Bruton Smith, founder and chief executive officer of Lowe's Motor
Speedway, Concord Mayor Scott Padgett and Jay White, chairman of the
Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners, broke ground today for The
Dragway @ Lowe's Motor Speedway.

The quarter-mile drag strip will join Lowe's Motor Speedway's legendary
1.5-mile superspeedway and four-tenths-mile dirt track in presenting
America's most popular auto racing series to fans from around the world.

On Tuesday, February 5th,
Joe Castello, host of "Power Shift" on XM Satellite Radio's XM Sports
Nation, channel 144 will preview the 2008 NHRA season. Drivers
currently scheduled to appear on the nationwide motor sports talk
show include, "Hot Rod" Fuller, Tommy Johnson Jr., Ron Capps and Kurt
Johnson. The NHRA's Alan Reinhart will also give his opinions on the
2008 season to be.

With the opening of the 2008 NHRA POWERade season just days away, David
Powers Motorsports will roll into Pomona loaded for bear. Rod Fuller
and Anton Brown, Powers' powerhouse combination in the Top Fuel ranks
will be gunning for victory in the 48th annual Carquest Auto Parts
Winternationals.

Fuller, following a solid test at Phoenix, hopes to finally crack into
the winner's circle at the storied facility. Teammate Antron Brown will
be making his Top Fuel debut and his first run at Pomona in something
with more than two wheels.

“I have a bad taste in my mouth from the Finals last fall, so I want to
go in and win this race,” remarked Fuller. “I feel very confident going
in. We had the quickest time in testing. We have a fast car and that’s
exciting.”

Last
year, Melanie Troxel successfully scored two wins in four final-round
appearances in Top Fuel and finished in the top ten in NHRA POWERade
Drag Racing. This weekend, in Pomona, Calif., she will embark on a new
chapter of her storied, record-setting career as she begins her season
behind the wheel of the ProCare Rx Dodge Charger R/T nitro Funny Car at
the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals.
 
"It's been a lot of hard work getting to this point, and now that it’s
here, I think everyone on our team is anxious to watch this car go down
the track and get this season started," Troxel said.
 
Aside from the obvious changes from Dragster to Funny Car, Troxel and
her entire Gotham City Racing team have ridden a roller coaster of news
events, with the loss of their longtime team sponsor in early January
to the addition of ProCare Rx less than 48 hours later.

In the so-called
off-season, four-time NHRA world champion Gary Scelzi spent much of his
time helping run Scelzi Enterprises, competing at the Chili Bowl and
racing with sons Dominic and Giovanni. But it's time to get down to the
business of Funny Car competition, he says, as the 24-event 2008 NHRA
POWERade Drag Racing Series opens this weekend at the CARQUEST Auto
Parts Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif.

"I'm really excited about getting the 2008 POWERade season started this
year," said the defending event champion, "after running the midget at
the Chili Bowl, racing with the kids and getting back involved with
Scelzi Enterprises. Coincidentally, I mixed in some company business
with the Phoenix testing by visiting dealerships down there with some
of my sales staff, so that was very productive.

"Now it's time to get down to NHRA drag racing. We're going into Pomona
with a lot of rule changes, a lot of variables right now. Everybody is
trying to build new, stiffer cars. We're running the same car as last
year, but we have a new Brad Hadman chassis. With the bad weather at
preseason testing in Phoenix, however, we weren't able to run it.

Mike Ashley, the fastest Funny Car driver in history, will open the
2008 NHRA POWERade season in Pomona, Calif. this weekend at the
CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals behind the wheel of the
ProCare Rx Dodge Charger R/T nitro Funny Car.

After previously announcing he would not be racing Funny Car this
season, Ashley changed his decision in order to track-prove a new
prototype chassis fabricated by Chuck Hase. This car is a heavy
frame-rail chassis assembled with normalized tubing, in conformance to
NHRA's mandated specifications.

"We broke the chassis I drove in the end of last year during testing in
Phoenix, and we need to get solid data on the new design from Hase
before we move forward on ordering more cars. After talking with my new
partner, Roger Burgess, we both felt that racing in Pomona would be the
right opportunity to prove out this new car as well as debut our new
team look," Ashley said.

Officially, Robert “Top Gun” Hight lost the NHRA POWERade Funny Car
Championship last year by 19 points, roughly the equivalent of one
racing round. Unofficially, he lost it by .001 of a second, the margin
by which he fell short of the one per cent backup run that would have
certified a season-opening 4.646 second quarter mile as the official
NHRA national record and earned him a 20-point bonus.

Instead, Hight had to settle for posting the two quickest runs in Funny
Car history (4.646 at Pomona, Calif., and 4.636 at Phoenix, Ariz.),
winning more racing rounds than anyone else (34 rounds to 30 for
champion Tony Pedregon) and qualifying No. 1 a category-best eight
times at the wheel of the Jimmy Prock-prepared Automobile Club of
Southern California Ford Mustang.

In any other year, such a performance would have earned the 38-year-old
a championship and the accompanying $500,000 bonus. In 2007, the first
year of NHRA’s controversial Countdown to the Championship playoff
system, all it got him was a second consecutive runner-up finish, the
admiration of a growing number of racers and fans and memories of what
might have been.

Doug
Herbert, owner and driver of the SnaponFranchise.com Top Fuel dragster,
will begin the 2008 NHRA POWERade season with one goal in mind: to win
the championship, and to win it for his boys.

After tying for his career best points finish in 2007, Herbert arrived
at a preseason test session in Phoenix prepared to make a statement.
With a brand new car, a new crew chief and a positive outlook, things
seemed bound to head Herbert’s way. Then Saturday dawned, and Herbert
received the call every parent fears.

His sons, Jon, 17, and James, 12, died instantly after their vehicle
collided head-on with a second vehicle. Herbert immediately left
Phoenix to be at home with his daughter,

Coming off fresh from a superb preseason testing sequence, Morgan Lucas
is ready to reinstate his name among the 2008 title-contenders for the
prerogative to be included in the elite class of the Countdown to the
Championship.

That starts with the season-opening kick-off this weekend at the Auto
Club Raceway at Pomona’s running of the 48th annual CarQuest Auto Parts
Winternationals

His Morgan Lucas Racing team-led team reeled off consistent 4.50-passes
in Phoenix with his best of the test resulting in a run of 4.548
seconds at a speed of 329.99 mph.

Plenty of changes will greet fans, teams and drivers when the NHRA POWERade Series opens its second Countdown to the Championship at the 48th annual CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals at historic Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, Feb. 7-10.

The event, which will be telecast on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD, is the first in an 18-race regular season, and that’s the first change.

In 2007, drivers negotiated a three-tier season that culminated in a two-race run for the title (Las Vegas 2, Pomona 2). Now only one cut separates the championship-contenders from the spoilers, in what proves to be an eat-or-be-eaten Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend. Points will be re-set, but the drivers leading in four categories (Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle) will be given a 20-point (or one-round) bonus for their efforts in the regular season. Ten drivers in each category will make the cut, up from eight last year.