This an instance where the
bite is as bad as the bark...

Canadians have always had
a presence in Pro Mod--Al Billes, for one--but lately there’s been a profound
surge in performance coming out of the Great White North. Whether it’s Billes’
influence as a consultant, more IHRA events being held north of the border, or
even global warming, we’ve all read how Glen Kerunsky, Raymond Commisso, and Tony
Pontieri have made big gains. Those drivers used to fly just under the radar,
and so did Carl “Big Dog” Spiering.

This canine’s bite
eventually measured up to his bark, however.

Spiering used to be a
part-timer – running events close to his home base in Ontario, Canada,
that were beneficial to his sponsors. Then he attained success and with that he
chose to broaden his horizons. The 2006 IHRA tour marked his first full
11-event season.

Everyone
who has ever raced more than once understands that drag racing is a pricey
undertaking.  That goes for everything
from running your father’s car in a dial-your-own event to Top Fuel on the
POWERade circuit.  Down through the years
there have been more complaints about the costs of racing than almost anything
else. 
           
Some years ago All-Star Drag Racing Team Ollie
Award winner and Hall of Fame Founders Award recipient Dave McClelland
addressed the issue of costs thusly:  “If
Top Alcohol Dragster is too expensive for you, run a Comp car.  Can’t
afford that?  Run a Stocker.  Still too pricey?  Get a bracket car. 
Still too much?  Pull the hubcaps off your car and run the
dial-your-own programs at your local track. 
If you want to race badly enough, you’ll find a way and a class in
which
to do it.”

What's wrong with Del
Worsham?

Nothing, says the NHRA
POWERade Series veteran, who suffered through a frustrating 2006 campaign, when
he failed to win a race for the first time in six previous seasons and finished
an unaccustomed 11th in points. He then started 2007 by failing to qualify for
the season-opening CARQUEST Winternationals. This from the same Del Worsham who
finished second with five wins in 2004, scored three in 2003 and four each in
2002 and 2001.

But things are often not as
they appear, and for Worsham the 2006 season was comparable to a tennis player
who loses in three sets by a trio of 7-6 scores.

"The more I look back
on last year, the more I see how close we were to actually having a fantastic
season, but every time a race was settled by a few inches, we were the guys
losing by those inches," said the driver of the red Checker Schuck's
Kragen Chevrolet, who won just 12 of 32 elimination rounds last season.
"People forget we were 5-5 after the first five races, and all five losses
were to Ron Capps, John Force, or Robert Hight. We lost to Capps three times at
the beginning of the season, all three times in round two, and all of them were
so close you couldn't tell who won. For that to happen in the Funny Car class
is just unheard of."

“I’m
just a housewife with this God-awful habit. I guess there are worse things.”

That,
in a nutshell, describes the fascination with motorsports that has been such a
dominant part of Annette “Pink” Summer’s life since childhood. For as long as
she can remember, the spirited blonde, a native of New Ellenton, a “one
red-light town” in South Carolina, has been involved with engines, wheels, and
any kind of competition that uses them. In fact, young Annette Roberts began
carrying on a longstanding family tradition as soon as she was old enough to
reach the pedals of a bicycle.

Today,
as she prepares to take one of the most technologically advanced door cars in
the sport to the Pro Modified wars, Summer can look back with satisfaction at
her accomplishments, and the many trails she blazed to achieve them. Of course,
she did it because she had no other choice; in the male-dominated sport of drag
racing she had to fight for recognition and acceptance from her male peers, and
it wasn’t always easy. In fact, it was hardly ever easy. Fortunately, drag
racing now offers more opportunities for women than any other form of
motorsports, and people like Annette Summer, who helped change longstanding
attitudes and perceptions, are certainly owed a debt of gratitude. In the
beginning, however, she did not consider herself a standard bearer for the
rights of women racers - she was just a competitive, strong-willed girl who
wanted to race!

Some things happen for a
reason.

For every bad circumstance,
a good situation can be gained.

Such is the case for the
Don Prudhomme-owned Top Fuel dragster driven by two-time champion Larry Dixon.

The team suffered what
some might figure to be a major blow last season when long-time sponsor Miller
Brewing Co. decided not to renew its contract. But all that did was open the door
for SkyTel, a wireless data and messaging service company, to enter the world
of NHRA POWERade Series drag racing.

Regardless of the magnitude or frequency of his struggles, Cory
Mac always comes back.

As one of drag racing’s few remaining graybeards, Top Fuel driver Cory
McClenathan has taken his share of lumps over the course of a 15-year
journeyman career in the NHRA ranks.

But last year was especially hard on this fast-lane warrior. “It was the
roughest year I’ve ever had so far,” McClenathan admitted. “A crash here … an
incident there. I went through five cars and that pretty much is unheard of for
most teams.

“It was hard physically, mentally and the all the way around for my family, and
me,” he said. “It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances.”

We’ve all seen the current
Super Gas and other indexed pro tree classes, but have you ever wondered how
this phase of sportsman drag racing actually came into existence?

Some call the “SUPER” class style of racing as the one category of sportsman
racing that revolutionized little guy participation, and it actually can be
traced back to 1971. On a sunny day in March of that year promoter Dave Dorman
sat down with his tech officials at Redding Dragway. The promoter, track
manager Randy Liddell, and his staff had gotten together for their traditional
pre-race morning meeting. The group was going over their assigned chores for
the night's special eight-car show. Indeed, it was going to be a blast, as
local Modified Gasser favorites Bob Bunker, with his '55 Chevy, Tom Thornhill
and his 1963 Falcon, and the Yuill Brothers with their '67 Camaro were among
those expected to compete. There was one problem, though. This wild show didn't
have a name. That is, until Dorman made a joking comment.

Younger drag racing fans probably have
no idea how good they have it.  No, this
isn’t going to be one of those “Why I remember the good old days…” stories, nor
is it going to be about how back in the day we had to walk eight miles to
school – uphill both ways.  But having
just witnessed yet another stellar NHRA POWERade Series opening round we can’t
help but think of how things used to be for the fans.

In an age of wireless high speed
Internet connections, same day television coverage, cell phones, Blackberrys,
and iPods it’s sometimes difficult to remember how we got our drag racing news
not that many years ago.  Before there
was Drag News and National Dragster we lived and
died with each monthly issue of Hot
Rod Magazine.  Flipping
right past the features on flathead-powered roadsters and bulbous-nosed
Mercuries we eagerly sought out the months-old coverage of an obscure points
meet at Shreveport Old Gator Dragway, or the story of Don Garlits’s exploits in
a 64-car (yeah, that’s right, a 64-car)
Top Fuel show in Bakersfield.

The coming of the two most prominent
tabloids of their day, Drag News and Dragster, satisfied our need for
vicarious speed until there was an explosion of monthly, bi-monthly and quarterly
magazines devoted to drag racing.  By the
mid-Sixties there were at least a dozen magazines devoted to the quarter-mile,
including the three flagship enthusiast publications, Hot Rod, Car Craft and Popular Hot Rodding.  

To be the best, it helps
to learn from the best.

And in drag racing, no one
is better at teaching the little intricacies of piloting a Top Fuel Dragster, a
nitro Funny Car, or a Pro Stock hot rod down the quarter-mile than Frank
Hawley. The Canadian native's resume includes winning the 1982 and '83 NHRA
Funny Car championships, and nine national events. For the past 22 years,
Hawley has been the proprietor of the most elite drag racing school in the
country.

Frank Hawley's Drag Racing
School, with training facilities based in Gainesville, Fla. and Pomona, Calif.,
has given instruction to more than 15,000 students, and the graduates include
roughly 75 percent of the regulars on the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
tour. They include four-time champions Tony Schumacher and Gary Scelzi, 2006
Auto Club Road to the Future award winner Robert Hight, Pro Stock champions
Greg Anderson and Jason Line, and 2003 Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon, to
just name a few.

In drag
racing, it’s all about family.
Thousands of families are involved in owning or operating teams from Top Fuel
to E.T. brackets.
The Forces fall into that category.
So do the Bernsteins.

The biggest stories of the preseason involved Ashley Force’s debut in Funny Car
and six-time champion Kenny Bernstein’s return this year to the category that
made him a motorsports icon.