2012 Power Wheelstanding Championships
Nostalgia Gassers at Greer Dragway
This Saturday (May 25), Ed Hoover will lead a cast of Quick 8 Pro Mod all stars into Farmington Dragway for the inaugural Quick 8 Pro Mod Reunion race.
Hoover, who won the first-ever Farmington Quick 8 Cup back in 1990, is also credited with winning the first sanctioned Pro Modified event. This weekend Hoover will headline a Quick Eight Pro Modified field while driving Paul Trussell’s supercharged Chevrolet Camaro. Read more
Decorated NHRA Pro Stock driver and current crew chief for Erica Enders-Stevens, Dave Connolly, will contest the national Stock Eliminator championship this year after inking a major sponsorship deal with Berger Chevrolet and its online parts division, GMPartsNow.com.
Connolly will be driving and tuning the stunning 2012 COPO Camaro he recently raced to a strong semifinal finish at the 4-Wide NHRA Nationals, which sported a “Grumpy’s Toy” tribute paint scheme. A salute to Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, Connolly’s mentor, will remain on the car, taking up new residence on the rear fenders, while the doors will now be adorned with GMPartsNow.com. Read more
Antron Brown (above) joked that he wouldn’t mind making a couple of left-handed turns the next time he’s on the track. Ed Carpenter thought it’d be fun to ramp up the speed by about 100 mph.
Maybe they ought to swap rides.
Brown, the reigning NHRA Top Fuel champion, stopped by his old pal’s garage at Indianapolis Motor Speedway May 22, slipping into Carpenter’s No. 20 Chevrolet and getting a quick lesson in paddle shifting on the car that will sit on the pole for the Indy 500. Read more
On the day when Jeg Coughlin Jr. collected his 500th round win in Pro Stock, he more importantly won the NHRA Kansas Nationals Sunday at Heartland Park Topeka, his first win of the season and first in the JEGS/Mopar Dodge Avenger. Read more
The North vs. South Big Dog Shootout, one of the most popular events in the long and storied history of Piedmont Dragway, is set to resume Nov. 2-3 this year.
Previously featured on Powerblock TV’s HorsePower TV hosted by Joe Elmore, this year’s edition promises to be no less exciting with a slightly different format as drivers compete in a team format. Read more
Johnny Gray raced to his third victory of the season May 19, and moved back into the Funny Car points lead at the 25th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals in Topeka.
Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel) and Jeg Coughlin (Pro Stock) also were winners in their respective categories at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event. All three winners were presented special-edition silver Wally trophies in honor of the event’s 25th anniversary. Read more
Tommy D’Aprile earned his first X-treme Drag Racing League (X-DRL) Pro Extreme win May 18, at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, LA.
Other X-DRL Bash On The Bayou winners included Robert Mathis (Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous), Dean Goforth (X-treme Pro Stock), T.J. Tindle (X-treme Pro Mod), Todd Moyer (Precision Turbo & Engine Pro Turbo), Keith Raftery (Top Dragster), Bert Prejean (Mickey Thompson Top Sportsman) and P.B. Candies (Supercar Showdown). Read more
John Force ended a 19-race No. 1 qualifying slump by racing to a track record performance in Funny Car Saturday at the 25th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals.
Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) also will lead their categories into Sunday’s 11 a.m. eliminations at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event. Read more
Robert Hight (above) raced to the qualifying lead in Funny Car May 17, at the 25th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals. Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) also were qualifying leaders at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event.
Hight set the pace in Funny Car, powering his Auto Club Ford Mustang to a leading effort of 4.067 at 302.62 mph at Heartland Park Topeka. If the effort holds, this would be Hight’s first No. 1 of the season, fifth at Topeka and the 44th of his career. Read more
It may just be the third-ever event for the new X-treme Drag Racing League, but this weekend’s Bash On The Bayou already has incredible significance thanks to the X-DRL’s recently announced X-treme Shootout, to be contested at the X-DRL’s Thunder In The Heartland on Sept. 20-21 at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis.
The X-DRL created the eight-car shootout for the Pro X-treme, Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous and X-treme Pro Stock classes, and will award each class $25,000 ($75,000 overall). But to qualify for the X-Treme Shootout drivers must be a top-eight points earner this weekend at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, La., which puts a spotlight on the X-DRL’s first visit to the track. Read more
Shane Gray and the Gray Motorsports Pro Stock team are enjoying the best string of events that they’ve experienced in a very long time, and as the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour heads to the heart of America for the 25th annual NHRA Kansas Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka this weekend, Gray and his horsepower-obsessed cohorts are eager to extend their successful run and expand upon accomplishments that have been a long time coming.
Last weekend in Atlanta, Gray raced to the closing round of eliminations for the third consecutive event; in Charlotte at the four-wide race several weeks ago, the second-generation drag racer put together a better combination than this challengers to qualify all the way up in the No. 3 position and then move through eliminations. The Denver, N.C.-based Gray graduated to the last act and came up short at what he has considered his home track for the past few years, but the stage was set for positive and rather immediate future results. Read more
Tony Pedregon Racing and Herzog Contracting Corp., specialists in heavy/highway and railroad construction, announced they will partner for the NHRA Kansas Nationals May 17- 19, at Heartland Park-Topeka.
Pedregon’s nitro Funny Car team is enthusiastic about having Herzog back on board for the eighth race of the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. Read more
Erica Enders-Stevens’ Pro Stock car will return to it’s stealth-black paint scheme when she takes to Heartland Park Topeka in her new BLACK iGUANA-backed Chevrolet Camaro this weekend at the 25th Annual NHRA Kansas Nationals.
Enders-Stevens has inked an initial two-race marketing partnership with Tomball, Texas-based DGI Beverage, creators of the innovative pouch drink. The wildly popular NHRA racer will continue her Championship hunt with Cagnazzi Racing, introducing the BLACK iGUANA brand of packaged cocktails to drag racing fans nationwide. Read more
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series returns to Heartland Park Topeka, May 17-19 for the NHRA Kansas Nationals and 2011 Funny Car world champion Matt Hagan is in contention for his first career win at Heartland Park as well as another Funny Car championship.
Hagan, in his Magneti Marelli/Rocky Footwear Dodge Charger recently raced to his first win of the season at Charlotte, breaking a 23-race winless streak. Last weekend at Atlanta, when Hagan raced to the No. 1 qualifying position he ended a 29-race drought from the top of the qualifying order. Read more
NHRA announced May 14, that it has fined a Pro Stock racer Greg Anderson (right) and the Elite Motorsports Pro Stock team for committing rules infractions this past weekend (May 10-11), at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga. Read more
