Recently in NHRA Category

Jack Beckman continued his hot streak in the NHRA Funny Car division. Unfortunately so did Tim Wilkerson and Tony Pedregon, the only two drivers ahead of him in the Funny Car standings.
Beckman, a driver from North Hills, advanced to the semifinals at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas on Sunday. He lost to Pedregon, who lost to Wilkerson in the Funny Car final.
After two races in the Countdown to One playoffs, Wilkerson leads the Funny Car standings by nine points over Pedregon and 29 over Beckman.
Beckman has advanced to the semifinals in five straight events, winning two of them. He talked about his recent stretch with Craig Wack at go2geiger.com.
The Countdown continues this weekend at Memphis Motorsports Park in Tennessee. Meanwhile, in the Top Fuel division, Larry Dixon advanced to the quarterfinals at Texas, losing to Tony Schumacher. Dixon, a graduate of Van Nuys High, is fourth in the Top Fuel standings, and trails Schumacher, the leader in the Top Fuel standings, by 129 points.

Robert Hight, fresh off his NHRA Funny Car win at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, was at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night to throw out the first pitch. He grew up in Northern California, in the heart of San Francisco Giants territory, but says he's a Dodger fan.
When he was younger, he could hear the radio broadcasts from Los Angeles all the way up north. Back then, the Dodgers were a playoff team almost every year and won a couple World Series in the 1980s.
I was able to meet Hight during the seventh inning of the game Wednesday night; Dodgers won 4-0 in case you're wondering. I was at the game with my 3-year-old son. We are fans and go to about 20 games a year.
Hight was there with family and friends as well. Earlier in the day, his team revealed a Dodger car celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium that he will race at Las Vegas and Pomona in November.
"To be able to throw out the first pitch is a baseball dream come true but to be able to honor the Dodgers' 50th anniversary at two NHRA events with my race car is really beyond anything I ever dreamed possible," High said in a release. "I want to thank my sponsors primarily, Automobile Club of Southern California, as well as our other team sponsors Castrol, Ford, Old Spice, Mac Tools, BrandSource, and Sanyo for agreeing to the changes on my Mustang. I plan on being the championship hunt at those last two races and it would be pretty special to see that Dodgers Auto Club Ford Mustang in the winner's circle at the end of the season."
Hight is second in the NHRA Funny Car standings with three races to go before the Countdown to One begins. The Countdown is a six-race playoff to determine the Funny Car champion.
The Dodgers Auto Club Ford Mustang will also be commemorated with a limited edition run of Motorsports Authentics die-cast collectibles. The replica Ford Mustangs will be the standard 1:24 scale and will be available for order by the end of the year though a variety of outlets including the John Force RaceStation (www.johnforceracestation.com).

What was supposed to be a temporary fix until a better idea came along has turned into a change that will last for the rest of the NHRA season.
The Top Fuel and Funny Car entries will race 1,000 feet, instead of the traditional quarter-mile (or 1,320 feet) for the rest of the year.
The change in distance was made in the wake of the death of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta during the race weekend in New Jersey last month.
The shorter race distance gives drivers more braking area and prevents the cars from reaching higher speeds. Some of the Top Fuel and Funny Car entries reached speeds between 320 mph and 330 mph.
The decision to keep the distance at 1,000 feet was made by NHRA officials and a safety task force headed by Dan Olson, NHRA director of Top Fuel & Funny Car racing. He is joined by Austin Coil, crew chief for John Force Racing; Jim Head, Funny Car driver/crew chief; Alan Johnson, crew chief for the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster; Jon Oberhofer, crew chief for the Doug Kalitta-driven Top Fuel dragster; Mark Oswald, co-crew chief on Melanie Troxel's Funny Car; and Tim Wilkerson, Funny Car driver/crew chief. Other representatives from NHRA and the Professional Racers Owners Organization (PRO) will also participate.
NHRA's two other Professional categories, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle, and all Sportsman competition will continue to be contested over the traditional quarter-mile distance.

From John Force's people, for those who can't get enough of John Force Racing.
The 2009 John Force Racing Team Calendar, with 16 months full of drag racing excitement, is now available for pre-order. Pre-orders are being taken exclusively through John Force RaceStation online at www.JohnForceRaceStation.com or via phone at (714) 921-1651.
The 2009 John Force Racing Team Calendar offers a complete behind the scenes look at the winningest team in NHRA Professional Drag Racing. The calendar highlights all JFR drivers, teams and facilities with exclusive photos, plus Force Fast Facts, and the NHRA Full Throttle 2009 Drag Racing Series schedule each and every month.

With a final round appearance at Bandimere Speedway in Colorado, Jack Beckman climbed back in the top 10 in the NHRA Funny Car standings.
The top 10 drivers in the highly competitive Funny Car division will qualify for the Countdown to One, the playoffs to determine the NHRA champion in the Funny Car division.
Beckman, a driver from North Hills, holds a slight two-point lead over Bob Tasca in 11th place. There are two drivers, Del Worsham and Melanie Troxel, outside the top 10 who have won races this year.
Here's a look at the Funny Car standings after 13 races. Race wins are in parentheses:

1. T. Wilkerson (4) 978
2. Robert Hight (1) 763
3. T. Pedregon (3) 750
4. Ashley Force (1) 739
5. Cruz Pedregon 720
6. John Force (1) 695
7t. Gary Densham 632
7t. Ron Capps 632
9. Mike Neff 600
10. Beckman (1) 530
11. Bob Tasca -2
12. D. Worsham (1) -13
13. Gary Scelzi -39
14. M. Troxel (1) -86
15. Jerry Toliver -116

Before NHRA Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan heads to Pacific Raceways outside of Seattle in Washington, the second stop of three known as the West Coast swing in drag racing circles, he will be making a pit stop in California.
"Three weeks on the road is tough, but I have to go back to California before I get to Seattle and bury my grandmother (who died last week) and then I'll be in Seattle on Thursday ready to start qualifying and hopefully knock 'em dead on Sunday," McClenathan said.
McClenathan is fourth in the NHRA Top Fuel standings and has won once at Pacific Raceways in 1997. Last year he was the 11th qualifier and was eliminated in the first round.
"Seattle is a great place," said McClenathan. "We've done very well there in the past and I look forward to returning there. The weather's been off and on there, but one thing about Pacific Raceways is that you have all those trees and you get a lot of oxygen, which helps produce more power in the engines, and we also get back down to sea level. And that's good for this FRAM dragster. I think crew chief Mike Green and the guys will do a great job there."

NHRA Funny Car driver Jack Beckman has been struggling lately. After winning at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix in February, Beckman has dropped to 12th in the Funny Car standings.
When he races at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in New Jersey this weekend, he will have a new chassis and hopefully a change in results. His team tested the new car at Martin, Mich., and decided to unveil it for the next NHRA races.
"We made five runs in the new car," said Beckman, a driver from North Hills. "It went down the track. We never went past half-track because what we needed to know we would have known early."
The NHRA is mandating all teams use what it calls a safer chassis for the races in Denver for July 11-13. But Beckman's team at Don Schumacher Racing decided to debut it early.
"Our very first run in the new chassis was a planned 400-footer," Beckman said. "It made it to 400 feet and it was quick early, which has kind of been our Achille's heel lately. We needed to be quicker earlier in the run, and so this car showed us that it is definitely quicker earlier. That is exactly what we wanted."
Beckman is 12 points out of 10th place. The top 10 drivers in the Funny Car division will qualify for the Countdown, the six-race playoff to determine champions in the four national touring classes of the NHRA, after the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Aug. 27-Sept. 1.
"Any time that you can put a new car together and very first run out it does what it is supposed to, it brings a big sigh of relief to the crew," Beckman said. "I also think it's the shot in the arm that we need right now. If we can combine the consistency we've had lately with these potentially quicker elapsed times, I think we can get right back into this thing."

ESPN will broadcast the final elimination rounds from the NHRA drag races at Route 66 Raceway near Chicago on Wednesday at 3:40 p.m. Pacific.
The segment will be a special 20-minute program following NASCAR Now on ESPN2 and will show highlights from the four final rounds, Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle.
In a release from the NHRA: Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel); Tony Pedregon (Funny Car); Kurt Johnson (Pro Stock); and Chris Rivas (Pro Stock Motorcycle) were race winners in their respective categories at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event
The race was hampered by unpredictable severe weather throughout the weekend, forcing ESPN officials to juggle its programming schedule.
A two-hour repeat airing of the full telecast of Sunday's eliminations from the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals is scheduled for 2 a.m. (ET) on June 11 on ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD.

The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum has a couple exhibits opening next month and inlcudes a collection of trophy queen photos, including a 19-year-old Raquel Welch (pictured above). She was known as Raquel Tejeda back then. There are also photos of Barbara Huffman, who later become Barbara Eden from "I Dream of Jeanie," and Linda Vaughn, also known as the first lady of motorsports.
The exhibit, a collection of photos from the 1950s to 1970s, opens Aug. 27.