The National Guard American Drag Racing League (ADRL) is pleased to announce that Goforth Racing’s two-car Extreme Pro Stock (XPS)
team has chosen to finish its 2009 National Guard ADRL season with
appearances at both remaining ADRL races: Sept. 11-12, in Rockingham,
North Carolina, and Oct. 23-24, at Ennis, Texas.

Dean Goforth, the most recent XPS winner on the ’09 National Guard ADRL
Tour, and son, Cary, both from Holdenville, Oklahoma, have competed in
both the National Guard ADRL Extreme Pro Stock and IHRA Pro Stock
classes this year, but with both series racing on the same weekends as
the year winds down, a decision had to be reached.

“We knew this day was coming six months ago and it was a very hard one
to make, but we had to do what’s best for our team,” Cary Goforth
stressed. “We looked at where we are in the points for each series,
evaluated different scenarios and to be honest, this is the only choice
that makes sense.

Tony Pedregon nearly chose a career in boxing.
 

He trained for months for his first bout, but his debut was postponed
after his sparring partner opened a cut near his eye. So he informed
his mother, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is
I'm not going to be a boxer. The bad news is I'm going drag racing."
 
With General Motors filing for bankruptcy in July and backing out of
its agreement with Pedregon and several prominent Po Stock teams, the
two-time NHRA Funny Car champion and current points leader is in a
fight for his financial life.
 
Again, Pedregon has a good-news/bad-news situation.
 
The bad-news part is obvious.

The passion to drag race is something that never seems to die for some people.
 
Terry Earwood can attest to that fact.
 
Earwood,
who last drove in the Super Stock class in 1996, is coming out of
retirement to compete at the 55th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in
Indianapolis Sept. 2-7.
 
"I'm already thinking about all of my
old friends who I'm going to get to see and I driving again is just
going to be a hoot," the 61-year-old Earwood said. "There's nothing
like being a part of the atmosphere at the U.S. Nationals. It's the
biggest drag race in the world."
 
Earwood is going to drive a
1982 Super Stock Camaro for his good friend John Livingston at Indy.
Livingston, who is 66 years old, plans to compete at the event in a
1982 Stock Eliminator Camaro. The two Camaros will carry the L&L
Auto Sales sponsorship. That's Livingston's business in Murfreesboro,
Tenn.

Riding a streak of back-to-back victories that has catapulted him to a
240-point lead in the NMCA's Pro Street category, veteran racer Troy
Coughlin arrives at Milan Dragway for this weekend's third annual JE
Pistons Muscle Car Nationals with designs on putting the NMCA Edelbrock
Series Championship out of reach.

Coughlin and his JEGS.com teammates have been close to perfect over the
past two events, setting a national record en route to a big win in
Chicago before plowing through the field in Charlotte by posting the
quickest elapsed time of every round.

"We didn't do much to the car other than clean everything up and double
check all the components," Coughlin said. "If we can keep it repeating
like it has been and stay in that low 6.3-second range, we like our
chances.

The fifth annual Las Vegas Pro Stock Showdown will take place Feb. 5-6,
2010, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The event – the
biggest pre-season professional drag racing competition in the country
– also will include the first-ever Las Vegas Supreme Sportsman Series
with racers in Super Comp, Super Gas, Top Dragster and Top Sportsman
categories competing for record purses.

“For eight years fans and racers alike have been coming to Las Vegas
the weekend prior to Pomona's Winternationals to kick off their racing
season with one last shot of testing by the professional teams," said
Chris Blair, LVMS’ vice president of racing operations.  “In 2006, we
added the Pro Stock Showdown and that event just continues to grow each
year. The best Pro Stock racers come to Las Vegas for the opportunity
to test under excellent conditions. It’s an exciting race format that
showcases the most competitive cars in the sport and awards an
impressive winner's trophy.”

One of the largest automotive events of it's kind, the 3rd Annual
Muscle Car Reunion, featuring hundreds of muscle cars from the 60s and
three days of nostalgia drag racing, will take over Kansas City
International Raceway on Friday through Sunday, Sept. 11-13, 2009.
 
This event is unique as three of the nation's top nostalgia drag racing
organizations will have a presence at the MCR as the National Hot Rod
Association's "Hot Rod Heritage Series" tour, the Drag Racing On
Line.com Nitro Funny Car circuit and the Nostalgia Pro Comp Association
will all have their own qualifying and eliminations during the weekend
making for three races in one event.  Other classes racing include the
Midwest Nostalgia Super Stock, which will crown it's series champion at
the race, the Hot Rod and Muscle Car divisions and the very popular
"Geezer Gassers.
 
Highlighting the on-track action will be a full field of nitro
Nostalgia Funny Cars racing all three days competing for the series
points lead.  Entries include "Doc" Halladay's "Telstar" Plymouth
Arrow, Greg "Jake" Jacobsmeyer's "All-Star" Dodge Challenger and Paul
Romine's "Man-O-War" Ford Mustang among others.

Mail Terminal Services continues to close in on its goal of 125,000
post cards being sent in one season to U.S. troops in war zones
overseas through its Mail From Home program promoted at each NHRA Full
Throttle Drag Racing Series event.

With 17 events of the 24 scheduled this season completed, MTS can now
boast that it has shipped 83,000 cards, signed by fans and MTS
employees during each NHRA event so far. The prestigious U.S. Nationals
in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend is expected to produce over 7,000
cards. Expectations are high that the program will reach its 125,000
goal by the completion of the 2009 NHRA series.

The National Guard American Drag Racing League (ADRL) announced today it is moving its 2010 season-opening event at Houston Raceway Park to Mar. 12-13, 2010, from its original date in late-February.

“As always, our first consideration in making decisions is how they
will affect our racers and in this case we received significant
response from them with concerns over potential weather problems with
our original date,” National Guard ADRL President and CEO Kenny Nowling
said. “So, when Houston Raceway Park confirmed the date for its NHRA
event next year, it allowed us to do what’s best for our ADRL race
teams and fans, which is moving our ADRL Safety-Kleen Dragpalooza VI to
Mar. 12-13.”

As a guest on an Indianapolis radio show several years ago, Tony Schumacher talked about living just north of Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
 
"Those planes probably are pretty loud, aren't they?" the host asked.
 
"I can't hear a one of 'em," Schumacher joked, alluding to audio damage
from being around earsplitting, 7,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragsters.
 
Maybe he was teasing. Maybe he was half-joking. But that was idle
radio-show chatter, entertainment shtick. The truth is that drag racers
take ear-protection precautions seriously.

In case you missed it, a replay of The Race Reporters with Michael Knight is available online by clicking on this link.

LISTEN TO THE RACE REPORTERS

Ashley Force-Hood was the featured guest while the round-table discussion featured interesting commentary from AOL Sports’ Holly Cain, Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Jeff Wolf and CompetitionPlus.com’s Bobby Bennett.