- JOHN FORCE RACING FEATURED IN TWO OF DRAG RACING'S LEADING PUBLICATIONS
- DANIEL WILKERSON RUNS CAREER BEST FRIDAY AT CHARLOTTE NHRA FOUR-WIDE NATIONALS
- VINTAGE JOHN FORCE TAKES PROVISIONAL NO. 1 QUALIFIER AT CHARLOTTE NHRA 4-WIDE NATIONALS
- Jeff Taylor Races Himself in JEGS $50K Final and Eric Aman Captures Silverstate $50K Win on Friday at the Spring Fling
- BO AND RANDI LYN BUTNER KICK OFF JHG NHRA MOUNTAIN MOTOR PRO STOCK SEASON AT ZMAX DRAGWAY
- JOHN FORCE AND RICK HENDRICK: A LONGSTANDING FRIENDSHIP INITIATED BY A MOVIE AND LATER A RED BALL CAP
- Kalitta, Force, Anderson and Smith take the #1 spots at Friday qualifying of the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals
Canadian NHRA Pro Modified teams preparing to head to Florida
Courtesy of PMRA
Gainsville, FL – Canada will be well-represented in the NHRA Get Screened American Pro Mod Series at the upcoming NHRA Gatornationals in Florida.
Ike Maier of Tottenham, Ontario, Raymond Commisso of Toronto, Ontario, and Ken Lang of Grand Pointe, Manitoba will all be making the trek to Gainesville for the second race in the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour.
The Pro Mod session at Gainesville will be the first of 10 such events at selected NHRA races this year.
“It should be interesting this year with the rules changes,” noted Maier, who will be driving his 1963 Corvette Pro Mod. “The most important change is the reduction in the blower drive, and a lot of teams will be struggling to get the right combination.”
FINAL ROUND FINISH FOR JACKSON RACING AT BAYTOWN DIVISIONAL
Courtesy of Jackson Racing
Baytown, TX – In today’s competitive NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car division, it’s important to take advantage of
every racing opportunity; especially when expectations are not achieved.
An event runner-up finish at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event in Baytown, Texas for Rick Jackson’s team this past weekend provided the Centre Pointe Collision Center Ford Mustang and driver Tony Bartone with valuable tuning information as well as 64 valuable NHRA National Points.
One week after an event winning and world record setting race weekend at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Calif., the Jackson Racing TAFC headed to Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown to kick off their 2011 NHRA Div. 4 LODRS season and defend their 2010 Divisional Championship.
As qualifying began for the Santa Clarita, Calif. headquartered team, after an on-and-off the throttle and early shut-off 6.563second elapsed time instantly put the team behind the tuning curve.
Team JEGS / Pre-race Notes – NHRA Tire Kingdom Gatornationals
Courtesy of Jegs
Gainesville, FL – The Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals will mark the season debut for Troy Coughlin in the Get Screened America Pro Mod Series. There are ten Pro Mod events on the schedule for 2011. Last year, Troy Coughlin
drove his JEGS.com Chevy Camaro to a fourth place finish in the highly competitive series.
Troy will be racing a Pontiac GTO in Gainesville that is owned by Team JEGS crew chief Jake Hairston and his family. The car is powered by a 396-cid turbocharged engine and has already run speeds of over 240-mph. Troy expects to drive the Hairston entry for the first two events while he awaits completion of his own Chevy Camaro that will also feature a turbocharged engine combination.
Coughlin honored, humbled as Hall of Fame induction nears
Courtesy of Jegs
GAINESVILLE, FA – Jeg Coughlin Sr. always has been quick to deflect praise to the people around him, but this 
Thursday at the University of Florida Hilton it will be impossible for him to avoid the spotlight as he takes his rightful place in the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame presented by Lucas Oil.
Known as much for the high performance parts company that bears his name as his success on the quarter-mile strip, Coughlin will join fellow straight-line legends Joe Amato, Clayton Harris, Leonard Abbott, Rich Guasco, Fred Sibley Jr., and Ed Almquist at the 21st annual fete.
“Someone asked me how it felt to be inducted and I said it seems like it’s going to be a lot more fun accepting this honor in person than having someone go up there after I’m dead and saying, ‘He was a good guy,'” Coughlin said with a laugh. “Gosh, you just don’t think about stuff like this and I’m so thrilled to be included. It’s a pretty exclusive club and it’s darn special to be a part of it all.
“My deepest thanks to Pat and Don Garlits for thinking of me and for keeping this thing alive year after year. I’m sure it’s a lot of work to put something like this together and to keep their museum going but it’s neat they take the time to give us all a place to get together with old friends and talk about drag racing.”
SIMONTON AND KON RODZ TAFC HITS PRE-SEASON TESTING
Courtesy of Kon Rodz Racing
Maple, Ont. – The winter months in The Great White North of Ontario, Canada are often cold, dark and dreary. 
However, the past six weeks have been hot, full of hard work and optimism for Spiro Kontos and his Maple, Ont. Kon Rodz Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car team.
This weekend, they will head due-south to South George Motorsports Park located in Valdosta, Ga. to provide new crew chief Randy Anderson and second year driver Cassie Simonton an opportunity to fine-tune their new set up in a test session prior to their NHRA Season debut at the 43rd Tire Kingdom NHRA Gator Nationals.
The Kon Rodz Racing team made several wholesale changes in the off season, including acquiring the tuning talents of Anderson, the former two-time NHRA TAFC World Champion and NHRA Nitro Funny Car pilot.
During the cold and snowy months leading up to the 2011 season debut, the team spent countless hours preparing a new motor combination, adding new colors to the teams Monte Carlo body and new transporter. All the pieces are in place for a much improved 2011 campaign and team owner Kontos is chopping at the bit.
Mike Janis Joins Safety-Kleen Motorsports Team
Courtesy Mike Janis Racing
Elma, NY– Name a track; pick a race. From NASCAR to the Indy Car Series to the NHRA and the ADRL. Wherever the 
engines roar even louder than the crowd, Safety-Kleen is on the scene. Safety Kleen is the Official Trackside Environmental Service Provider for the biggest races in the world of motorsports and now Mike Janis Racing.
Mike Janis Racing joins Penske Racing, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, Kevin Harvick Inc., Richard Childress Racing, and other top motorsports teams as part of Safety-Kleen Motorsports.
Safety-Kleen Motorsports’ management team of Buddy Judy and Drew Patey assisted in the process of Mike Janis Racing joining Safety-Kleen Motorsports.
“We are pleased to have Mike and his crew as part of the Safety-Kleen Team, stated Judy. “We hope that our association with Mike Janis racing will help bring a greater awareness to Safety-Kleen’s product and service offering,” added Judy.
Funny Car Driver Hool Heads into Valdosta with Career Numbers
Courtesy of Hool Racing
Valdosta, Ga — Kris and Kevin Hool have been racing with each 
other for more than a quarter of a century. The 2011 Racing Season has started off for them better than they could have ever imagined.
While many of their family and friends are still knee deep with snow in their home town of Casper, Wyoming, the brothers are chasing one of their most aggressive racing seasons yet.
The Gripper Hand Cleaner / Kool Race Shops sponsored alcohol funny car, piloted by Kris Hool, not only won their first event earlier in the year at the Southeast Division 2 Lucas Oil Series Event opener in Bradenton, Florida, they did it running a career best elapse time of 5.600 at just over 258 miles per hour.
ADRL Adds Memphis International Raceway to the Schedule as 10th Race for 2011 Tour
Courtesy of ADRL
O’FALLON, MO (March 3, 2011) – The American Drag Racing League (ADRL) is bringing big crowds, breathtaking racing, world-record speeds and a grand opening back to Memphis International Raceway in 2011. 
ADRL and Memphis International Raceway officials announced on Thursday that the 350-acre track will open its 2011 season with an ADRL event on May 20-21. With the addition of Memphis International Raceway to the schedule, the world’s premier eighth-mile drag racing league will now have 10 races on its 2011 ADRL Tour.
Formerly Memphis Motorsports Park, Memphis International Raceway was recently purchased by Moroso Investment Partners, the ownership group of Palm Beach International Raceway (PBIR), in Jupiter, Fla. The ADRL event will serve as MIR’s first official event under the new ownership group, and track officials are currently enhancing the track and facility in time to host the May event.
West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association Releases 2011 Event Schedule
Courtesy of WCOPMA
Redding, CA – Firebird Raceway in Boise, Idaho will be the starting point for the West Coast Outlaw Pro Mod Association this 2011 season. The season will kick off on the weekend of June 24-25 at Firebird Raceways “Famous 
Fox Hunt” event. From there the group will travel to Champion Raceway in Medford, Oregon the following weekend (July 1-2) to compete at the second stop on the 6-race schedule for the tracks 5th annual “Nitro Nite of Fire” event.
The third stop on the schedule comes just two weeks after Medford and it will be at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California during the NHRA Division 7 event. Many racers are looking forward to this event in particular and taking advantage of the great track and awesome weather conditions as the track elevation is less than 100 feet above sea level.
G-Force Race Cars/MSR Performance Race Team competes against the best in Qatar ADRL series
Courtesy: Tim Miller, PMRA
Photo Credit: Khalid Abdul Karim
TONAWANDA, NY – The G-Force Race Cars / MSR Performance drag racing team was honored recently by Sheikh Khalid Al Thani of Qatar in taking part in an eight-race Arabian 
Drag Racing League series in the Middle-East nation of Qatar.
Invited to participate with the top teams in the Pro Extreme class, the reigning champions of the PMRA packed up their suitcases and 1968 Firebird for the desert country from their homes in Western New York.
G-Force Race Cars / MSR Performance team members Jim Salemi, Mike Stawicki, and Jon Salemi spoke about their experiences during the three-month racing sessions, which involved a cycle of three weeks of racing in Qatar, and then two weeks back home.
The events were sanctioned by the Arabian Drag Racing League, which began operations in 2009 in a variety of doorslammer car classes, including the Pro Extreme class in which the G-Force/MSR entry competed.
