congrats to all (including the parents for raising accomplished children).

I agree, I'm a sportsman quarter-miler. I could never understand the interest in 33 identical cars turning left!

ob,

That's my fault. When I went to the ESPN NASCAR page, it was featuring Indy. As a result, I just assumed there were no NASCAR events this weekend. My apologies. ns

I'm a life long drag racer, who recently quit driving. I've worked a lot of events and announced a heck of a lot.

When we were racing hot and heavy, NASCAR was still a regional sport, and not on our radar.

If we had the time, we made a lot of sprint car races, and was actually at the very first World Of Outlaws event over in Mesquite, Tx. We were in town for our race, and had time to kill.

I have ALWAYS loved Indy cars. When I was like 5 or 6 the TV package wasn't all that good, but our local radio station covered it live. I would listen to the radio and imagine those drivers getting it on.

I thought the split was the right thing to do. But it ended up hurting both parts. The re-consolidation will make the IRL very strong.

When I was growing up, fan wise, open wheel, and NHRA drag racing were at the top of the food chain. Of course back then USAC was the sanctioning body for open wheel. So the drivers had to race in the dirt driving midgets, sprints, silver crown, as well as the Indy cars, to win a championship. That was a great time to be a fan!

I like NASCAR nowadays. I REALLY like the car they are racing in Cup now. Perfect car. A lot safer for the driver. I can't believe Kyle Busch. Man he was trouble over at Hendricks. Maybe he's matured, maybe it's Coach Gibbs, but that kid is driving relatively clean, and seems unstoppable!

NHRA is off this weekend, which is smart. Too much competition for viewers. However the winningest driver in history will be in Charlotte and get some air, probably on the warm up show. John Force and Darrell Waltrip go way back.They both used to be sponsored by Mountain Dew.

Force's newest driver, Mike Neff, who was a World Championship winning crew chief, is in his rookie year this year, is in Charlotte to help promote the new drag strip between the dirt track and the speedway. It will be finished in time for it's September NHRA race.

Anyhow, Mike will show the fans the meaning of the word burnout before the race. He will burnout down the pit road with his 8000 hp Funny Car. In drag racing, every driver does a burnout before the run, to clean the tires, and heat them up. Neff's motor makes more horsepower in one cylinder than a Cup car's entire motor!

I guess I am in the selling mood today. I always am about racing! anyone who hasn't, must check out our sport. With all of the NASCAR craziness, which is great, regular folks miss the fact that NHRA drag racing is second in fans and TV viewers only to NASCAR. We pull in more viewers than the IRL, WoO, and F1(in America) combined.

NHRA is the largest motorsports sanctioning body in the world, and their events are different. Professionals and the best Sportsman racers in the country all show up to race. Obviously it's two at a time, and after the Top Fuel and Funny Cars make their 335 mph runs, they go back to their pits and service the car, There is a 75 minute turnaround rule, but in about 30 minutes, the teams will have stripped the car, completely rebuild the engine, service the clutch, and make tuning adjustments! Kinda makes a NASCAR pit stop look lame! After that rebuild, they fire the car, and get ready to run, and then do it all over again!

The best is, unlike NASCAR, or Indy, in the NHRA, every ticket is a pit pass. You can get there early like Friday, and have a smaller crowd to fight, but whenever, you can get withing a few feet of the car, and all of the drivers sign tons of autographs. And, if there isn't a big crowd, and they aren't need, they will spend time with you. Lot of bang for the buck.

Now, if you are like me, and lazy, and have already made the rounds in the pits for the past two days at the event, you will stay seated, because after a round of pros run there are 7 other eliminators. Some have one kind of car, and are heads up. Some eliminators have many classes, a lot of variety, that race with a handicap start, the slower car, getting a head start. The upper classed Stock cars, and most of the Super Stock cars leave wheel ups,and a few have been known to drag the back bumper! The hard core fans might go to the bathroom, or get something to eat while the pros run, but are glued to their seats when the sportsmen run! That racing is very intense.

I love all the Indy hype around Danica. It's very amusing. We had our first female national event winner 42 years ago! Shirley Shahan was a great racer in the sportsman classes. 32 years ago, we had our first professional winner. Shirley Muldowney won her first race. The next season, she won her first world championship, driving in Top Fuel. At the time NO driver had ever won more than one Top Fuel championship in the history of the sport! So the next year she fixed that problem, and had won her third championship before anyone else go that second one! Shirley had a movie made about her life,"Heat Like a Wheel" Bonnie Bedelia, who played Bruce Willis' wife in the "Die Hard" movies played Shirley and Beau Bridges played racer Connie Kalitta, who has one of the largest fleets of 747s to move speciaty freight in the world, and was Shirley's mentor, and of again on again boyfriend! Great movie and Amazon has it.

Connie still races. He just had a birthday and he went north of 70. but he still runs the teams. His son Scott, a two time world champion, races in Funny Car, and Connie's nephew Doug, an accomplished sprint and midget racer, races Top Fuel along with Dave Grubnic, from Australia, and Hillary Will, the fastest woman in the sport with a run at over 336 mph!

In drag racing, women race in every single eliminator. From the 4.5 second 335 mph Top Fuel cars and Funny Cars (as the late great Steve Evans once said in a commercial hawking a Funny Car match race: "dumb name, but so's Boy George, and he's doing OK!") To Pro Stock, which burn gasoline, and looks like a regular car and has doors. Women are especially good at racing Pro Stock Motorcycle, and as a sportsman motorcycle racer, I love it! We have had many women winners on these 6 second 190 mph rides. Including the winningest woman in drag racing, Angelle Sampey, who has three world championships. She's a former beauty queen, and weighs about 100 lbs with leathers and helmet! Heck of a nice person too!

T/F and F/C racers pull more G's than the astronauts in the space shuttle on take off! Plus Funny Cars never go straight, even when they look like they are. They are the hardest cars to drive in all of motorsports.

Our last gender barrier came the week after Danica's win. Ashley Force, who's dad John is the winningest drag racer ever, was a win looking to happen. She was already a multi national event winner in her 270 mph sportsman dragster, winning Indy, at the same time John got a win, so they shared the stage! She also won a championship that year.

Anyhow, after getting pro rookie of the year last year, she came into Atlanta after being in the two previous final rounds, and had the points lead. So third time was the charm, and the last major barrier was broken! It was a big final too. She was racing her dad, and he wasn't gonna cut her any slack, because, while she was going for her first round win, John was going for his historic 1000th round win. Ashley took him out!

Last week Melanie Troxel became the second woman to win in F/C, but the first woman to win in both T/F and F/C. There are only 13 other drivers who have done that, one being her husband, who races F/C for another team!

Anyhow, I'm wearing you guys and gals out! You can tell I'm pumped for today! Anyhow, pardon the long rant!

And if you want to know more about the fastest and quickest motorsport in the world check this out: www.nhra.com

God Bless our troops, who make all of this stuff possible!

I thought Larry Craig was from Idaho?

Hey Rick, a couple of questions.

First, what about that Sprint Car race Friday night at the dirt track? And what about that fight in the pits after Denny Hamlin just ran up and hit the 88 car? It looked like one of those old fashioned bench clearers you see in baseball every now and then. Of course, ESPN the worst sports network, pulled away from the battle, about the same time it got good!

Second, we are hearing Humpy is calling quits at the track, and quits with SMI, because he is po'd about the state of the art drag strip they are building there. What's the 411?

Red Wings in five.

well Del, they had best win one of the next two ROAD games

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Jamie,

Not nice! :-) LOL. ns