This coming Saturday, August 14th, is the 10th Annual Uptown Whittier Car Show held in Whittier, Ca. Between the hours of 9AM to 7PM (extended from its original 4PM end time) the sleepy, historic, uptown district will be transformed into a hot rodding haven. Hundreds of (mostly) pre 1975 cars, trucks, hot rods and street rods will be shown off, as well as, 2 stages of entertainment, a BBQ Cook-off, raffles and more.

The American Drag Racing League (ADRL) and President Kenny Nowling announced on Thursday that “The Rock Racing Battery” will serve as both the “Official Battery of the ADRL” and the “Official Mobile Power Source” of the ADRL’s “Battle for the Belts” doorslammer drag racing series.

Thanks to its lightweight and unsurpassed reliability, The Rock Battery is a top choice for several ADRL drivers, including current Extreme Pro Stock points leader John Montecalvo.

Mopar® will help celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of the premier Mopar enthusiast events on the annual car show calendar when the Mopar Nationals roll into National Trail Raceway near Columbus, Ohio on Aug. 13–15. Mopar will bring its Mopar Direct Connection Trailer and display vehicles to the event and will name a fourth winner in its popular Mopar “Top Eliminator” enthusiast program.

The 2010 event will host a number of new and exciting display vehicles at the Mopar Direct Connection Trailer, including the new Mopar ’10 Challenger, the first-ever special edition Mopar version of a Chrysler group vehicle. The Mopar ’10 was revealed last month at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals event in Golden, Colo.

Make no mistake: Jeff Arend and his Kalitta Motorsports/DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car team are serious about performing well in this weekend’s Lucas Oil Nationals Nationals and barging their way into the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship.
 
Crew Chiefs Jon Oberhofer and Nicky Boninfante and the crew were at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis, working until 2:30 in the morning, this past Tuesday. They were back at the racetrack at 7:30 a.m., “pulling out all the stops,” as Arend put it. By 2 p.m. they had made three test runs and planned to make another three before suppertime.
 
Arend, who is 11th in the standings, just 33 points behind 10th-place Tony Pedregon, has one last opportunity to make the “playoff” for the first time.

With his focus on racing blurred last week by the death of his grandfather, Matt Smith was relieved to be looking ahead to Friday when he will be competing in the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., the final Countdown to 10 regular-season event.

“It has been kind of a tough thing to deal with,” Matt said of the passing of Burke Smith last Thursday.  “We haven’t thought much about racing lately, but it is good to be focusing on it again.”

While Smith says it looks like he’s locked into the No. 4 Pro Stock Motorcycle berth for NHRA’s Countdown to 1 playoffs, a winning performance aboard his Al-Anabi Racing V-Twin at Brainerd could elevate him to third place – and be a perfect tribute to his grandfather. 

Old-school drag racers will remember days gone by where expending the effort to become a champion in drag racing was more for bragging rights than how much cash one stood to win if they were lucky enough to be the last man standing.

Perhaps no track manager in the country understands the thought process of the old-school racers like Chris Baxter of Milan Dragway, in Milan, Michigan.  

As the closest dragstrip to the Detroit area and the Big Three’s engineering- and racer-heavy landscape, ‘Milan’, as the locals call it, has, over the last few years, put together a nationally-recognized, once a month Friday night Heads-Up program with major sponsorship and national-level exposure for their racers.

A year ago, the NHRA’s Countdown to 10 Regular Season ended at the U.S. Nationals.

There was no shortage of drama at Indy, especially from John Force Racing.

Robert Hight, the eventual Funny Car world champion, just barely qualified for the Countdown in the No. 10 spot by capturing a controversial win over his boss and father-in-law John Force in the semifinals.

Hight’s victory also set off a firestorm between Tony Pedregon and Force because Hight’s win knocked Cruz, Tony’s brother and defending NHRA Top Fuel Funny Car world champ, out of the Countdown. Force beat Cruz Pedregon in the second round.

The American Drag Racing League (ADRL) has an extensive new television agreement with MAVTV, a national television network that caters to a motorsports audience.

The agreement calls for 13 one-hour shows on the high-definition network, giving the ADRL a national television presence for all of its 2010 events. The television show will provide highlights, interviews and coverage of the 2010 ADRL Racing Series.

MAVTV is currently available in more than 35 million homes and is growing at a rapid rate. It features a lineup of thrill-seeking programming that targets a male audience, ages 18-to-54.

Flood waters devastated Clay Millican’s shop but not his spirit

Remarkably resilient Top Fuel pilot Clay Millican is filled with energy, enthusiasm, and optimism, even after flood waters engulfed the MPE Motorsports headquarters earlier this year, putting a serious delay in the team’s return to drag racing. Following major clean-up efforts, Millican is ready and waiting to get back on the track.

A six-time IHRA champion who finished in the top 10 in NHRA’s Full Throttle Series for the first time last season, Millican was faced with sponsorship challenges entering 2010 that had his Mark and Lauren Pickens-owned operation on hold. The severe flood that brought major damage to their Munford, Tenn., home base could have been too much to overcome, but a strong community effort buoyed their spirits from the minute the flood waters subsided.

Although Pro Stock driver Rickie Jones didn’t qualify for the NHRA national event at Norwalk, Ohio in June, it didn’t ruin his season.

Jones, who pilots the Elite Motorsports Pontiac GXP, was still 10th in the point standings.

However, with the West Coast swing – consecutive races in Seattle, Sonoma, Calif., and Denver to follow – Jones’ team decided to change its focus and sit out those events.

“We took time off so they (the team) could work on the engines,” the 23-year-old Jones said. “If we were out West, those three races in a row would have made it really hard for them to improve our engines from now until Indy. We want to make gains before Indy and try and focus on running well the rest of the year.”