FEEDBACK ARTICLE – MORE ON THE FORD IN MORGAN’S FUTURE

Like
Obama supporters, the gm guys are drunk on kool-aid thinking they will
always be the only game in town. Good for Ford. Maybe I will watch
again now. - Daryl Gaddis
 

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – SHIRLEY SAYS: ON DRIVERS AND DRIVING

Seems to me if someone is reporting on something they should at least have their
facts right. I did drive the funny car "Travel Agent" and had two nasty crashes
in 1978. The first one Shirley mentions was at Gainesville, we had been working
for weeks day and night putting a used funny car together and arrived in Florida
late. We were running all new stuff and had two chances to get in the show. Pink
had us loaded for bear and yes I stayed in it a bit too long and I flipped it.
We rebuilt it and I did change lanes running the jet and I nearly severed my
leg. That car was a bear to drive and I'd have to press my knees against my
hands to hold on to the wheel. We later learned it had two different size liners
in it. I did win the Division 1 that year with racers like Snake and other big
names at them, winning three events and being low qualifier. Those were the only
two incidents in my racing career that started in 1966, other then a few fire's.
I did make hundreds of runs at small questionable tracks. We were runner up at
the 1973 Grandnationals my first national event and raced until 1984 with
minimal funding and lots of determination. And yes I wish we had the funding to
race as much as Shirley, but she probably would have been too afraid of us
crashing into her. - Frank Mancuso

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – FROM THE GRANDSTANDS: HONORING THE BIG DADDIES

Great
video. I had the pleasure last weekend to see Mike and Adam Konopacki
both win at an AMA Dragbike event in TG & SC respectively. Mike's
millionth National Event win and Adam's first.

A while back we sat down and counted the number of father /son teams
racing dragbikes at our local tracks and came up with about 15 pair or
so. Very cool. - Jack
 

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – MORRIS JOHNSON JR.: FROM WAR TO DRAG RACING

Thank you for the great story on a great American, who just did his duty and
served his country.  Sometimes the scars of war don't show, sometimes they do,
but when the soul is damaged it may take a long time to recover; if that is
possible at all.  Mr. Morris Johnson Jr., is a great credit to our country, and
CompetitionPlus is to be commended for taking the time to write about him.  Both
his racing and military exploits. - Tom Hohmann

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – MORE ON THE FORD IN MORGAN’S FUTURE

So
I'll believe it when I see it.  I'm a Ford fan (I own 5), but the fix
has been in at the NHRA for years.  Let Jon Kaase use his Boss 9 heads
(like the IHRA) and maybe there would have been some real competition. 
But if a 429 SCJ head is it, I'm not convinced the problem is solved
for Fords.  Although is there some satisfaction in watching Gov't
Motors (GM) and Fiat Hemi's fight it out for the rest of the season …
that's why there's TVO, right!  Get your DRCE III equipped GXP's at
your neighborhood Pontiac dealer while you can! - John Molloy

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – DAVID NAPP: E-TOWN ONE YEAR LATER

Englishtown is my home track. I also attended last year’s event and
agree with David. His facility at the time was on par with the rest of NHRA's
other National event tracks. This was in my mind a really freak
accident after the explosion but E-town has done what was
required/asked/suggested of them and then some.

Safety improvements always come after an accident but now the track can
look back after this past weekend’s event and say the improvements
worked and how can we make it better for 2010 and beyond. - Debbie Moses

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – SHIRLEY SAYS: ON DRIVERS AND DRIVING

I
have to agree with Shirley because they do this with the Jr. Dragsters.
As the kids get older or more experienced they can go faster. I think
that anyone no matter what they are doing should start out with their
super gas licenses and then move up from there because putting a new
driver in a Top Fuel car is like letting an little baby drive a car. If
something does go wrong there not gonna know until it’s too late, and
to add to that if the driver does get the car down the race track what
is gonna happen to this new driver when he go to pull the chutes and
they don't deploy. That would be a very big issue. - Ryan Stifflear

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – REYES ON TOUR: JUNE 2009

I have always been a fan of Mr. Reyes photos.  I had those Drag Racing
USA magazines where so much of his work appeared (including the one of
the Nanook Altered in the snow).  While today's photograhers are quite
good, Steve was groundbreaking.  How many people today could take
exciting photos in black and white? - Phil Gelato
 

FEEDBACK ARTICLE – NASCAR LEGENDS AND NITRO, A CHEST POUNDING EXPERIENCE

It's great they got together being from Ct. and 62 yrs old, I was a big fan of
Tasca Ford although I used Chevy motors to race and I was a big fan of the Wood
Brothers during to golden years of NASCAR when you raced not followed the leader,
Petty, Pearson, Marty Robbins, Fireball Roberts ... real racers. - Bob Lukas
 

FEEDBACK ARTICLE: FROM THE GRANDSTANDS: GIVE ME THE OLD SCHOOL

I was there from day one when we started index racing at OCIR. What
ever they did up north was fine. The bottom line was that back when it
was started and we decided on a 9.80 index. It really did not matter
what the index was you had to get your car to run whatever time to be
competitive. We were what drag racing was all about. My car could run
9.65 on a cool night, but I knew that and would count on cutting a good
light. I staged my car with a foot brake. At times, with the foot
brake, getting as much stall out of the converter I could without
creeping and possibly red lighting. Today the Super Gas cars have a
trans brake with a delay button and an electronic throttle stop. I use
to run 9.80 at 138mph. Today with all of the techno gadgets 9.90 at
170mph. I went to the World Finals at Pomona and, in the pits, saw a
Super Gas car(75,000), motor home(150,000), trailer(40,000), and they
towed in from Tennessee. I bet I could beat these Super Gas racers
today if they could not use any electronics and just had to stage and
race with their foot brake. I was one of the 16 Pro Gas racers at
Pomona that showed NHRA what index racing was all about. They loved it
and decided to put that type of racing at their meets. NHRA took our
idea and changed the index to 9.90 and called it Super Gas because we
weren't professionals. That was OK, but if they left it as we started
it and did not allow electronics I and a lot of other original So-Cal
Pro Gas racers would still be racing. I and others don't have a fat
wallet like the racer from Tennessee I mentioned. - Rick Abood