DO THE HUSTLE

Interested in owning a piece of drag racing history? Then Troy Martin wants to hear from you because the Indiana-based racer is selling his Chi-Town Hustler nostalgia Funny Car. The car's original body was long ago destroyed, so a period-correct '73 Charger reproduction rides on the original Romeo Palamides-built chassis. The car also comes with a reproduction of the '77 Mustang "Rislone Hustler" body that later ran on the same chassis. Just do a search for the car on Racingjunk.com and you could be well on your way to reliving drag racing's glory days firsthand. (DRO file photo by Ian Tocher) [1/10/2008]

LEWIS ADDED AS HAGAN FC CREW CHIEF

Matt Hagan Racing has named Jay Lewis as crew chief for the 2008 Nitro Funny Car team.

Lewis is from Dinwidde, VA, and is an 11-year veteran tuner of Top Fuel and Funny Cars. He had three career wins with Lagana & Lewis Racing in IHRA Top Fuel competition, and his teams have finished fourth or better in the points for the past three years. He was also the 2006 IHRA Crew Chief of the Year.

"We're very excited to have Jay on board," said Matt Hagan. "We are putting together what we feel will be a very competitive team for the IHRA series and he is going to be a substantial piece of the puzzle." [1/10/2008]

REVOLVING DOORS AT DRO

After eight years on the staff here at DRO and our sister publications MoparMax.com and MaxChevy.com, Ian Tocher -- whose official title was Senior Editor but whose contributions to the editorial life and structure of our magazines far exceeded that title -- is taking the job as Vice President of Communications for the American Drag Racing League. Although we hate to see him go, the truth is we just couldn’t stand in the way of our friend taking a great job with another friend, Kenny Nowling, president and CEO of the ADRL.

“You don’t very often get a chance to help two friends with one action,” said Jeff Burk, CEO of Racing Net Source. “This was one of those rare times. We will greatly miss Ian’s talents, insight, dedication, and skills as a goalie.”

On another personnel change, Racing Net Source welcomes back another friend to the mastheads of all three titles, veteran scrivener Susan Wade. Wade has agreed to write a series of features on the NHRA/IHRA pro teams for our magazines. We will now have a least one sportsman feature and one professional feature in DRO and the other mags every month and we’ll probably get her to do some other things too. Welcome back, Susan, we missed ya. [1/10/2008]