DragStory
Roth, Wicke, and Orfanidis Lead Going into Nitro Nationals
Courtesy of PMRA, Quick 32 and PBSS
CAYUGA, ON – The Pro Modified Racing Association, the Quick 32 Sportsman Series presented by NAPA Auto Parts, and the Pro Bike & Sled Series presented by Wiseco Performance Products return to racing this weekend for the
Canadian Nitro Nationals at the Cayuga Dragway of Toronto Motorsports Park.
This will be the third event for each series in the 2012 timetable, and the second time at the popular Kohler Road strip in Cayuga, Ontario.
Expected to make his return to PMRA racing is two-time IHRA Pro Modified champion Kenny Lang of Manitoba with his Summit Racing Equipment-sponsored Camaro, who won this event last year at Cayuga.
Also coming back to PMRA racing is Massachusetts racer Peter Farber. With his 1969 Dodge Daytona-bodied Pro Modified, Farber is one of the top runners in the Eastern US.
Fans vote Coughlin in for eighth spot in the K&N Horsepower Challenge
Courtesy of NHRA
Riverside, CA – NHRA fans have spoken, voting in Jeg Coughlin Jr., driver of the JEGS.com Mopar Dodge Avenger, to the eighth and final spot in the 28th annual K&N Horsepower Challenge, which will be held as part of the Summit
Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals on Saturday, July 7, at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk.
Coughlin won the fan vote by a landslide, receiving 66 percent of the total votes cast by NHRA fans since voting began in April.
The K&N Horsepower Challenge is a race within a race, showcasing the top drivers in NHRA Pro Stock, for which the winner receives $50,000. The runner-up will receive $10,000, the two semifinalists will each receive $3,000, and the four first-round finishers will each receive $2,500. As part of the program, a $3,000 bonus is awarded to the No. 1 qualifier at each NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event.
Tony Schumacher, Ron Capps, Mike Edwards, Jeff Foster, and Alan Reinhart on WFO Radio
Courtesy of WFO
HOLLYWOOD, FL – Ford Thunder Valley Nationals winners, Tony Schumacher, Ron Capps, and Mike Edwards all join 
Joe Castello, along with the NHRA’s Alan Reinhart, on WFO Radio NHRA Nitro. To listen now, go to http://www.wforadio.com/
Tony Schumacher, seven time NHRA Top Fuel Champion, stopped by WFO Radio to talk about breaking his 32 race winless streak Father’s Day weekend in Bristol, TN., his new dragster chassis compared with his teammates’, the future of the canopy innovation that is waiting for approval, and leading the points during the toughest period of competition in Top Fuel history.
Butner to Skillman: “I’m Gunnin’ for Ya Kid!” ADRL Supercar Showdown Gettin’ Real!
Written by Bret Kepner
Dinwiddie, VA – Two weeks ago, Bo Butner was lounging on a beach in the Caribbean while on a dream trip he planned 
with girlfriend Randi Lyn Shipp before the American Drag Racing League ever announced the debut of its revolutionary new SuperCar Showdown category.
However, the mind of the two-time SuperCar Showdown champion wasn’t on the pristine sands or the cool ocean water; he was on the phone with the team of his Butner’s Auto Sales 2012 Ford Mustang Cobra Jet as competition raged at the ADRL Gateway Drags IV presented by CarSafe Automotive Repair Protection at Gateway Motorsports Parks in Madison, Illinois.
The helpless Hoosier could only listen as he heard the news of young Drew Skillman’s
World Record performances of 5.70 seconds and 121.01 miles per hour in another supercharged Mustang Cobra Jet en route to a clean sweep of the event culminating in Skillman’s first SCS victory. Moreover, Skillman’s final round victim was NHRA superstar Jimmy DeFrank, whom Butner pegged to drive his Cobra Jet in his absence.
World’s quickest and fastest Prostalgia Nitro Funny Cars coming to Salt Lake City
Courtesy of IHRA
WEST VALLEY CITY, UT – Fans of drag racing past and present will be in for a treat when Nitro Jam returns to Utah June 29-30.
Some of the best Nitro Funny Car drivers in the world are coming to Salt Lake City during the NAPA Auto Parts Nitro Jam presented by Good Vibrations Motorsports and Cricket Wireless at Rocky Mountain Raceways, joining three additional nitro classes, four jets and a “monster” drag race between the Grave Digger and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle monster trucks.
After three very successful events at RMR since its inception in 2009, Nitro Jam returns to the Beehive State with its most ambitious and exciting event yet as eight of the quickest, fastest and most famous AMSOIL Prostalgia Nitro Funny Cars in the sport will matchup on the Utah quarter-mile in the headlining event for the title of Nitro Jam’s King of the Track.
RPM/Lucas Oil Extreme Events, Return to Grassroots Street Machine Event For 2012
Courtesy of RPM Magazine
East Troy, WI – It’s just a month away! Over 60 of the baddest street and strip machines will converge on the legendary 
Gus’s Drive-In on Friday July 20th for a night of food, fun and bench racing. Then, on Saturday July 21st, all of the participants head over to Great Lakes Dragaway (Union Grove Wisconsin) to battle it out in a best two out-of-three grudge race brawl!
Brian Hansen’s 4th Annual Extreme Street Machine Shootout is back!” Exclaims RPM Editor Chris Biro. “Our first Extreme Event for 2012 at Grand Bend Motorplex was all about drag cars of every kind, however our next stop is a celebration of the grassroots of the sport itself… street machines!”
This particular event’s entry is exclusive and limited to approximately 60 cars that apply to event organizer (and RPM Magazine’s Director Of Advertising) Brian Hansen, and meet his criteria for the program. “Last year was one of the wildest events we’d been to in many years… seeing the baddest of the bad street machines pull into the cruise portion of the event was a definite highlight that brought back the heyday of the fast street car movement,” added Biro. “As well as Brian himself, we’ll have RPM Photojournalist and Technical Writer Chuck Scott on hand this year with his lovely wife Alicia set-up at Gus’s on Friday night and in the house at Great Lakes Dragaway on Saturday.”
NDRA – Featured Attraction at Canadian Nitro Nationals
Courtesy of NDRA
Photo By Canadian Drag Racing Photos
Kitchener, ON – With its historic first event in the books, the NDRA Alcohol Funny Car Series presented by Ohsweken Speedway will host its second event this coming weekend as part of the 3rd Annual Canadian Nitro Nationals at Toronto Motorsports Park, located near Cayuga, Ontario.
Larry Dobbs and his Sportz sponsored Kardiac Kids Funny Car, who took home the trophy and a $3,500 cheque for their triumph at the first event, will be the team that everyone is gunning for this weekend. “We had a terrible outing in Chicago at the NHRA divisional event so we’re just looking forward to getting out again and trying some new things,” mentioned Dobbs.
“Our sponsors are going to be at this event doing some promotional things for the fans and it’s nice to be close to home which means we’ll have lots of people supporting us this time out. We can’t thank Ohsweken Speedway and the NDRA enough for giving us this opportunity and we’re looking forward to a great weekend!”
Video Lookback at NMRA Milan
Courtesy of Promedia
Mark Billington – For the Love of the Class
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by Dave Smith
Dallas, TX – Mark Billington is a top executive for one of the biggest companies in America and looks the part. Clean-
cut, well-spoken, the consummate professional, he goes to work each morning in a suit and tie, but unlike other “suits” across the vast spectrum of Corporate America, who golf or go boating on weekends, he gets his hands dirty racing one of the most competitive Top Alcohol Funny Cars in the country.
“I’ve loved these cars since the first time I ever saw one, at Empire Dragway, when I was a teenager,” says Billington, the 2011 Division 2 Top Alcohol Funny Car champ. “My jaw hit the ground the first time one of them fired up. The firesuits, the power, the noise the engines made – I knew I had to have one someday.”
Billington, 48, got his first one when he was 30 – not a brand-new, top-of-the-line car built just for him, but a used one he picked up from veteran racer Bobby Baucom. By then, he was several rungs up the corporate ladder in a career that has taken him to Charlotte, Orlando, Atlanta, and, last year, to Dallas. For him, business always comes first.
First Round Wins Continue for Hunter
Courtesy of NVM Motorsports Promotions
MORRISON, CO – Top Alcohol Dragster beginner Greg Hunter’s rookie season in the ExactAir/Kenny Gilmour Motorsports car is going better than those of some of the seasoned veterans in the class. A first 
round win at his national event debut in Las Vegas, and now another at his second regional event. The Wyoming resident’s trip to Bandimere Speedway’s Thunder on the Mountain ended with a meeting with one of the top cars in the country.
“It was awesome to win first round. I couldn’t hear him (opponent Dean Dubbin) at the finish line, so I knew I won and I was pumped,” said Hunter.
Greg led the qualifying sheet after the first session on Friday, but slipped to fourth by the time qualifying was over on Saturday night. His first round match-up with Dubbin was decided at the starting line, with Hunter unleashing a .039 reaction time and crossing the finish line in 5.78 seconds at just under 250 mph. He met up with Jim Whiteley, one of the Top 5 drivers in the country, in round two. Greg pushed the Tree too hard and left early, giving the automatic win to Whiteley.
