Defending Pro Stock world champion Mike Edwards raced to the No. 1 qualifying position Sunday at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil, the world’s most prestigious drag race.

Larry Dixon, Matt Hagan and Andrew Hines also were No. 1 qualifiers and will lead their categories into Monday’s 11 a.m. eliminations at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event, the first of six races in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

Edwards powered his Penhall/Interstate Batteries Pontiac GXP to a track record time of 6.579 seconds at 209.26 mph to take his 12th top qualifying position of the season, 34th of his career and second at historic O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis. Edwards, who edged out three drivers including Saturday’s low qualifier Jeg Coughlin for the top spot, will face Justin Humphreys in the opening round.

It is one of the oldest and most prestigious events on the International Hot Rod Association’s Nitro Jam schedule and in just a few short days the IHRA will be saying farewell to New England Dragway for the final time.

And to commemorate two long decades of championship drag racing in New Hampshire the Nitro Jam series and NED will be saying farewell with one of the biggest nitro parties in the northeast and one of the biggest races of the year this Saturday and Sunday at the North American Nitro Jam in Epping.

Nearly two dozen nitro-burning dragsters and funny cars will be on the property, in addition to the world’s fastest sleds, the northeast’s first and only look at the side-by-side jet truck showdown, wheelstanders, FanFest, fireworks and more.

The NHRA announced Saturday morning that it had fined John Force Racing $5,000 for a pit incident that took place on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis.

The fine, which is payable immediately and not eligible for appeal, was issued after one of the Force Racing teams improperly operated their car in the pit area. NHRA rules specify that Funny Cars must be in a raised position, fully situated in its assigned space and utilize cradles and jackstand devices that attach to the frame when servicing or starting the car’s engine while in the pit area. The team must pay the fine in full before it can continue to compete in any future NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series events.
Force did pay the fine Saturday morning at the U.S. Nationals and said why NHRA imposed the fine.

“Let me clarify first of all, I’m trying to teach my youngest daughter Courtney and for two months we have been towing her in the Funny Car around at the shop at home, just so she can learn the visuals,” Force said. “We finally started her in the car and all went really well because she drove Super Comp and A-Fuel. All I did, this wasn’t a race, this wasn’t a test session, there was nobody here in the parking lot except my crew and there was a few people out here because they dug the track up. I just didn’t think anything about it, putting it on the ground, to let her back it up and come forward to teach her how to stage it and lift the body and the process. So, when we do take her out there, she knew it.”

As one of the fan promotions within the 25th anniversary celebration of John Force Racing’s association with Castrol, Susan Porter of Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee drove away Saturday with one of the most infamous scooters in the history of NHRA drag racing, the actual scooter on which 14-time Funny Car champion John Force traversed NHRA tracks across the country for the first 17 races of the season.

Force presented Porter with the key to the scooter on which he has traversed NHRA tracks across the country during the 2010 Full Throttle series.  The presentation was made at the John Force Racing sponsor midway trailer between Saturday qualifying rounds at the 56th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at O’Reilly Raceway Park.

 “I’ve been a John Force fan for the last five years. My son Todd and husband Billy watched the races and the more I watched it the more I became a fan. John is like me, a blabber-mouth. I really liked him from the very beginning. I signed up for the Castrol promotion and I saw where you could win John’s scooter so one night I thought I’ll just register. I didn’t even tell Billy I signed up,” said Porter.

Warren Johnson received a gift from his nitro adversary Jim Head. Head debuted a new t-shirt for the Indy weekend and wanted Johnson to have the first one.

After all, Head says, “He inspired it.”

Emblazoned on the back of the shirt was the likeness of the late Ray Charles, a blind blues singing legend.

The shirt reads, “Ain’t nothing to it, even a blind cat can do it.”

Billy Harper raced a couple of weeks ago in Boise, Idaho, but before that, it had been a year since he'd been out. He drives a black '00 Viper replica, the same as he won the ADRL championship with in 2008, except with a newer chassis.

“I'm in the construction business, so financially I had to take the time off because of the economy,” said Harper, who is racing Pro Modified at this weekend's NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. “This car was built two years ago and had never been raced before Boise. Out here yesterday was the first quarter mile pass that it has made.”

Harper plans to run the rest of the year and believes he will run just a few races in 2011 but will be back into it big time in 2012. His crew chief is fellow Pro Mod driver Dennis Radford, who tunes both cars and tuned him to the 2008 title.

Not surprisingly, Andrew Hines was not knocked off the Pro Stock Motorcycle pole at the U.S. Nationals Sunday.

Hines won the pole, thanks to his blistering national record pass of 6.815-second at 197.17 mph Saturday at O’Reilly Raceway Park. The speed he clocked on his Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson also was a track record.

This is Hines’ second pole of the season and second in as many events and the 28^th of his career. Hines, still looking for his first Indy Wally was runner-up at the 2008 U.S. Nationals to Steve Johnson.

After losing his hold on the top spot, falling back in the qualifying run order, defending NHRA Pro Stock champion Mike Edwards thundered back to claim the No. 1 position in the first of two qualifying sessions during final day qualifications at the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

A track record 6.579 and 209.14 miles per hour speed propelled Edwards to his twelfth No. 1 qualifying position of 2010; 34^th of his career.

Regardless of the accolades on his lengthy resume, Edwards understands he must prove himself once again on Monday during final eliminations.

Cory McClenathan wanted it all. 

And by 5 o'clock Saturday, on this ideal late-summer day, he had everything that he and the FRAM Dragster could grab so far at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. He had the No. 1 qualifying spot and the track elapsed-time and speed records. Then Larry Dixon came along in the Al-Anabi Dragster three hours later and took it all away from him in the Saturday night session. Dixon rocketed to a 3.776-second E.T. that was just four-hundredths of a tick off his career-best effort at 324.36 mph, easily his career-best speed.

He called it "a clutch performance by the team, for sure." It was a far cry better than his Friday performance, in which he experienced early tire shake and shut off the engine early. That left him on the bump spot, nearly the odd man out among the 19 Top Fuel entries. By the end of the second session, Saturday's first, Dixon had improved to sixth in the order.