2009 ADRL TOPEKA - EVENT NOTEBOOK
Keep up with this weekend's ADRL Independence Drags by reading our event notebook. We bring you the stories behind the numbers and win-lights throughout the course of the weekend. Tune in daily for the latest news from the pits.
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SATURDAY NOTEBOOK -- LATE IN THE EVENING THE STORYLINES COME TOGETHER
CHARACTER STRENGTHENING WEEKEND – Billy Glidden experienced a tough weekend. The defending ADRL Extreme 10.5 
champion lost for the first time in 22 rounds of competition, fought tire shake throughout the first day of the two-race-in-one weekend at Heartland Park Topeka and as if that wasn’t enough misfortune for the fierce competitor, he severely wounded an engine during eliminations of the ADRL Independence Drags.
So what did the seemingly jinxed Glidden do next?
He changed the engine and won the race.
“Just a little too much nitrous and not enough engine,” Glidden explained in discussing what hurt his usually reliable engine.
Glidden experienced one of the toughest weekends he’s faced since joining the National Guard ADRL tour last summer. He defeated Kevin Paulk in the final round of the fifth race on the ten-event ADRL schedule.
Glidden has won four of five events this season with his only loss coming at the hands of Paulk on Friday evening, the completion of the postponed ADRL Summer Drags held over from Martin, Mi.
The tough weekend really doesn’t come as a surprise for Glidden as he sorts through a brand new combination. The second-generation champion, son of ten-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Bob Glidden, believed earlier in the season that he needed to find “the next level” if he hoped to remain competitive in this class.
Climbing the mountain has proven one of the toughest challenges he’s faced.
“We’re in new territory with this whole deal,” Glidden admitted. “It seems as if it doesn’t matter how we get there, with what I am racing with, death is almost always the end result.”
Glidden pulled his engine back from the dark side long enough to beat Paulk with a .015 holeshot when both drivers recorded identical 4.090 elapsed times. The previous time they raced Glidden lost when his Ford-powered, Pontiac shook the tires and forced him to lift.
There was no lifting this time for Glidden.
“I had gone left and I rode it with the wiggle, and I got down there close [to the finish line] and I could hear him,” Glidden explained. “I pushed in the clutch [at the finish line] and he came by me so fast I think he sucked two or three decals off of the car.”
Winning was a welcomed relief for Glidden, but not the best one.
“It felt good to make six runs in a row,” Glidden said. “It’s always good to win but it’s not always about win streaks. It’s about the paycheck.”
Six consecutive wins at an ADRL event will deliver a good paycheck, too.
THE ICEMAN TRADITION – The person who coined the phrase history repeats itself must have known ADRL Pro Nitrous racer 
Shannon Jenkins.
In one weekend, the Tuscaloosa, Ala.-based nitrous doorslammer racing expert, won two events at Heartland Park Topeka. The scary thing for the competition is that Jenkins got on a roll.
The last time Jenkins got on a roll he won championships on both the IHRA and NHRA tours simultaneously.
Friday evening Jenkins won the rain-delayed ADRL Summer Drags and on Saturday continued the domination by stopping Pat Stoken in the finals of the ADRL Independence Drags a day later to claim his seventh series event win.
“It doesn’t get any better than that,” Jenkins said, smile clearly visible. “Our whole team had a great weekend.”
Did we mention that he qualified No. 1 as well?
“Winning races back-to-back just showed how strong this team is,” Jenkins proclaimed. “We have a lot of races to go but I think we will do just fine the rest of this year.”
WELCOME BACK – Mike Janis has won world championships and more national event titles than he can count on his hands but 
Saturday evening, the Pro Modified veteran enjoyed a new victory. He finally won an ADRL Pro Extreme national event title.
Janis stopped Cody Barklage to win the ADRL Independence Drags trophy in Topeka, Kan.
“It finally feels good to win a race after going winless last season,” Janis said. “I wondered if I was ever going to get another one.”
Janis has been a master of Pro Modified racing in the quarter-mile but the 660-feet standard of ADRL provides a different challenge.
“We’ve been working hard on the clutch and Pat [Norcia] at RAM Clutches has been working with us,” Janis explained. “Getting the car down the race track is what this is all about.”
Janis used his decades of driving experience to pull out the first win as his car experienced tire shake just shy of the one-two shift.
“I pedaled it just a bit,” Janis explained. “I thought I was going to lift. They usually don’t respond [to the pedaling] but this time the car turned just a little but kept going. This is a good car.”
And for Janis, the car is a quick one too having run a 3.74 during the course of eliminations.
“That was my quickest eight-mile right there,” Janis said of his semi-final win over Josh Hernandez. “The previous best was a 3.77 in considerably better air. I shook the tires pretty hard on that one.
“This car is going to go and there is one part of the race track [200 feet] that is giving us problems.”
Heaven help the competition when Janis figures it out too.
A GOOD DECISION – Elijah Morton wasn’t event going to race the ADRL Independence Drags in Topeka, Kan. He was going to stay 
home in Jacksonville, N.C., and celebrate Independence Day.
He changed his mind.
Morton wasn’t going to stage first in the Extreme Pro Stock final either and looked as if he would let his 800-plus cubic inch Mustang run out of gas before he’d roll those final few inches.
That one he didn’t change his mind on.
Morton beat former teammate Jeff Dobbins on both ends of the track in scoring his first career ADRL national event victory.
“It took us five races to get into the winner’s circle … a little longer than I had hoped,” Morton said.
Morton, lamenting an early loss during Friday’s rescheduled Martin event, made another wise decision switching engines and by the time he reached the final round on Saturday, was on his game better than ever.
“We changed the engine and the car kept getting faster each time,” Morton explained. “The air was different than we expected. We couldn’t get enough gear and wheel speed in it. We kept tuning it up with every round.”
TIRED – Cody Barklage figured he and the team could gamble on a tired engine during qualifying for the ADRL Independence Drags. The move ended up costing them more money than replacing the worn out rods.
Barklage rebounded from the bad decision and reached the Pro Extreme final round where he faced another decision. Once again he gambled on the outcome.
“We knew the only thing we could do was blow the tires off,” Barklage admitted. “We really didn’t expect to make it as far as we did.”
Winning or losing, the final round appearance did wonders for Barklage and the team.
“We needed that one,” Barklage admitted, despite losing to Mike Janis in the Pro Extreme final.
EXPECTATION EQUALS OUTCOME – The ADRL had only 30 days to put together a national event at Heartland Park Topeka and 
many in the racing community questioned how the event would turn out with a limited time to promote.
Steve Matusek considers Heartland Park Topeka to be a home track.
The President of Aeromotive, who campaigns one of the more innovative Competition eliminator cars on the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, used his knowledge of the track’s administration and the ADRL’s management staff to establish a baseline of standards for the inaugural Topeka-hosted ADRL event.
“I had kind of high expectations and let’s put it this way, I have not been let down,” Matusek said.
Matusek’s Aeromotive business, a manufacturer of premium fuel system components, held an open house prior to the NHRA event in May and decided to do the same before the ADRL event.
“We had a couple of (ADRL) guys come by … we had Billy (Glidden) come by; he was our honored guest,” Matusek said. “We had Mark Micke come by and you know we had some people from ADRL come by. It was a combination open house and car show so we had a lot of neat cars and street rods there.
“Everything went real well, we had a lot of people, fed a lot of people, the weather held out. It was a perfect day for street rods to come by and cruise.”
Oh yea, Matusek’s Mustang raced this weekend too. He undertook the Herculean task of running Pro Extreme and while he didn’t have expectations of making the 16-car field, he used the time to get some testing time in.
“I knew these cars were fast and we really can't compete with them the way the car is set up,” Matusek said. “We kind of lost our set up and we're out here trying to find it back. We're feeling the water a little bit. Getting a feel for what the sanction is all about. Who knows what we are going to build next year.”
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FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - – FIGHTING THE WEATHER AND SCHEDULE, FIRST DAY IN TOPEKA WAS A REAL BATTLE
BLACKJACK, NOT! - If Billy Glidden were in Vegas, 21 would be a great number.
However, in Topeka, Kan., the number didn’t have the same appeal.
During the rescheduled ADRL Ford Drive One Summer Drags eliminations contested in Topeka, former Limited Street racer Jeff Paulk ended Glidden’s consecutive rounds won streak at 21.
“Billy’s tough,” said Paulk, who ended up runner-up to Jeff Naiser. “We’re just trying to get our new deal figured out, so we’re happy with this.”
Topeka represents the fifth career ADRL Extreme 10.5 event for Paulk. For him, he never expected to progress this quickly much less be the one to take out the classes’ most recognizable figure.
“This is a tough, tough class,” Paulk said.
Glidden admittedly has been testing this weekend and the loss is an unfortunate byproduct.
“I’m not going to run any faster by sitting on my hands,” said Glidden, who was forced to abort both Friday runs with tireshake. “There are several differences in my car … mostly my engine combination from the top to the bottom. I’m making wholesale changes.”
Wholesale changes are a vast departure from the standard Glidden game plan.
“I usually make small changes,” Glidden continued. “You come out here and run 4.15 at 172 or 173 in this kind of air and there are three or four that can run quicker. I’m not going to keep up with the others by not advancing.”
Glidden also added that by remaining idle in his quest to step forward he was also causing considerable damage each time to his 400 inch Ford. He’s implementing new changes to the engine over the course of the weekend that should provide significant improvement.
“It’s getting happier,” Glidden admitted, as he showed off the computer graphs of his first two Topeka runs. “And we took a lot of power out of it … A lot.”
ICEMAN VICTORIOUS – The Iceman cometh, even in the perspiration-drenched Midwest.
Shannon Jenkins, nicknamed the Iceman for his tendency to maintain a cool demeanor in the face of adversity, lived up to his moniker when he overcame a Billy Pilcher holeshot to win Pro Nitrous at the rain-delayed ADRL Summer Drags in Topeka. Adding to the pressure of the final round was a race day that was in constant hurry up mode to complete the event and get in a round of qualifying before inclement weather arrived.
“The car worked perfect all day, but especially those last two rounds where it ran almost identical (times),” Jenkins said, adding the win gives him extra confidence for tomorrow’s qualifying and eliminations for the Hardee’s Independence Drags III. “We’re in good shape; now we’ll see if we can do this again.”
Did delaying the outcome of the event from Michigan to Kansas adversely affect Jenkins and his team?
“We were better in Michigan than we were here,” Jenkins said. “The conditions were faster. I wasn’t worried about finishing up the race later. You’re either going to win or you are going to lose.”
INDEPENDENCE DAY – The objective of military issue ACU (formerly BTU) uniforms is to blend in with the scenery. For the National 
Guard-sponsored Josh Hernandez, the paint scheme for his 1957 Chevy made him stand out.
In the rain-delayed ADRL Summer Drags battle the conspicuous nature only worked to his advantage as he defeated Bubba Stanton in the final round and elicited the cheers of a military friendly contingent at Heartland Park Topeka. The dragstrip is situated next to Forbes Field, a limited us Air Force facility.
“Everybody thinks it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen,” Hernandez said. “I’ve had a lot of pretty paint schemes over the course of my time in drag racing and this has to be one of the most unique. It was a battle on the track and I’m glad we were dressed for the occasion.”
Hernandez will run the special scheme in Richmond, Va., later this month and with the race’s proximity to the Pentagon, he believes his efforts serve a purpose.
“I can’t be out there fighting with the troops but I can fight on this track for them,” Hernandez admitted.
FIRST TIME FOR MONTECALVO - The first win is the sweetest and for John Montecalvo, it was that and then some.
“We’ve been working hard toward this, and I knew our time was coming. It feels good to have that first win under our belts. I almost didn’t come to this race because of holiday and family plans, but I’m sure glad I did now. Many thanks to Maxam Equipment for coming on board this weekend. We’re proving to be a good team this weekend! I also want to thank my wife and the team for all their hard work, Sonny’s Racing Engines, and all the guys that stand behind this team.”
AMBITIOUS OR IMPRACTICAL? – The Friday schedule at the ADRL Hardee’s Summer Drags in Topeka, Kan., was ambitious but by 8 PM, it became impractical.
Blame it on the rain.
When rain postponed last month’s ADRL Summer Drags in Martin, Mich., after the first round of eliminations, the decision was made to complete the event on the Friday of the Topeka event.
The second round of the postponed event was scheduled to begin at 3 PM, following three hours of professional time trials. What looked good on paper didn’t pan out as the Extreme Pro Stocker, the first scheduled eliminator, completed the second round a few ticks shy of 6 PM.
That delay pushed the opening session of qualifying for the Topeka event until 8 PM, CST. The final rounds of eliminations of each class were intermingled into the first qualifying session.
The first day ended shy of the midnight hour.
A FENDER BENDER – Cathy Belcher and Ken Thomas emerged uninjured from a accident while testing which left both of their cars
sporting quite a bit of cosmetic damage.
Thomas crossed the centerline into Belcher’s lane and the two made contact just past the eighth-mile mark.
“I just got out there on the two-three [shift] and it blew the tire loose and I got over in the other lane,” Thomas said. “I ended up getting bumped by the other car but it was totally my fault.”
Belcher said she and Thomas gradually came together during the course of the run.
“I was going down the track and felt I was on a good pass, and I could hear his car, and the next thing I knew I could see it,” Belcher said. “Then we got together.”
Duncan Race Cars representatives were in Belcher’s pits immediately after the accident commencing repairs and rebuilding a front end for use in Saturday’s qualifying. Additional help was provided by Andy McCoy Race Cars.
One disappointing part of the accident was the actions of an unsuspecting fan that collected a “souvenir” from the debri.
“They took an important part of the front end that we needed,” Belcher admitted.
Thomas didn’t fare as well in the mishap. His car is out for the weekend. He’s already working on a deal for another car to use in the interim.
“It’s bad, but it could have been a lot worse,” Thomas admitted.
Belcher’s car is expected to be ready for the second qualifying session slated for Noon on Saturday.
“She won’t be pretty but we will take care of that later,” Belcher concluded.
NOT THE FIRST BUT FILLING A ROLE – Cathy Belcher isn’t the first female to drive an ADRL Pro Extreme doorslammer but she is the 
quickest and for now, that niche suits her just fine.
Belcher, of Rantoul, Ill., pilots a former Ray Commisso Camaro in a class where the weak are chewed up and spit out.
Even a DNQ in her first race and an accident in her second, hasn't discouraged Belcher as she races this weekend at the ADRL Independence Drags in Topeka, Kan. Belcher was the first alternate with a career best.
“It’s a thrill,” Belcher answered when asked if being outside of the field, yet close in her first ADRL race was deemed as a positive or a negative. “We set a personal record in qualifying and we’re hoping to have it down into the 3.90s soon.”
Belcher piloted her Camaro to a 4.06 elapsed time at 182.74 miles per hour and then followed it up with a 4.04 at 184.22 mph in the third and final qualifying round.
That’s no small feat for Belcher, who is credited as the first female in NHRA Division 3 Top Sportsman with a competitor’s license. She was also the first female to compete in Super Chevy’s Nitro Coupe division.
Belcher started racing sixteen years ago in a 1957 Chevy Nomad that at 3,800 pounds ran a lumbering 5.30 elapsed time. The classic Chevrolet was destroyed in a racing accident. Her next venture was a high-horsepower, Pro Modified style dragster until it became evident to her and the team that race fans won’t pay to see the dragsters; in addition, she broke every part they had at a Quick Eight style race in West Virginia.
That’s when her husband and crew chief Doc Belcher handed down the edict that if they were going to race fast that it was going to be in a doorslammer.
She’s fallen head over heels in love with the ADRL concept.
“It’s a blast,” Belcher beams. “Bracket racers have issues with women [drivers] going fast. Top Sportsman drivers have really bad issues [with it]. Some tracks and some guys [do], not all of them.
“We are going to stick to SUPER CHEVY, match racing and ADRL … it’s a blast.”
Her ADRL experience in Michigan went beyond her imagination.
“More so,” she added.
She also added an exploded supercharger to her list of growing experiences.
“First time I ever did that and had the supercharger sitting sideways on the engine,” Belcher explained. “We broke a valve and a piston and figured our day was over.”
Assistance from a fellow racer kept Belcher in the show, at least throughout qualifying.
“I owe a lot to Bubba Stanton and his whole crew. They were unbelievably friendly and nice for someone who they had never met before.”
TWO TYPES OF HOT - Extreme Pro Stock racer Robert Patrick categorizes hot as two types. There’s hot and then there’s Topeka hot.
This weekend’s National Guard ADRL Independence Drags in Topeka, Kansas, promises to deliver some of the warmest conditions racers have seen in 2009. Previous Heartland Park Topeka events have pushed the thermometer mercury to beyond 100 and while Friday’s high temperature is forecast for only 90 degrees, it might as well be 140 degrees.
As Patrick puts it, the track will be 140 degrees minimum.
“When you’re tuning a naturally aspirated car and it gets to this part in the schedule, you essentially throw running the quick times out the window,” Patrick explained. “It becomes a matter of survival of the fittest and you just do your best to adapt to a hot track and crappy air.
“Running at the front of the pack isn’t the one who has the most power. It’s the one who makes the best adjustments.”
The last time Patrick competed at Heartland Park – Topeka was in 2001 when he campaigned a 500-inch Pro Stocker.
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THURSDAY NOTEBOOK - NEWS PILES UP HEADED INTO TOPEKA
BILLY GLIDDEN, BY THE NUMBERS - Technically CompetitionPlus.com was right and wrong.
Following the ADRL Summer Drags, we published a story declaring that Billy Glidden had won 21 rounds of competition and counting. When he won the final round at the ADRL Memphis Drags, the victory marked 21 consecutive rounds of competition that he’d won since his one legitimate loss dating back to last August in Norwalk, Ohio.
Though the ADRL counts Glidden’s decision to withdraw from the well-intended, yet meaningless arm-drop competition, neither Glidden nor this publication legitimize that as a loss.
Left out of our totals were Glidden's three hard-fought round wins in securing the 2008 ADRL Extreme Ten-Five championship during the Battle of the Belts. Bear in mind that he won the first round of the postponed Ford Drive One Summer Drags V on Saturday afternoon.
Billy Glidden now stands officially at 25 consecutive round wins.
That number, while impressive in every aspect, pales in comparison to the 39 national event round wins by his father Bob Glidden, a ten-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion.
The elder Glidden used two cars, a Ford Fairmont and a Plymouth Arrow, to secure nine consecutive national event victories spanning from 1978 until mid-way through the 1979 season.
The second-generation Glidden gets his dominant nature honestly as in 1978, the elder Glidden won seven of the nine events on the NHRA schedule. The races he didn’t win resulted in runner-up finishes.
Bob Glidden followed up the incredible season with seven wins in ten events in 1979. The three races he didn’t win resulted in runner-up finishes.
Eliminating the 2008 ADRL Summer Drags in Martin, Mi., Billy Glidden has reached the final round in every Extreme Ten-Five event he’s entered and holds seven national event victories to his credit.
Billy Glidden can tie his dad’s record by winning every available round in competition up until the finals of the Gateway Drags in St. Louis in August. He can eclipse 39 wins with a first round at the next event in Columbus, Ohio.
CHARLES IN CHARGE, AGAIN - Nearly four months after the official start of the 2009 racing season, Charles Carpenter is ready to start his season over again.
Since crashing his unmistakable ’55 Chevy in early March, both Carpenter himself and the car have healed at almost the same rate, and both are looking to make their return to the National Guard ADRL Pro Nitrous scene at this weekend’s ADRL Hardee’s Independence Drags III in Topeka, KS.
“I’m just now getting to the point where my back feels like it’s almost back to normal and I can get back in the driver’s seat,” said Carpenter. “Coincidentally, the car is ready to go at the same time.”
Carpenter didn’t want to make the long haul from Charlotte, NC to Topeka with an almost completely rebuilt car and no test time. Buddy Boozer’s Orangeburg Dragstrip was the perfect proving grounds for the freshened ’55 just over two weeks ago.
“I had to make sure I could handle it physically, and I knew we would have some small bugs to work out of the car,” said the 50-year-old auto repair center owner. “It felt great to get back out there. There was no pain whatsoever. The car feels just as good as it did before, and with some changes we’ve made to our combination, it’s really reacting in the front half of the track. I never made a full pass at Orangeburg, but it posted some really good short numbers. We’re encouraged by its performance and feel confident heading to Topeka.”
“It’s definitely not pretty, but that won’t matter as long as it’s fast,” Carpenter said of the patchwork appearance of the rebuilt car. “We’ll get it repainted eventually, but that’s not in the budget right now and we’ve got to make it to this race for everyone that has helped us get back out there. We can’t miss another one. Every race we miss, we’re losing ground not only in points, but in keeping up with the record-breaking performance we seem to see race after race in Pro Nitrous. You’ve got to be out there refining your program lap after lap if you hope to have any chance of being competitive.”
After 35 years, one would think Carpenter has done all the refining possible. Not so says the Pro Modified pioneer.
“I’m never satisfied when it comes to racing,” Carpenter admitted. “It’s going to take everything we’ve got to get back out there, but that’s exactly what we’re willing to give.”
NITRO HERE WE COME - They are drag racers of different eras.
Tim Grose raced nitro Funny Cars in the seventies and eighties before drag racing nitro became prohibitive for independent racers.
Quain Stott provides the quintessential rags to better quality rags story of a Pro Modified racer who used a frugal nature and persistent spirit to become a world champion.
Together, they are planning for a common era of racing together.
Stott will partner with Grose on a new Double Overhead Cam engine project. The engine combination will be supercharged and run a 50% nitro mix under the ADRL sanction.
The DOHC design Stott will run was originally designed in the mid-eighties by Joe Anahore and Joe Schubeck. The NHRA banned the engine in 1997 and the IHRA followed suit. No rules exist in ADRL preventing the use of the DOHC engine.
“I think Quain is probably one of the neatest people I’ve ever met in drag racing,” Grose said. “He’s incredibly intense and well versed in every aspect of racing a car. He’s great on and off of the track. I think he’s a heck of a guy.”
“Of course, Tim Grose was one of my heroes in the seventies and eighties,” Stott added.
Stott is a former IHRA world champion and after nearly two decades of running every race on the series made the decision to commit exclusively to the 2009 ADRL Series.
The potential of tuning a nitro engine is a challenge that has always intrigued him.
“When I raced nitrous, I finished second to a blower car and then I switched over to a blower, I learned how to do my own tuning and now this opportunity to learn nitro is something that I have always wanted to do,” Stott admitted. “I just think nitro is neat all the way around.”
Grose admitted that he’s kept up with the ADRL on CompetitionPlus.com and used the recently contested Ford Drive One ADRL Summer Drags to pitch his idea. He approached two teams initially, the first of whom wasn’t interested and then when he talked to Stott, he didn’t have to pitch the idea twice.
“The engine will have bigger cylinder heads and 32 valves instead of 16,” Grose explained. “This engine is far more complicated than your standard pushrod engine. The performance attributes for this engine are huge and nothing holds a candle to it.”
Stott is adamant that he will keep his supercharged, alcohol engine combo ready in a different 1963 Corvette, while he and Grose develop the new nitro combination. Their game plan is to debut the nitro-powered car next spring at the traditional ADRL season opener in Houston, Texas.
“My philosophy has always been that you don’t put a car in the race until it is ready,” Stott said.
CAMARO IS PROMISING - Mike Castellana’s new lightweight Jerry Bickel 1970.5 Camaro promises to be one fast runner in the Pro Mod ranks, this according to
Al Anabi Awesome Motorsports tuner Rickie Smith.
Tuesday afternoon marked was only the second time the car had been on a drag strip and despite an overheated Gateway International Raceway racing surface, driver Shannon Jenkins was able to navigate his way to a sub-.980 sixty foot clocking. They made the initial passes in Steele, Ala., and while the car launched hard early, it would drift to the left.
“I went over the car last night and I believe we’re in really good shape,” Smith said Wednesday afternoon en route to Topeka. “A few test runs on Friday in Topeka and we should have it dialed in.”
Smith believes the brand new Camaro, reportedly one of the lightest to ever come from Bickel’s shop, should be up to full speed by Friday evening qualifying at the ADRL Independence Drags in Topeka, Ks.
“I believe that anytime a team can take a brand new car from the chassis shop this quickly and immediately into competition is a pretty good deal,” Smith explained.
Smith pointed out that the experience of his own Camaro enabled him to point out where the team needed to go with Castellana’s car.
“It’s almost the same car except for the body so we shouldn’t have any problems taking it to the eighth-mile,” Smith said.
The new Camaro is legal for all major Pro Modified tours, ADRL, IHRA and NHRA.
Smith believes the car is capable of 3.80s but only when the atmospheric conditions cool down in the fall or freak condtions.
“You’re not going to get much out of this air,” Smith said. “I just don’t see it happening right now.”
A SNEAK PEEK - CompetitionPlus.com snapped these sneak peek photos of Travis Swearingen's 1941 Willys sporting a new National Guard camo-themed scheme. Reportedly the theme will be campaigned at two events beginning this weekend at the ADRL Hardees Independence Drags in Topeka, Kan.
CLARIFICATION - The National Guard American Drag Racing League (ADRL) announced today several rule clarifications related to the use of 
superchargers in its Pro Extreme and Extreme 10.5 classes.
- Use of any size centrifugal, roots-type or screw-type supercharger allowed.
- Maximum overdrive for a roots-type supercharger is 1.70 (70 percent over).
- Maximum overdrive for a PSI screw-type supercharger is 2.28 (128 percent over).
- Maximum overdrive for a Whipple screw-type supercharger is 1.60 (60 percent over).
- All screw-type superchargers must be certified to SFI Spec 34.1 and overdrive limit established to be eligible for ADRL competition.
- Any new screw-type supercharger must be approved for competition prior to competing at an ADRL event.
- All screw-type superchargers must display a current SFI Recertification tag.
“We haven’t had a problem in this area, but these rules are intended to head off any issues before they arise,” National Guard ADRL Executive Vice President of Competition Bubba Corzine explained. “We just want to put it in writing and make sure that all of our race teams know where we stand in regard to these power enhancers.”
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