While we did get hit with some light rain showers towards the end of the day, it was a good time at the track. I'm really lookin' forward to getting the new motor done!

You can click here or the features link to the right to reach the gallery. Enjoy!

Highlighting this year's event is a $10,000 Super Stock Hemi Shootout. Check out the event flyer here.

In the past month we've lost two former pro Mopar racers. First, Ronnie Sox passed on April 21st, and then Scott Geoffrion was suddenly taken on May 8th. Sox is an absolute legend and was a pioneer, an icon from the early days of the sport. Growing up in a Mopar household, Sox was revered at the level Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio would be in the home of Yankees fans. My Dad can recount quite a few stories of Sox, at least one of which was a time when Sox & Martin ran match races at our home track (Atco). I only wish I could have been there. Scott Geoffrion was a huge favorite of mine, and I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times while he wheeled for Wayne County along side Darrell Alderman. Scott was certainly one of the nicer pro racers I've met, and anyone who had the chance to meet him could plainly see he was a genuine down to earth guy. I know both will be sorely missed, and my thoughts and prayers go out to their families.

On to the news from our race operation (sounds big time, doesn't it? ). From the time the first motor was assembled for the Scamp, we knew that a properly built short block would be necessary for any longevity and durability. Since the initial short block was just a crate assembly from Mopar, I wasn't real comfortable running it beyond two seasons. However, we did what we could with the resources we had at the time. So we're now in the process of building a new bottom end with much better parts and assembly. Attention to detail makes a difference...

We scored a cherry '73 360 block at a local machine shop - they punched it out .030 over, square decked it...the usual whole nine yards. It's one of the better early thick castings (much like the 340), and the main webbing around the saddles is much beefier than the '94 Magnum/LA block we had. Here's what we're putting in it:

• MP 4340 forged crank 3.58"
• Ohio H-beam rods with ARP2000 cap bolts
• JE flat top pistons
• Custom solid cam from Scott Brown at Straightline Performance
• Clevite bearings and Total Seal rings

I'll be posting pics as we go along with assembly, but here's a teaser of the block, which we just picked up. It was completely scrubbed and painted over the weekend in prep for start of the short block build next weekend.

Melanie Troxel went to a record fifth straight final round and took the win in Top Fuel, while Cruz notched his first win since 2000 against FC points leader Ron Capps.

The 2006 NHRA Powerade tour moves to Thunder Valley in Bristol, TN in three weeks.

Martino was wheeling a Stratus powered by a Larry Morgan motor, and had to take out fellow Mopar drivers Richie Stevens and Max Naylor in the first and second rounds. Martino then defeated Greg Stanfield in the semi-final to move on to the finals. (Of note, Stanfield took out #1 qualifier Anderson in round 2 on a holeshot.) Martino strung together a 6.69, 6.70, 6.70 and then a 6.67 in the final against Enders. Admittedly, Martino stated all the work is in preparation, but hey, you still have to get the car down the track consistently. Martino cut good lights of .025, .025 and .014 before a somewhat sleepy .057 in the final - bottom line is he got it done on the tree and kept the car consistent all day.

Does somebody want to give this guy a full time driving job?

Source: NHRA.com
Source: Drag Race Central

WJ defeated V. Gaines in the first round on a holeshot, who threw away the third quickest pass of the round and an .043 advantage in ET. Richie Stevens won a staging duel against Dave Connolly, and cut a .009 light on the way to the round win. Morgan, Naylor and Allen Johnson were out run in the first round. Stevens fell in round two, in part to a loss in ET of six hundreths from round one. If I had to guess at this point, maybe track conditions played a role...Richie will probably mention it in his blog on NHRA.com.

Up next are the Gatornationals, March 16-19.

Source: NHRA.com

Psn Driver           Vehicle                        ET     Speed
 1. Greg Anderson    Summit Racing Equipment GTO    6.671@ 206.83
 2. Erica Enders     Slammers Cobalt                6.679  206.48
 3. Jason Line       Summit Racing Equipment GTO    6.684  207.05
 4. Richie Stevens   Mopar/Valspar Stratus          6.685  205.63
 5. Greg Stanfield   Piranaz Racing GTO             6.687  206.23
 6. V. Gaines        Kendall Oil Stratus            6.690  205.66
 7. Mike Edwards     Young Life/A.R.T. GTO          6.692  206.95
 8. Jim Yates        Sea Ray GTO                    6.696  205.54
 9. Larry Morgan     ZMax Stratus                   6.710  205.41
10. Ron Krisher      Valvoline Cobalt               6.714  205.76
11. Warren Johnson   GM Performance Parts GTO       6.716  207.08&
12. Max Naylor       Jagermeister Stratus           6.717  205.94
13. Dave Connolly    Skull Gear Cobalt              6.720  205.79
14. Kurt Johnson     AC Delco Cobalt                6.723  206.73
15. Rickie Smith     Skull Gear Cobalt              6.727  205.41
16. Allen Johnson    J & J Racing Stratus           6.730  205.29

Again, we have Greg Anderson at the top of the heap, with Erica Enders in the #2 spot. Enders is right on his heels though...lets see if she can parlay that into some late round wins tomorrow.

As you can see, there are five Stratus Pro Stockers in the field - Mike Thomas and Shaun Carlson didn't make the cut. Max Naylor makes his first appearance in eliminations this year with a solid 12th spot, though he is about three hundreths off the pace. With Anderson's car running like a bracket machine, someone's gonna need to mow down the tree all day tomorrow or hope luck is on their side.

Source: NHRA.com

You can check it out here.

Larry Morgan carried the Mopar torch to the semi-final, where he met Anderson, who had him covered by a full five hundreths.

In other Pro NHRA news, Melanie Troxel won her first TF event, and Robert Hight went the distance in the flopper division. Next stop for the NHRA Powerade tour is Firebird International Raceway (outside of Phoenix), Feb 24-26.

"With its top-of-the-line Dodge Stratus emblazoned with Jägermeister, Naylor Racing will compete at all 23 NHRA POWERade national events in 2006. The Jägerettes will meet and greet fans throughout the year."

Always good to see another Mopar in the PS ranks...the Jägerettes might be nice to see in the pits too.

Source: NHRA.com

You have my word that the next post will be back on track...no pun intended.

Before you pop into the gallery, be warned that there are a few non-Mopar shots. Hey, the other brands make for good shots too!

Click the feature link to the right, or you can just click here.

A couple years back, I told my soon to be wife that I wanted to carve a Mopar Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween and put some blue LEDs in it to cast the proper Mopar "M" color. The only problem was I didn't feel like spending time on something that would end up rotting in a month, or some punks would smash on mischeif night. A week ago the wife was dragging me through some local craft store, and they had a bin of these things called "Fun-kins" - foam pumpkins! I quickly snagged one and went to work with an X-Acto knife, a soldering iron, an AC-DC power supply and a handful of blue LEDs. Here's the result:

Click for larger version

Pretty sweet, huh?

In recent years there have been at least a dozen Hemi SS/A cars on the property for this event, and I'm expecting things will continue this year. I'll be shooting plenty of pictures...so of course there will be a gallery posted on Monday.

There's just over 125 pictures, so I hope y'all enjoy them!

Check out the gallery here, or you can click one of the links to the right in the features column.

Here's the breakdown:

CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals
Allen Johnson, Larry Morgan eliminated Round 2

Checker Schuck’s Kragen NHRA Nationals
Allen Johnson Wins

Mac Tools NHRA Gatornationals
Richie Stevens eliminated Round 2

O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals
Allen Johnson, Jeg Coughlin, Larry Morgan eliminated Round 2

NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals
Jeg Coughlin, V. Gaines eliminated Round 2

O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals
Richie Stevens runner-up

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals
V. Gaines, Jeg Coughlin, Larry Morgan eliminated Round 2

Pontiac Performance NHRA Nationals
Richie Stevens eliminated Round 2

O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals
Richie Stevens eliminated Round 2

With the driving talent there, I can only think it's one of two things - horsepower or aerodynamics. Without being in the know, it's either that the motors are down a few HP, or the bloated and distorted Stratus bodies are killing them at speed. Maybe if DC could actually build a real two-door performance car or sport compact, there would be something to use. The '98 Neon Coupe was the last competitive body, and the Daytona before that. The Avenger/Stratus haven't been so good, except for the Avengers in '94.

On another note, Dave Connolly went to the final and lost to Greg Anderson. That marks three in a row for Anderson, who seems set for a mid-season tear. Connolly is definitely still in the hunt, so one can only hope he and his team can pick up sponsorship through the rest of the season.

Johnson faces Anderson in the final, who eliminated WJ in round 2, and Mike Edwards in the semi. Johnson took out Anderson teammate Jason Line to reach the final.

Here's the breakdown:

6. Larry Morgan	ZMax Stratus	6.748	204.85
7. Richie Stevens	Mopar/Valspar Stratus	6.748	204.51
9. Jeg Coughlin	Jeg's Stratus	6.759	203.80
10. V. Gaines	Western Motorsports Stratus	6.761	204.60
15. Kenny Koretsky	Nitrofish Wear Stratus	6.772	203.74
16. Allen Johnson	J & J Racing Stratus	6.774	202.61

Results from NHRA.com

Anyway, the Phila Modifiers turned out to be a pretty good day at the races. We didn't win, but overall things went very well. The first time run was terrible - it had rained the previous day, and most of the morning on race day, so the track was damp and cold.

The first time shot started with a spinning 1.56 60', and my shoddy shifting netted an 11.06. The next time run was better, but still spun to a 1.51, and ran a 10.82. I managed to cut an .001 light, which was nice after a solid week on the practice tree. With that, I was slated for a bye in round 1, but someone broke and I had to pair off. This time, I cut a .000 and ran 10.83 on a 10.79 dial (there was a stiff cross wind all day). 60' was a 1.50, still a little slip.

Round 2 - .031 Red, but I lucked out and forced my opponent to foul worse than I did. Ran a 10.84 on a .79, with a 1.48 60. The track was coming around...

Round 3 - Red again! This time it was over. Ran a 10.82 on a 10.81 dial, with another 1.48 60'. It's a shame I tossed the best pass of the day on a red, especially when the track was finally hooking well.

The fouls were most likely due to the fact that I was getting a bit jumpy...the car is getting consistent, and I was starting to show signs of finally working the tree well. It's tough to stay calm when you feel like you're getting competitive. All in all, it was a good time, and with some more laps under my belt, I'm confident we'll start going into the late rounds and possibly pull in a win or two this year. :)

That leads me to the point of this post. We're headed to Atco Raceway on Sunday to compete in Heavy/Pro at the Spring Philadelphia Modifiers Yesteryear Drags. The feel of the event is very laid back, but it does draw a good bit of cars. The Fall '04 event had at least 100 cars competing in Heavy, probably a good bit more. There's Super Pro, Street & Street Rod too. They also hold a large car show with a ton of classes. If all goes well, we should go some rounds and see if the CalTracs can perform to our expectations. Check back for results!

Check out the event flyer for more information.

Harry Holton was low-qualifier with an 8.59, but Holton lost due to tire spin in round 2 versus Pancake.

You can read the full story here.

For the third race in a row, the Mopar contingent couldn't get past Round 2, after qualifying five cars.  The performance is there, and the driving has been pretty good - Jeg cut a .000 light in Round 1 (win) and Ritchie Stevens had a .001 (lost). On the other hand, we had Larry Morgan with an .099 (lost).  The track was a bit slippery at times, so that didn't help the cause either.  I think the Mopar guys just need to catch a few breaks and we'll see them in the winner's circle much more often.

The next NHRA national event is the O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, April 29 - May 1.

Anyway, I've posted a gallery with some of the better shots I took.  There are some non-Mopar shots in there that I felt were worthy of showing...consider this your warning!

In Funny Car, Robert Hight took out Cruz Pedregon, 4.786 to 4.818.  Hight moves into 3rd in FC points.

Top Fuel was Tony Schumacher over Cory Mac, 4.501 to Mac's 4.511.  Schumacher ran a mind-numbing 335.32MPH in the final to set a new national record.

The Mopar crew in Pro Stock couldn't get out of the second round for the second race in a row.  Let's hope this isn't another disappointing year in PS for Mopar.  Overall, it sounds like everything went well in Houston, and the rain held off just long enough to complete the event.  Next weekend the NHRA Powerade series stops in Vegas for the SummitRacing.com Nationals.

Let's hope the boys can handle the likes of W.J., Anderson, Line and Connolly...

Line took out Ritchie Stevens in round 2, who was the only Mopar driver left after the first round of eliminations - Morgan, Coughlin, Koretsky and Allen Johnson all fell in round 1.

Low-qualifier Anderson was knocked out in round 2 by WJ. Johnson cut a better light and out ran the Gators' performance leader. Looks like Anderson's slump is still in effect, but teammate Line is back in form with his first win of '05.

Kenny Koretsky put his Stratus in third with a 6.66 @ 207 and change.  Larry Morgan was the only other Mopar driver to put his ride in the top half of the field.  V. Gaines, Ritchie Stevens and Allen Johnson sit in the 13-15th positions, respectively.  The bump spot is a 6.709...quickest ever.

Click here for the final Pro Stock qualifying results.

In Pro Stock Bike news, Andrew Hines has run the first 6-second pass in PSB history, with a 6.99 at a buck ninety-six.

That said, the news will be updated much more frequently, and you'll see more content and a variety of new features appearing over the next couple months.  Stay tuned.