DAVID REHER TO TALK ‘RACING SPORTS LIVE’ ON SUNDAY

Racing Sports Live will feature engine builder David Reher of Reher & Morrison Racing Engines fame on their radio talk show this Sunday. The Dallas-based radio talk show on 105.3 FM airs Sundays from 10 to 11 a.m. Central Time and is also available at www.racingsportslive.com.

Hosts of the show are Chris Graves and Joseph Campbell, both long time drag racing fans and participants, with support from Dallas radio personality Eric Marc, who together are dedicated to bringing listeners a unique look at drag racing of all kinds. [6/25/2008]

KALITTA’S OVERLOOKED HISTORY

Jim Hawkins, our statistician, provided us with some info about Scott Kalitta’s record that may have been forgotten. During the top 10 of historical NHRA weekends in the fall of 1993 at Topeka (first 300-mph funny car, Jim Epler and first 4-second funny car, Chuck Etchells) a stat that got overshadowed was Scott's final round win over Cory Mac. During that win, Scott ran a 308.64. It really was an exclamation mark on a tremendous weekend.

Scott didn't just go one or two or even three miles per hour faster than the previous best mph, which was Pat Austin's 303.64 at Atlanta in the same year, but a full five mph faster. That's over a 1.5% performance increase. That big of a performance increase usually doesn't happen. Top Fuel cars had just started going in the 300's in 1992, a year earlier (KB at Gainesville). Thus Scott's run and win was a very significant number and a fantastic end to a historic weekend. [6/25/2008]

IHRA WILL PAY!

The Agent keeps hearing worries from various racers that the IHRA may not be able to pay out the various points funds for the professional classes. The Agent has checked with various sources and all confirm that the parent company of the IHRA, Live Nation, will make sure that all points funds and shootouts on the IHRA schedule will be fully funded. When contacted by DRO about the matter IHRA president Aaron Polburn said emphatically, “It is business as usual.”

The Agent asks the racers, Since neither the IHRA nor Live Nation has ever (to our knowledge) defaulted on a payment or purse, what makes people think they would now?  [6/25/2008]

300-MPH DRAGSTRIPS? MAYBE THE TRACKS AT LAS VEGAS AND DENVER

“In my editorial Tuesday I said that none of the strips currently in use were designed for stopping 4.5 second, 330-mph race cars. That might not have been an entirely correct when you consider that at both Las Vegas and Denver the shutdown track goes uphill before getting to the sand trap. Certainly having the shutdown going uphill is a step in the right direction.” -- Jeff Burk [6/25/2008]

NHRA Video DVD Postponed

Last week in an online media interview NHRA Prez Tom Compton mentioned the NHRA "suffers from low awareness" and to fix that made reference to a new NHRA licensing program, an overhaul of the NHRA.com website and the re-launch of NHRA Home Entertainment.

After selling somewhere between an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 units of the 2007 POWERade Season compilation DVD and Scott Kalitta¹s terrible Englishtown fatality over the weekend, the release of the latest home DVD from NHRA has been postponed indefinitely. According to our well-placed sources the new release was entitled "Wild Rides" and is the latest "and they walked away" type video with archive footage and newly filmed driver reaction interviews. The show is complete and was scheduled to be released
to NHRA fans in July 2008.