Rockingham Dragway owner Steve Earwood announced Thursday a new five-year
contract extension that will keep the All-Harley Drag Racing Association’s
popular Screamin’ Eagle Eastern Finals at The Rock at least through the 2011
season.

 This year’s 16th
annual event, featuring the quickest and fastest Harley-Davidson motorcycles on
the planet including the 224 mile-an-hour Top Fuel Harleys, is scheduled Oct.
13-14.

 “The AHDRA Finals
always has been one of our favorite events,” Earwood said.  “(AHDRA General
Manager) Craig Tharpe and his people put on a great show and we’re pleased to be
able to guarantee our fans the best Harley show in America for at
least five more years.”

Our friends at Ford Motorsports are conducting a trivia contest this weekend and participants will have the chance to win a $100 Visa gift
card.

Five-time NHRA Top Fuel winner Rod Fuller will pilot the yellow-and-black HOLT
CAT dragster during the 22nd annual O’Reilly Fall Nationals. David Powers
Motorsports and San Antonio-based HOLT CAT have partnered for the Dallas event, Sept. 20-23,
at Texas Motorplex, it was announced today. This is the eighth time that David
Powers Motorsports and a Caterpillar dealer group have joined to back Fuller’s
car this season.

The
relationship between David Powers Motorsports and the CAT dealer groups is a
program to increase technician recruiting. Caterpillar dealers are experiencing
a shortage of technicians and NHRA drag racing offers a technician-rich
recruiting environment to find qualified candidates with experienced mechanical
backgrounds. HOLT CAT is the largest Caterpillar dealer in the nation and
operates 22 locations throughout Texas from the
Red River to the Rio
Grande.

“I’m excited to have HOLT CAT on the car at Dallas,” Fuller said. “We
seem to get to at least the semis when we have a CAT dealer on our dragster and
that’s definitely the goal this weekend. We’ve been to the semis and finals at
the Motorplex the last two years, so now it’s time for us to get into the
winner’s circle. It’s going to be warm and our Caterpillar dragster runs well in
the heat, so we’re excited to get the points lead back and lock in a spot in the
Countdown.”

George Howard of George Howard Racing announced today that he has completed
the sale of New Bama Dragway in Sumiton, West of Birmingham.  Howard said that,
as of October 1, the track will be owned by Bernie and Anne Longjohn of Los
Angeles, California.  Howard had owned the facility since 1998.

The Good Book instructs parents to raise their children in the right way and when they are old, they will not depart. Eli and Bonnie Patrick instilled solid and positive values in their son Robert – honesty and IHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock racing.

Those are two traits the second-generation Patrick proudly says he holds dear to his heart. The Fredericksburg, Va.-based driver has been on the fast track to success since entering the fast doorslammer ranks in the early 1990s.

“Where I lived the mountain motor cars were king,” Patrick said. “Growing up as a kid there were a lot of old tracks within an hour where the promoters booked in those cars. Whenever those cars came to town, because my dad had a dealership, they would display their cars at the shop. I was a starry-eyed kid. I never wanted to do anything but run like they ran. They had an impact on me. My dream was to be one of them.”

Patrick said that he dreamed one day of driving one of those IHRA Pro Stockers and his inspiration came from watching legends such as Lee Edwards, Rickie Smith, Roy Hill and Ronnie Sox.

While the NHRA event broadcasts were syndicated throughout the country,
the IHRA was on to a new deal with the Mizlou Network and then ESPN.
This one is worth watching if you prefer names like Don Prudhomme,
Raymond Beadle, Al Segrini, Connie Kalitta, Richard Tharp and Mark
Oswald.

Motel 6, the largest corporately owned and operated budget hotel chain
in North America, has renewed its contract with the National Hot Rod
Association (NHRA), continuing to serve as the Official Motel of the
NHRA through the 2010 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series season. 

“We greatly value our relationship with the NHRA and its millions of
passionate fans,” said Eric Studer, senior vice president of marketing
services for Accor North America.  “The NHRA provides us multiple
platforms to communicate with motorsports fans, including traditional
media, online communications, sales promotions and on-site access to 3
million NHRA race attendees annually.”

Bob Vandergriff, Jr. is
scratching his head trying to figure out the answer to a question that has been
bugging him for the last few races. The UPS-sponsored driver from Alpharetta, Ga., said he wants to know what it takes to
get on the event broadcasts.

Vandergriff said he
felt that he’s got all the ingredients that should garner sufficient airtime,
such as winning rounds and making the Countdown to the Championship. He said
that despite the logical qualifying factors, he feels he is being treated as an
outcast when it comes to the televison coverage.

“You have one of the
largest companies in the world on the side of our car as a sponsor and they
should want to feature that any way because it sends out a good message about
our sport,” Vandergriff said. “It’s a valuable asset within NHRA Championship
Drag Racing. The big picture is that it might inspire others to look and see UPS
involved and look into our sport. Evidently that doesn’t fit the
criteria.”

Vandergriff said the
situation came to a boil between he and the television team last weekend in
Memphis. He said
he voiced his displeasure to the television crew and then moved on. When they
came to interview him later, he said, “No way.”

Why would a driver turn
down television coverage?