Welcome to our coverage of the 55th annual World Series of Drag Racing from Cordova Dragway Park.

The Stanke Motorsports Nostalgia Top Fuel Dragster (pictured) opened the nitro program on Friday evening.  Driver Mark Worden made a soft 6.49 pass in the digger owned by Roger and Jim Stanke from St. Paul, Minnesota.  The Sterling chassis dragster sports supercharged big block Chevrolet-power with a two-speed… Stanke Motorsports gets support from sponsor Browell Bellhousings.

Saturday will feature non-stop action on the quarter mile featuring the return of Chris “The Greek” Karamesines to Cordova Dragway Park. Karamesines an icon in drag racing is the quickest and fastest senior citizen on the circuit. But don’t call him old, he doesn’t look, act or feel his age.

Taking on Karamesines is a youngster in Top Fuel racing, TJ Zizzo who brings his “Peak Anti-Freeze” entry to CDP.  Zizzo who wasn’t even born when “The Greek” made the first 200 mph pass in drag racing, TJ knows he has his work cut out for him.

Scheduled to join “The Greek” and Zizzo are Jack Wyatt in the Nitro Funny Car category at the World Series is current NHRA points leader Tim Wilkerson, reigning Funny Car World Champion Tony Pedregon and popular CSK Funny Car driver Del Worsham. The World Series of Drag Racing gets underway on Saturday, August 23 with the Pro Finale and Sportsman Final on Sunday.

Saturday’s feature show gets underway at 7 PM.

Here’s Jeff Burk’s coverage of the Friday Night of Thrills from the World Series of Drag Racing.

It’s clear from the front door on the business office at Cordova Dragway Park that the only weekend business here is drag racing… wonder where that DRO sticker came from?

The AA/FC match featured Joe Hass driving for Justin Grant in the replica of Don Schumacher’s “Wonder Wagon” Plymouth Barracuda taking on former AHRA World Champ “Doc” Halladay and his newly finished “Telstar” Plymouth Arrow.

Doc Halladay left the line first in his Plymouth Arrow and ran a 6.437 with an out the back door charge of 216.93 easily covering Hass’s 6.544/208.36

It was blown nitro-burning short wheel-based, fuel altereds for the next pair as the “Nanook” and the “Rat Trap” both with a nitro-gulping supercharged Hemi between the rails.

It was a slaughter as the “Rat Trap” with ageless Ron Hope between the pipes got whipped when his 6.946/207.02 wasn’t nearly enough to cover “Rapid” Randy Baker’s 6.552/213.67 in the famous “Nanook” fuel altered.

The first round of exhibition cars at the Friday Night version of the 55th annual World Series of Drag Racing were in the staging beams promptly at 7:00 PM. The first pair of cars down the track was ageless Arnie “The farmer” Beswick in the “Tameless Tiger” Tempest along side of him was the clone of his famous “Grocery Getter” Tempest wagon with builder Eric Larson wheeling.

The nitrous injected wagon turned in a respectable 7.765/177.77 while in the other lane Beswick had some problems and slowed to a 8.739/132.37

Looking a lot like the famous kids book Thomas the Tank Engine, KC & Linda Jones Jet Train Dragsters always put on a great show.

We apologize for the delay of our Friday coverage...

Dom Paris driving his twin engined dragster was matched up with the nitro-burning injected A/FD of Beedy and Lutz.  Paris legged it through the lights to a 7.10/207.27 while Don Beedy was all over the track in his nitro burner.

Another round is sceduled for later this evening at which time the Jets will run and we’ll finally get to see the infamous “Benny the Bomb” blow himself and his car up with dynamite.

Here is a link to the 1-800entertainment video provided by Cordova Dragway Park on Friday’s action: http://www.cordovadrag.com/2008/v-update/video-update.html

Accommodations provided by Coleman.

Jeff Burk is having the proverbial “computer issues” so our coverage will be delayed today.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, time for the Burkster to start traveling with an IT guy.