In addition to the annual 100-percent reader voted Dot Com Awards, the staff of CompetitionPlus.com produces a not so politically correct Dot Com Award section. Over the course of a year we see stuff and while we report factually and unbiased what we see, there are a few things where we have tongue in cheek opinions that we don’t express at the time.

Well … that time is now.

Read at your own risk.

He didn't come out on top in the inaugural NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Challenge world championship title chase, but 33-year-old Brad Personett was a standout in the series nonetheless.

Driving the turbo-powered Big Stuff Precision Turbo '68 Camaro for Personett Performance, the former Sport Compact ace scored two victories – the first at the prestigious Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, where he also reset the national record for speed to a breathtaking 255.39 mph, and the second at the season-closer at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he stopped No. 1 qualifier Melanie Troxel in the final.

"Winning Indy was great, of course," said Personett, for whom the victory was a career first in the series sweetened by the fact that it came at his home track in front of a multitude of family and friends.

"Winning the Vegas race capped everything off at the end of the year, though," he continued. "We fine-tuned and tweaked the combination, got to the point where we had some spare parts, and I got my feet back underneath me after playing catch-up all year long. In Vegas, things finally started clicking."

He’s a part of the so-called John Force brain-trust. The one member, he says, who is the quiet guy sitting in the corner who offers his input from time to time.

That’s the world as Bernie Fedderly sees it. Brought in as a co-crew chief, i.e. extra set of eyes for Austin Coil in 1992, Fedderly now only assists current crew chief Mike Neff after the recent departure of Austin Coil.

“I just stay in the background and throw in my comments every once in a while when I’m not sleeping,” admits Fedderly.

Whomever Force brings in to fill the Coil vacancy, Fedderly is ready to mesh with the appointee, as well as Neff. The team is expected to make the announcement once they begin testing in February.

Fedderly says from his vantage point in the shadows, the ability of the team to work as an army of one, was the strength behind the 15th John Force title.

For Steve Matusek, the intake manifold is one piece of a much larger puzzle. However, in the eyes of Matusek, this particular manifold is one very important piece.

Matusek, the driving force behind the Aeromotive brand and a soon-to-be NHRA GSA Pro Mod competitor, has a passion for performance which leads to a better understanding of the bullet he has loaded between the fenders of his innovative new Mustang.

“It just goes to exhibit what we know about racing in general; about cars, about performance. We understand it,” said Matusek, speaking of the Aeromotive research’s development department. “We build it. We live it. The intake is just one part of the equation. It was something we needed for the new car. We looked at having it done on the outside, but the amount of time it would take, and resources and we thought, you know what we can make one of these. We have engineers and machines and programmers and let's just make one and see how it works. So, that is what we are doing.”

It has bothered him, this perception.
 
It has haunted NHRA icon Don Prudhomme ever since he retired from drag racing at the end of the 2009 season.
 
He helped shape the sport, from drag racing's infancy in Southern California's San Fernando Valley through a career as a multi-time champion driver and owner. So his flippant remark that he's "over drag racing" has haunted him.
 
And as he joined close friend Chip Ganassi in Indianapolis for the team owner's announcement this week of a new two-car Indy Racing League operation, Prudhomme wanted to set the record straight.
 
"I'm so glad to get the chance to clear things up," Prudhomme said. "I wasn't misquoted when somebody wrote that. I said it, but I'm not a master of the English language. I'm guilty of saying things I wish I hadn't.

What Buster Couch was to the NHRA national event tour, iconic starter Larry Sutton was to Irwindale Raceway, Orange County, and especially Lions Drag Strip: the undisputed boss on the starting line, fair-minded but tough as he presided over Southern California tracks in drag racing's golden era.

It wasn't just that Sutton had the best seat in the house as racing history unfolded before him; he was a part of it, too, driving almost continuously from his teens to age 52. "I loved driving, and I loved being on the starting line," he says, "and it truly was the best of both worlds."

Sutton rode his bike to Lions to hand out time slips when he was 13, became the starter at 16, and prowled the line until the day the track was shut down. When Lions' gates closed forever in late 1972, Sutton shifted to Irwindale and Orange County, working wherever the bigger race was, and eventually he was flipping the switch at Seattle, Fremont, and all the big West Coast tracks.