Weld Racing successfully tested a prototype 17” dragster front wheel made of carbon fiber during the US Nationals. This test was on the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the Weld Racing one-piece forged front wheels.

The "BME 001" made its debut at the recently completed NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. 

This first in-house dragster from Bill Miller Engineering -- a collaboration among chassis designer Don Long, builder Bob Tobin, and Miller -- broke on the burnout Friday evening, spoiling its debut and leaving driver Troy Buff to wait until Saturday to make the Top Fuel field. The new black beauty from the shop at Carson City, Nev., carried Buff into the field, in the 16th and final position, on Saturday's first (the event's second overall) session. However, he slipped back into the unqualified ranks by Saturday evening, 18th out of 19 racers. He'll have two chances Sunday to climb back into the mix for Monday's eliminations.  

No matter what, Buff has to be more comfortable than ever in the car. He's 5-foot-6 inches tall, and the car was designed for former BME driver Dave Grubnic, who's 6-3. And Grubnic wasn't the previous driver. After Grubnic came Brady Kalivoda, Bobby Lagana, and Alan Bradshaw -- all of whom drove the same car.

From 2000-2002, Angelle Sampey had no peers in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class. Sampey, who is from Louisiana, won three world titles in that time span.

On Saturday, Sampey, who raced on the NHRA circuit from 1996-2008, officially retired from the sport.

The NHRA had a presentation for Sampey Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis at the starting line to wish her goodbye.

“Everybody keeps saying are you really not coming back and I’m really not coming back,” the 40-year-old Sampey said. “One of the main reasons is because I’m three months pregnant. I’m finally going to be a mom and that’s what I wanted. When I decided not to come back it was to pursue motherhood and I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would be blessed enough to have a child because I waited so long. Now, I’m having one and that’s definitely more important to me than anything else.”

Top Fuel racer Bob Vandergriff is on a scavenger hunt, and a couple of the items on his list definitely are a bit out of the ordinary: one Russian billionaire and one movie star.

Vandergriff, whose limited funding has allowed him to compete at only six races this year so far and these final six, has been scouring the nation -- and the globe -- for sponsorship packages to help his own cause and those of other racers, as well. And he has forced himself to change the paradigms for the sponsorship procurement process. 

"It's like anything else -- it's tough," he said of the economic environment in which has to operate each day. "Companies are watching their budgets and where they spend. You have to be creative in how you approach it and think of non-traditional ways and non-traditional avenues. "You just kind of throw out your thinking on how you used to go do it and who you used to go talk to. You see our sport now," Vandergriff said. "We have sheiks. We have an oil and gas sponsor. We have people outside the normal realm. You have to expand the way you think. Go find yourself a Russian billionaire or a movie company that wants to get involved or a movie star who is looking to do some things. You have to think outside the normal avenue and try to find potential opportunities. That's what I try to do every day."

Some of Pro Stock’s veteran fraternity believes once NASCAR adopts electronic fuel injection in 2012, the NHRA won’t be far behind.

Warren Johnson is one of those who can see the major move on the factory hot rod horizon.

“NHRA will certainly follow,” Johnson explained. “They certainly tried the truck program. That didn’t pan out.”

Johnson, who has described the Pro Stock as not as exciting as it used to be, believes such a move could lend the missing action to the eliminator.

One of the most highly anticipated new cars of the 2010 ADRL season will be sporting a drastically different look by the time it gets to Dragstock VII.

In March, Pro Nitrous star Thomas Myers proudly debuted a brand-new, Andy McCoy Race Cars-built ’70 Duster—the first of its kind—at the ADRL season opener in Houston. Next weekend at Rockingham Dragway, however, the classic Mopar will have a huge screw-blown Pro Extreme Hemi protruding through the hood where its scoop once stood.

Radical changes continue in the cockpit, too, as last season’s ADRL Rookie of the Year Jason Hamstra will be behind the wheel for the remainder of the 2010 schedule after crashing his ’69 Camaro a couple of months back at Topeka.

Tony Stewart took an uneasy gulp when he walked through the staging lanes with longtime buddy Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster team Monday at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

Several of the NHRA's top Pro Stock teams will test at zMAX Dragway today, Sept. 8, in conjunction with
the final round of the Summer Drag & Brag Series.
    
The NHRA teams will be getting valuable track time in preparation for the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals, Sept. 16-19 at the Bellagio of drag strips. This four-day event marks round two of the NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship-a six-race post season that determines the world championships in the NHRA's top four professional classes.
    
The Pro Stock teams will test throughout the day before making several exhibition passes during Summer Drag & Brag that evening. Drivers scheduled to participate include Greg Anderson, Jeg Coughlin and Jason Line, among others.

Rickie Smith wants parity and he wants it now.

When the 2010 NHRA Get Screened America (GSA) Pro Mod series opened its season this past March in Gainesville, Florida, GSA’s Roger Burgess qualified his supercharged entry in the top spot with a five-hundredths-of-a-second advantage over his closest nitrous-boosted rival, Burton Auxier, in fourth place.

A month later at the next race in Houston, the gap between the blower car of number-one starter Jay Payne and the quickest nitrous entry of Mike Castellana in sixth place had increased to a full tenth of a second.

The deficit was just over four-hundredths between the quickest nitrous qualifier, Troy Coughlin in fourth, and the blown car of pole-sitter Mike Janis at the just-completed U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, where just six of the 23 entries were nitrous assisted and only three qualified for Monday’s final eliminations.

Back during the Houston event, NHRA Senior Vice President of Racing Operations Graham Light and a representative of the NHRA Technical Department met with the GSA series drivers and team owners, promising steps would be taken to ensure and maintain parity between the two primary power-adding combinations in the class.

Since the middle of the 2010 season, NHRA has been testing different ways to reduce the power of nitro cars.

Initially, the NHRA was seeking to conclude data gathering no later than July. That deadline, however, has been extended. This past week at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Robert Hight and Antron Brown were doing some more testing for the NHRA.

“We tested a 413-inch engine and a 350 gear,” said Jimmy Prock, who is the crew chief for Robert Hight at John Force Racing. “We made two runs with it in Chicago and I made four runs with it here (at Indy). At Indy, it ran 4.16 seconds at 288 mph (at 1,000-foot).”

Depending on what the NHRA does, there is the possibility the sanctioning body might have the nitro cars return to traditional quarter-mile racing.