Point standings (top 10) for NHRA professional categories following the Ninth annual NHRA Las Vegas Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the 23rd of 24 events in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series -

Talented motorsports photographer Chris Simmons captured the violence of Brad Brand's broken windshield during Sunday's first round action at the World Street Nationals in Orlando, Fla.

Advertisement

The top two ranked Funny Cars will meet in the first round of eliminations and the championship could be on the line. Thanksgiving dinner at the Force home could be as well.
 
Sunday’s first round of eliminations at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals will pit in-laws Robert Hight and Ashley Force Hood against each other.
 
Hight rates the edge the epic battle on Sunday by virtue of qualifying performance and if not for a last ditch 4.197 elapsed time during the final session Force Hood wouldn’t have qualified for the field. Hight qualified third with a 4.065, 308.71.
 
“You never want to wait until the last session to get in but for some reason this weekend, our car has found a reason to not make a run each session,” Force Hood said. “You can see the frustration on my crew chiefs. We knew that if you DNQ, you are pretty much out of the Countdown unless you’re doing really good.”

In an exciting day of Pro Mod action at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Brad Personett blasted his turbo-powered '68 Camaro to the number one qualifying position Saturday in the Get Screened America Pro Mod Challenge presented by ProCare Rx at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals and Mike Castellana won the Matco Tools Pro Mod Clash and took home the $25,000 grand prize by beating his teammate Burton Auxier in the finals.
 
The day's lone qualifying session saw Brad Personett blast to a track record ET of 5.965 seconds at 245.45 mph and Jay Payne follow closely with a 5.971 at 240.38 to take No. 2. In all, six drivers were in the five-second zone and rookie Kirk Wilmes took the No. 16 spot with a 6.125 at 231.52 - the quickest ever field and bump spot for the Las Vegas track.

Mike Edwards made a clean-sweep of the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals Pro Stock qualifying by acquiring all twelve available bonus points for running the quickest in all four sessions. He also qualified on top of the previous NHRA event in Las Vegas last April.
 
Back then, Edwards was chasing a streaking Jeg Coughlin Jr. This time he’s just hours away from clinching his first Pro Stock title and the second NHRA championship of his career. Edwards captured the 1981 NHRA Modified eliminator championship, a class that was discontinued at the end of that season.

Funny Car title contenders Hight and Force Hood to meet in important first round; Dixon, Hagan and Arana also No. 1 qualifiers at NHRA Las Vegas Nationals

Mike Edwards earned his category leading 15th No. 1 qualifying position in Pro Stock Saturday at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals and now sits only a few points away from clinching his first NHRA world championship trophy.

Larry Dixon, Matt Hagan, and Hector Arana also were No. 1 qualifiers at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Advance Auto Parts announced on Friday afternoon that their sponsorship of two-time NHRA Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon would end after the 2009 season.

A disappointed Pedregon reflected on the loss of his sponsorship which began in 2001.

“It’s been a great eight years,” Pedregon said. “The bottom line is that they are going in a different direction and that leaves me without a major sponsor. I have some things in the works but nothing confirmed yet. I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Pedregon captured the 2008 NHRA Funny Car title, his second since winning the 1992 crown. He reached eighteen final rounds during his Advance Auto Parts tenure.

“I will always look back at the Advance Auto Parts car, and as a company that took a chance on me … it wasn’t like I was a household name,” Pedregon said. “For all they knew I could have went broke in a year or two. We worked hard and had a few tough years where we sent bodies flying skyward but for the most part I had some great people work for me.”

Mike Edwards may have a 128 point lead over the rest of the NHRA Pro Stock field.

He may be on the verge of a 15^th low qualifying effort in 2009.

He could very well clinch the world championship on Saturday afternoon at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals.

But those points, as impressive as they may be, aren’t enough to inspire Edwards to cut the competition any slack.