The Beach Boys sang about him: "A real famous cat all dressed up in red. And he spends the whole year workin' out in his sled . . . Just a little bobsled we call it Old Saint Nick, but she'll walk a toboggan with a four-speed stick. She's candy apple red with a ski for a wheel. And when Santa hits the gas, man, just watch her peel." (Ha! You're humming the song already, aren't you?) Well, Ole Saint Nick is coming to town. But will he have goodies for our drag-racing family or big lumps of coal? Find out who deserves what by reading Competition Plus' third annual . . . Naughty and Nice List

Since 1999, Torco's CompetitionPlus.com has offered the spirit of friendly competition amongst the racing community in a "Best of" competition. Our readers have assisted us in voting on everything from the best drag racers to their favorite journalists to the presigious Person of the Year. Please cast your vote in this annual tradition.

Every Friday, Torco's CompetitionPlus.com brings you our Feedback letters. Read what our readers have to say about our feature articles and you can even offer your opinions.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY - December 22 

Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com
opens its annual “What’s new” gallery to prepare you for the upcoming 2007
season. This annual feature will run through February.

The phrase ‘agonizingly close’ doesn’t begin to describe Tony
Gillig’s shot at the Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com Pro Stock title during IHRA’s
UTI World Finals. With his race team due to be dismantled at year’s end, Gillig
came into Rockingham, NC with high hopes and a hard-won points
lead. But then the winds changed, the signs became unfavorable, omens adverse…

Tied at two wins a piece with Frank Gugliotta, Pete Berner and
Robert Patrick, Gillig succeeded in holding off these competitors for most of
the year. “We had qualified bottom half four times before in the season,” the Lake Bluff,
IL native explained. “I was 9th in Grand Bend and won first round…Budds Creek
we beat Robert Patrick first round, then went on to runner-up the event [after
a 30 second staging battle, Gillig lost on a holeshot to Ricky Smith]. When I
get past first round I go to the semis, that’s just how it worked out for us.
It just didn’t happen for us at Rockingham.”

Concrete and asphalt are the building blocks of great cities
and drag strips, two of the most important aspects of Vincent “Vinny” Budano’s
life. The native New Yorker, a two-time Pro Street champion, is quick to say that
he would “trade grass for concrete any day.”

Budano comes by his love of the fast-paced metropolitan lifestyle
honestly. He was born in the Manhattan
neighborhood of Harlem in 1962. His family
later moved to Queens, where Budano, his
brother Frank, and sister Fran, grew up amidst the city’s concrete canyons and
asphalt-covered landscapes.

“I had a great childhood,” Budano, now 44, said. “When my
parents, Anna and Frank, came to this country they had nothing, but they, along
with my Aunt Gabriela and Uncle Phillip, raised my brother and sister and I in
a close-knit and loving family atmosphere.”

It would have been easy
for second-year NHRA competitor Robert Hight to be disappointed about the recently completed POWERade Series season.

But rather than pout about coming up short in his quest to score his first
Funny Car title, Hight chose to look at the
positive. And when you look at what Hight
accomplished during his sophomore campaign, he had reason to be smiling.

Hight, driving one of three
Ford Mustangs for his father-in-law and NHRA icon
John Force, certainly had a season to remember after scoring three wins in six
final rounds and finishing second only to Force in the final Funny Car
standings.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Torco's CompetitionPlus.com will
feature the world champions of both the NHRA and IHRA. Senior writer
Susan Wade delves into the behind-the-scenes stories that made each one
of these champions the best in the their respective games during the
2006 season. This installment features the IHRA nitro champions - Quain Stott, Mark Thomas and Pete Berner

The Torco's CompetitionPlus.com staff covered the Performance Racing Industry trade show. We are proud to bring you an extensive photo gallery from our staff photographer Roger Richards.

PRI PHOTO GALLERY 

Racing ignites
his competition passion. Business squeezed him out of a ride.

Such is Phil Burkart’s dilemma as he looks to get back into the Funny Car
saddle again.

“I’ve been burning up the phone lines,” said Burkart, who unexpectedly was
dropped from Worsham Racing after three productive seasons on the NHRA Powerade
Drag Racing Series. “I’ve been calling other people, other teams to see if
there’s anything new or available … wherever I can fit in. I’m trying to find a
home, I guess.”