the rained-out X-DRL race in Bristol, TN, three weeks earlier.

"It's cool to be number-one again, but it's the win we want tomorrow," said Taylor, the 2010 ADRL Pro Extreme champion. "And you can be sure we'll be putting a new belt on every run if we have to."

LAURITA LANDS ON TOP OF PN QUALIFYING LIST - In just his second race with a new '68 Camaro and his second time in a clutch car, Jim Laurita placed himself atop the eight-car Pro Nitrous (PN) field for the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou. With noted nitrous master Brandon Switzer calling the shots on Laurita's EFI-equipped ride, Laurita blazed to a 3.813-seconds pass at 191.81 mph in his third attempt May 17, at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA.

Houston racer Jeff Naiser was leading qualifying after two rounds and knocked a full tenth off his elapsed time in round three to 3.866 at 192.74 to place second, while Montana's Pat Stoken placed third with a 3.874 at 179.18, and Florida's Robert Mathis filled out the top half of the field with a 3.877 at an early shutoff 169.83 mph.

In round three, a scoreboard malfunction failed to show Laurita's ET or speed, and no incremental times were gathered, but the Morgantown, WV-based coal mining executive said X-DRL tech director Chris Bell quickly arrived at his pit to confirm his class-leading run.

"It was pulling pretty good and it was porpoising out there at each gear change so I knew it was a good run; it was just nice to know it was number one again," Laurita said, referring to his top-qualifying performance three weeks earlier at Bristol Dragway before eliminations were canceled by rain.

"I was really feeling good at Bristol with it being the first time out with the car, so I was really sorry to see all that rain," he said. "But fortunately it doesn't look like that will happen again, so it'll be good to get to race this time."

Still, Laurita doesn't expect to stand pat on the tune-up for Saturday's fourth and final qualifying opportunity before eliminations begin.

"We'll probably step it up again tomorrow because you can never let things lie out here. There's always somebody ready to do better just around the corner, so you have to be ready for them. But you don't want to get too aggressive and hurt anything, so it's a fine line."

DEFLORIAN DOES IT AGAIN IN XPS QUALIFYING - Even John DeFlorian was surprised when 4.096 at 177.39 mph popped up on his scoreboard to signify his vault from worst to first in Extreme Pro Stock (XPS) qualifying for the X-DRL's Bash on the Bayou Friday night at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA.

"I told the guys before that round that I thought an .11 would be about the best anyone could do in the conditions we had," said DeFlorian, who has been perfect in X-DRL and ADRL action this year, winning the season-opening event for both series before both had their second events rained out.

After losing traction with his 2012 Camaro in the opening round of qualifying, DeFlorian encountered a dead battery when he tried to start his 825 c.i. Sonny Leonard engine for the second session, leaving him mired last of eight XPS cars on the grounds at No Problem Raceway.

"Even though we did pretty good with that last run, losing that round puts us behind for the rest of the weekend. Even if it had just got off the line and rattled the tires again we would've learned something. It would've at least told us what direction we need to go in, but not even getting to try really sets us back," DeFlorian explained. "Plus that run would've been at about the same time we'll start eliminations tomorrow, so it would've helped us for that, too. So it was really aggravating to lose that run; it really hurt."

Following DeFlorian on the top half of the qualifying list with one more opportunity to improve on Saturday before eliminations begin, were Cary Goforth (4.150/174.17), Todd Hoerner (4.156/175.21) and Lester Cooper (4.200/171.55). DeFlorian said he's cautiously optimistic his number-one time will stand up through the fourth and final qualifying round.

"When I saw that .09 up there I was screaming and losing my mind in the car--just like I always do when something like that happens--I was ecstatic because I knew that an .09 would be extremely difficult for anyone to handle out here right now. There are some awfully good cars out here, so I'm not going to say somebody couldn't get it, but it would take an absolutely premier run to get the job done."

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY FOR GOFORTH - Dean Goforth is taking no chances.

After wrecking his previous car last month when an axle enclosure in the rearend sheared off the launch (removing all drive force to the right rear wheel and instantly turning his '09 GXP into the right guardwall at Bristol Dragway), the Holdenville, OK-based Extreme Pro Stock team owner and driver showed up this weekend for the X-DRL event at No Problem Raceway with a brand-new Jerry Haas-built 2013 Camaro.

Goforth tested the car earlier in the week at Tulsa Raceway Park, where he made 10 hits, including five full passes that yielded a best run of 4.10 seconds over the eighth mile. So he was eager to get his new ride out on the No Problem strip to qualify for the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou.

His first attempt included brief tire shake and ended with a 4.670-seconds result at 152.71 mph that placed him third of seven cars after that early session. Unfortunately, it also included a loss of oil pressure in his Sonny Leonard-built 825 c.i. engine when the oil pump drive belt got tossed by the tire shake.

"The motor zinged up to about 8,000 rpms, but it was still running at the end of the run, so we decided to pull it out and put another one in just in case something got hurt in there," Goforth explained as he watched his son and two-time defending ADRL Extreme Pro Stock champ, Cary, make his second qualifying attempt while tuner Chuck Samuel worked with a couple of Goforth crew men back in the pits to complete the motor swap.

"These things (engines) are very expensive and that's my best one, too, so it's gonna' go back to Sonny's so he can check it out and freshen it up wherever it needs it. Hopefully there's nothing wrong with it, but we don't want to take any chances."

Goforth was back for the third and final qualifying opportunity on Friday night, but when his car stood up on its rear wheels and started heading for the wall he wisely got out of the throttle and waited for Saturday's final session before eliminations began.

A crew member explained installing the new engine had thrown the car's weight off balance and they would have to add some front-end ballast to settle it down.

"It's all new right now, the car, the motor, and we don't want to hurt it or make things worse," Goforth said. "We just don't want to take any chances."

SLIM FIELDS FOR SOME CLASSES AT X-DRL EVENT - Just one pair of cars--from the same team--showed up to contest the X-DRL's unique Pro Turbo class in the Bash on the Bayou at No Problem Raceway May 17-18. Texas-based teammates Todd Moyer and Mike Murillo traded on-track blows three times on Friday before team owner Moyer emerged on top with a 3.889 at 202.36 mph in his twin-turboed '63 Corvette.

The Extreme Pro Mod class didn't fare much better with only three entries. At the end of the opening day of the Bayou Bash, Jeffrey Ross Cummins of Cypress, TX, was first with a 4.0542 at 187.47 in his nitrous-boosted '68 Camaro, with Kevin Rivenbark and his roots-blown '02 Firebird just five-thousandths behind at 182.23 mph. Teenage rookie T.J. Tindle, son of Pro Extreme veteran Tim Tindle, struggled to gain traction throughout the day and managed a best of 4.771 at only 106.02 in the first round.

In the SuperCar Showdown for late-model "factory hot rods," Joe Teuton from nearby Houma, LA, led four other drivers through all three of Friday's qualifying sessions, eventually finishing with a 5.732 at 118.28 in his V-10-equipped 2011 Dodge Challenger. California driver P.B. Candies was second with a 5.762 at 119.73 in his brand-new 2013 Mustang Cobra Jet, with Kevin Helms in another '11 Challenger third, Brett Candies in a 2012 Cobra Jet fourth and Rhett Fulton in the debut of an entertaining, wheel-standing 2013 COPO Camaro fifth.

GULITTI REGAINS TS LEAD; KILE DOMINATES TD QUALIFYING - Despite getting his 2011 Camaro all crossed up at the end of his first qualifying pass May 17, for the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou at Belle Rose, LA, Top Sportsman racer Bob Gulitti of Tomball, TX, still managed to end the session in first place with a 4.241-seconds pass at 168.81 mph.

"It got out of shape just before the finish line and started heading for the center and I just tried to hang on to it," said Gulitti, who was running in the left lane at No Problem Raceway opposite Joseph McHana, who had shut down early following a brief nitrous explosion in his '70 Camaro. "I really didn't want to cross the center line so I got the chute out and as soon as it hit that straightened me up." 

After round two, Gulitti had lost the lead to local racer Earl Folse, but regained the top spot in Friday's third and final session with a 4.137 effort at 175.18 mph.

"We made an adjustment going into that third pass. Jeff Pierce made a great call and we turned on the third stage (of nitrous) and it worked out really well with the car going right down the track for me," said Gulitti, winner of the first-ever X-DRL event last month in Tulsa, OK.

Also stepping up Friday evening was another Louisiana racer in Keith Raftery, who jumped from ninth to second with a 4.170 at 173.63 in his 2012 Camaro. Folse dropped to third with his second-round 4.209 at 174.46 run, while Bert Prejean of St. Amant, LA, slotted into fourth (4.326/164.99) just ahead of Gulitti's brother, Chris, who rounded out the top five with a 4.343 at 164.71 mph.

"I wanted that number-one qualifier spot and we went after it, so that was pretty exciting," Bob Gulitti said.

Westlake, LA's Michael Kile took the top spot in the opening round of Top Dragster qualifying with a 4.025 at 180.86 that held up through round two, but second-place man Coby Jones laid down the first three-second pass of the weekend for the class in Friday's third session with a 3.963 at 182.13 mph.

No matter, Kile responded a couple of pairs later with a 3.947 at 183.57 in his Reher-Morrison 798-powered 2012 Spitzer dragster to reclaim his lead with one more round of qualifying scheduled on Saturday before the start of eliminations.

Immediately following Kile and Jones in the 28-car field--easily the largest at the Louisiana X-DRL event--were Jeff Holloway, Bradley Thompson and Top Sportsman racer Keith Raftery, who was pulling double duty with his Under Cover dragster.  

GOFORTH'S BRISTOL CRASH EXPLAINED - When Dean Goforth launched his Jerry Haas-built '09 GXP on its fourth Extreme Pro Stock qualifying pass last month at Bristol (TN) Dragway, it left hard with its best 60-foot performance of the weekend, but things turned sour in a hurry for the 67-year old from Holdenville, OK.

By a hundred feet out the car had suddenly veered from its left lane to strike the right guardwall nearly head on before recrossing the track to hit the left wall even harder. With no tire shake, no warning, Goforth was mystified by the car's suddenly out-of-control behavior that crew chief Brian Self initially suspected could be traced to a broken wishbone in the rear suspension.

Instead, it turned out to be a shaft splined to the right axle that sheared off from the ring gear mounting plate within the rearend. "A $400 part that caused $100-grand in damage," a Goforth crew member said.

With the GXP out of commission, Haas and his crew up in Fenton, MO, hastily wrapped up the new 2013 Camaro that Goforth had been waiting on and he will make his debut with it this weekend in the X-DRL Bash on the Bayou at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA.      

REASONS FOR RACING AT BELLE ROSE - For Jeff Mitchell, who along with Larry Pearce and David Hubbard, owns the X-Treme Drag Racing League (X-DRL), this weekend's Bash in the Bayou at Belle Rose, LA's  No Problem Raceway is already shaping up to be a landmark event for the fledgling eighth-mile racing series.

"My expectations are to have a good, safe race; the track guys have been working for days now so I know we're going to have a good track," Mitchell said Thursday afternoon as he watched the pits fill up from a second-floor suite in the No Problem tower. "We're looking for a car count somewhere around 95 to 110 and we're hoping to put two- or three-thousand folks in the stands and put on a good show for everyone involved."

Among the early arrivals in the pits were Pro Extreme star Todd Tutterow, reigning ADRL Pro Nitrous champion Bob Rahaim, Pro Nitrous convert Billy Glidden and points-leading Extreme Pro Stock team owner and driver  Kevin Bealko, who each have their own reasons for racing way down south on the same weekend the rival ADRL series is at Cordova Dragway Park in Illinois.

"Everybody's got to race somewhere and Precision Turbo, they're one of my sponsors and they're involved with the X-DRL as one of the sponsors of the Pro Turbo class over here, so I want to support my sponsor as much as I can," said Tutterow, the 2009 ADRL Pro Extreme champ from Yadkinville, NC.

"We've got local races at home, too, where we could race for almost the same money and be back in our own beds at night, but we think it's important to show our support for these series, too. I just hate that we've got two different organizations that makes the racers split up."

Rahaim also regrets the need to choose between the two DRLs, but cited as a deciding factor the recently announced $25,000 X-Treme Shootout bonuses ($75K total) available to the top-eight points earners from PX, PN and XPS at the Belle Rose event when they reach Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in September.

"That kind of thing really helps out, so we wanted to get off on the right foot here in order to be in good shape when we get to Indy," Rahaim said.

He stressed, too, that he plans to attend at least a couple of ADRL events in 2013, but as he began making arrangements for the season, the X-DRL schedule fit his personal life much better.

"They're (ADRL) racing on Sundays now and I'm in business with my brother so I want to be home on Sunday so I can work on Monday and he can take the day off and not come back until Tuesday," Rahaim explained. "I really like racing on Saturdays and having Sunday there as our travel day."

For Glidden, racing at Belle Rose simply came down to a matter of dollars and cents. After picking up X-DRL series backer Morrow Ford as a sponsor for the Bash on the Bayou, the 2008 ADRL Extreme 10.5 champ towed his 2010 Mustang down from Whiteland, IN.

"We really have to pick and choose where we race and we wouldn't have been racing anywhere this week if this sponsorship hadn't come through," Glidden stated. "I'm happy to be here, though. We have the 840 (c.i.) motor back in, but I've made a lot of changes to it since Bristol (three weeks earlier), so hopefully we'll see something good out of it."

An early ruling by ADRL to prohibit EFI in Extreme Pro Stock (since rescinded), made the choice to pursue the X-DRL series in 2013 an easy one for Bealko, who is running EFI this year on his '09 Pontiac GXP, while Black Diamond Motorsports teammate John DeFlorian continues with carburetors on his 2013 Camaro. DeFlorian won the season opener for both ADRL and X-DRL and with the second race of the year for each rained out he arrived at the Belle Rose track leading both series in points.

"We made a commitment back in January, being that we weren't going to be able to run the EFI in ADRL, to run the full schedule in X-DRL," Bealko said. "With that being said, the ADRL has been awful good to us and I go back to the old automatic (transmission) days when they gave us a place to race, so I'm very sympathetic to the other drivers that are racing up there and I appreciate their loyalty, but I made the commitment to come here long before they decided to allow EFI in ADRL and I just think we had to honor that."

The West Virginia coal mining executive admitted, though, that he suggested a compromise that would have seen DeFlorian attend the Cordova event with his Camaro while Bealko tackled the Belle Rose eighth mile on his own.

"I threw that out to John just so that he wouldn't feel boxed in by the EFI situation, but being the kind of guy he is and the teammate he is, he said no, he would be going wherever we were going. Two cars, one team, just like he says is our motto for this year, so really there wasn't even much discussion of that option."

Regardless of why they arrived, Mitchell said he's thrilled and filled with pride at having Tutterow, Glidden, Rahaim and Bealko on the X-DRL grounds, along with the likes of Quain Stott, Pat Stoken, Terry Leggett and Tommy D'Aprile, as well as father-and-son XPS team and reigning back-to-back ADRL champions Dean and Cary Goforth, 2010 ADRL Pro Extreme champion Frankie Taylor and X-DRL season-opening PX winner Brandon Pesz.

"Part of what we're doing right now is we're restructuring some of our marketing and promotional material to focus more on the individual drivers and not the class. I think that's new fertile ground that we can dig into, so to me, to have those big names roll in here fits in just perfect with what we're about to launch," Mitchell said. "You'll see it between here and the next X-DRL race next month at Gateway (St. Louis); we're doing a number of cool things on reality-based stuff that's going to roll out in the next six months that will drive these drivers' names to the front of the stack."