NHRA’s Competition Eliminator class has probably the most widely diverse group of cars in any of the sportsman categories. It’s here where you’ll find everything from front-engined dragsters to street altereds to coupes, sedans, trucks, whatever; all competing on a handicap basis against one another. Powerplants can also run the gamut from big cubic inch Pro Stock style engines to four cylinders with and without power-adders (turbocharging, supercharging, nitrous oxide).

Attempting to maintain some sort of parity amongst the combatants falls to an index system much the same as used in the Super Stock and Stock classes. As an example, the A/EA (A/Econo Altered – a sort of misnomer because there is nothing “Econo” about this class) of David Rampy which is powered by a small block Chevrolet engine carries a quarter-mile index of 7.86. The Chevrolet Cobalt of 2009 Comp champion Bruno Massel, Jr. uses a turbocharged 136-cubic inch powerplant and runs in the BB/AT (BB/Altered Turbo) and runs off a 7.27 index. When Rampy lines up against Massel, Rampy receives a .59-second headstart which is dialed into the ‘tree.

Excellence is something the Kalitta Motorsports team expects every time it competes in an NHRA event.

Since 1959, with drag racing legend and team owner Connie Kalitta at the helm, Kalitta Motorsports has won five world championships and over 50 national event titles while drag racing under five different sanctioning banners. Kalitta Motorsports is based in Ypsilanti, Mich.

From 2007-2009, however, the team’s Top Fuel dragster driven by Doug Kalitta struggled to get on track.

The perennial championship contender only won two races in that span, posting a best finish of eighth in the point standings, last season.

One of the early Pro Modified racers, Robby Vandergriff recently  walked through, Sunshine Home, a group boarding home, and much to his surprise he

saw a familiar model car, assembled and prominently displayed.

The model - the 1957 Chevy he drove during the pioneering days of the Pro Modified movement. On the door was his first and only major sponsor, Soffseal. Seeing the logo of the automobile restoration accessories company brought forth a groundswell of memories.

The model car reminded Vandergriff of both his happiest and saddest day.

For nearly his entire life, there has been one constant for Donnie Couch – racing.

When Couch was in high school, he started going to races and working as a crew member for professional teams.

“My grandfather raced in the 1930s and 40s and my dad raced in the 50s, 60s and 70s,” the 53-year-old Couch said. “Then toward the end, my dad was working with Don Prudhomme as a mechanic. All through high school, if I got good grades and didn’t get in trouble, I got to go all summer with Prudhomme and Tom McEwen. I basically worked on McEwen’s car for 10 years, from the time I was a freshman in high school.”

Now, 40 years later, Couch has found another niche in the sport, his West Coast Funny Car Factory in Whittier, Calif., just south of Los Angeles which specializes in Nostalgia Funny Cars.

When you’re 43 years old, a bucket list is about the last thing on your mind, unless your name happens to be Mike Neff.

“That was a huge bucket list item,” said Neff, of his experience in driving and winning with a Funny Car. “If I hadn’t won and then we had to park it; that would have bothered me. That would have haunted me. Getting that win checked that item off of the list. I could say to myself, ‘I’m good with this now. No matter what happens I’m fine with this now.”

“If I never drive again, I can always say that the last race I raced – I won. That would be the perfect ending for me.”

But as Neff sees it, he doesn’t believe his driving days are finished. If they are, he can live with that reality. And in an off-season of uncertainty, the assurance of job security went a long way towards confidence in 2010, regardless of the role he would play.

What’d we tell you?  “We are expecting…someone named Force playing a major role in the event’s outcome.”  Can we pick ‘em or can we pick em?

In retrospect every pick seems easy, but there was just something about the way the entire Force gang was acting this weekend that let anyone who was paying attention know that this year is going to be different.  As we wrote yesterday, Force appears more energized than he has in the last couple of years.  That’s one factor, and the other is, without question, the addition of Mike Neff to the operation.  Make no mistake about it, Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly are still the primary guys, but Neff provides the physical ability to check every nut and bolt on the car, and that’s been lacking.  He goes over every inch of the car to make sure things are right – and they couldn’t have been much “righter” than they were on Parker Avenue on Sunday afternoon.

We also wrote that Ron Capps was on the way up, and he sure was.  He did a great job of reaching the finale, but let’s face it, this was a race that was destined to be Force’s.  We can’t explain it, but you just knew that Force was not to be denied.

Whit Bazemore hasn't been behind the wheel of a Funny Car since 2007. It is difficult to believe a 20-time winner, including two U.S. Nationals titles still finds himself on the sidelines.

Fortunately, Whit takes the situation in stride. The time away hasn't dampened his love of the sport or his desire to see the sport grow even further beyond its humble beginnings. The helmet is ready, the heart is ready and so too is the frank manner which made Whit Bazemore a real fan favorite.
 
Attitude's CompetitionPlus.com took the time to listen to Bazemore's take on the current status of the sport of drag racing and the NHRA

Every season, since 2000, Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com has attempted to predict the champions in each professional division. While we’re not going to quit our day jobs to become psychics or anything, we do try to use logic in predicted those who we feel will be the champions for the upcoming season.

Last year we fell short of our mark in every category but a good break here and a good break there, and we could be bragging right now.

More than five centuries ago, explorers brave, bold, and battle-ready sailed into uncharted seas and lands in search of silk, spices, and “The New World.” They had no idea what they would discover, but the quest for a conquest was overwhelming.
 
Today a 5-foot-5 former football player with a Masters degree from the University of Arkansas, a 39-year-old man who loves shopping and exotic cars when he isn't buffing up at the gym, is embarking on a grand expedition in the other direction. Just as on their journeys Christopher Columbus carried the flag of Spain's King Ferdinand to the Western world, “Hot Rod” Fuller will be representing the National Hot Rod Association and “the nation of drag racing” in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.