Their story is one of mutual need.

A driver needed a crew chief with a sense of positive direction.

A crew chief needed a driver that spoke his language.

NHRA Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson Jr. and Mike Kloeber are making the
most of their limited time together with the objective of making a good
impression. Thirteen years ago they worked together on the Johnson
family dragster and the loss of sponsorship was the only reason they
took separate paths.

They’re reunited and it never felt so good.

Jeff Dobbins knew he had one season to pull off the unthinkable and with one opportunity left, he’s feeling confident.

Working with half the budget of his counterparts, the former Top
Sportsman world champion and six-time professional national event
winner is looking to pull off a world championship in Pro Stock.

“Rockingham will be our last race together as a team,” Dobbins
explained. “Everything is for sale. The guys have probably spent more
than they should have but they wanted to give us the best possible
chance they could.”

Call their story, team owners Jimmy Johnson and Kevin Burnett, along
with driver Dobbins, the ultimate underdog tale. They are the epitome
of a budget Pro Stock team, who has scratched and clawed their way into
championship contention by sacrificing to buy the best parts available.
Not to be forgotten, they burned the midnight oil paying attention to
detail.

Fires and duct tape, flavored with undying persistence and a fierce
determination to succeed have marked Terry Haddock’s journeyman drag
racing career. Labeled as a perennial underdog, he has filled the field
and killed a few giants along the way, but according to the
Hackettstown, New Jersey native, that’s all changed. For the first time
in his career, Terry is on top of the pack and has a commanding
65-point lead in the IHRA World Championship chase with only one race
remaining.

Definitely having the best season of his career, Terry says he can
point out several keys to his most recent success: new sponsors, a full
tool chest, and most critically, by his own admission, a change in the
way he thinks.

“I spent a career learning how to qualify instead of learning to win
races,” he explained. “After winning the race in Grand Bend earlier in
the season, it was like a light bulb went on and I said to myself ‘we
can actually do this. We can win this championship.’ From there, it’s
been a whole new ballgame.”

For a moment it seemed like 1987 all over again, a day when Pro
Modified didn’t exist and doorslammer racers classified as sportsmen
battled for the honor of being the first to run 200 miles per hour. It
was a wide open heyday for drivers from IHRA Pro Stockers to NHRA Comp
runners to Top Sportsman.

It was the day when a nitrous car had a chance to contend for a major performance milestone.

The increase of participation with supercharged cars almost nailed the lid on the coffin for nitrous racing.

In fact, the nitrous combination in Pro Modified was left for dead some
years ago as interest left the sanctioned confines of professional drag
racing.

Now, there is a magical new interest in the nitrous cars. The reason, a magic elixir which makes the nitrous cars competitive.

UPDATED 10-14-2008

In its never-ending quest to bring the entire world of drag racing to its readers, CompetitionPlus.com has added IHRA Alcohol Funny Car standout Laurie Cannister, to bring insight behind-the-scenes of the Kalbones Grill'n sauce team.

Cannister brings a personable approach to the world of professional drag racing. She's won national events, 14 of them, and has held her own over the years in racing with the boys. A former Pro Outlaw world champion, Cannister now races and wins quite a bit in the Alcohol Funny Car class. 

Jamie Jackson went to a drag race with his sister and her boyfriend in 1961 and his life hasn’t been the same since.

They traveled out to Cotati Raceway near Santa Rosa, Ca, where the
featured race was a match between Sammy Hale and “Sneaky” Pete Robinson.

“The experience just turned me on,” Jackson recalled. “The noise and the cars left me in awe.”

Jackson was only 15 years old and unable to go to the drags until he bought his first car.

Bill Naves has been racing Alcohol Funny Cars for almost 20 years, but
after losing his friend Bobby Martindale he’s doing some
second-guessing. His thoughts have nothing to do with his decision to
continue racing and everything to do with wondering when the National
Hot Rod Association will concern itself with safety outside of the
POWERade ranks.

Naves was supposed to have been alongside of Martindale on the fateful
run but in an ironic twist a handful of safety issues kept him in the
pits.

Naves 23-year old son witnessed the entire accident from start to
finish. Matt Naves was a clear witness to Martindale’s car cutting
through the catch net at NHRA-owned Atlanta Dragway before coming to an
abrupt stop in the wooded area just outside of the sand-trap.

Lee Beard wanted to take his tuning career to the next level. Gary Ormsby provided the opportunity.

Ormsby wanted to take his driving career to the next level. Lee Beard provided that opportunity.

The magic season came in 1989 when Ormsby and Beard won their first
world championship and nearly won a second in 1990. One year later,
Ormsby succumbed to cancer.

Over the years, Beard has tuned ten different drivers to 53 NHRA
national event victories in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. He’s also
guided 8 different drivers to 60 No. 1 qualifying efforts. Those
accolades represent a fulfilling career for the veteran tuner.

Clay Millican just can’t stop smiling these days.

The high-energy Top Fuel driver from Drummonds, Tenn., a small-town
located on the outskirts of Memphis, Tenn., admits to having a new
lease on his driving career.

Months ago, he couldn’t say that.

Blame it on a pair of near-midnight phone calls. The first was to
inform the driver of Evan Knoll’s Top Fuel dragster that he’d be a paid
sideline player in 2008.

The second was to tell him he was relegated to the unemployment line through no fault of his own. 

UPDATED - 9-24-2008

In its never-ending quest to bring the entire world of drag racing to its
readers, CompetitionPlus.com has added one of the more interesting
correspondents to its line-up in the form of reigning FIA Top Fuel champion
Urs Erbacher.

Already the quickest and fastest man on the continent and
the subject of Discovery Channel Europe's Kings of Nitro television series,
Erbacher is rapidly becoming as big a star in the United States as he is
throughout Europe and his native Switzerland.

A custom motorcycle
builder by trade -- on par with the likes of Jesse James at West Coast Choppers
and the Teutul family at Orange County Choppers -- Erbacher spent the fall of
2007 and the spring of 2008 prepping to defend his FIA title with several
warm-up tests on the NHRA tour. It's been an unprecedented time for U.S. fans to
see how things are done on the other side of the pond.