By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Topeka, Kan. – John Force was scared when arrived at Heartland Park Topeka for last year’s O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals.
Not because of the horrific accidents that had killed one of his young drivers and nearly killed Force himself.
No, Force was not fearing for his life when he arrived at Heartland. [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Topeka, Kan. – Ron Capps is one of the biggest stars in the NHRA Full Throttle drag-racing series. Twenty-eight victories, points leader in Funny Car right now, ultra-sincere smile that never leaves his face.
Yet until recently, if not invisible as a professional sports celebrity, he was at least translucent. Dinners-out [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The victories were stacking up like Canadian cord wood for Alan Johnson. Top Fuel championships, too. The man who drives the cars he built, Tony Schumacher, would be  honored with the ultra-prestigeous Driver of the Year Award for 2008.
Presumably, the bank account was faring well, too.
What more could the life-long [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The mood was positive as NASCAR officials, team owners and drivers emerged from a “town hall meeting” Tuesday in Mooresville, N.C.
All seemed to agree that holding the meeting was a good idea and that a lot was accomplished in the two-hour confab which was closed to the media.
NASCAR chairman and [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The theme of last year’s Indianapolis 500 was clear: The 2008 race was all about reunification.
You know, the first 500 after Champ Car and IndyCar came to their senses and the battle of wits between two unarmed opponents had been declared over.
Finally –finally – after a dozen years and untold [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Hanging from the walls in the third-floor break room of the media center at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a collection of the most marvelous old photographs. The are blown-up copies of black-and-white stills from the 1950s and ‘60s which feature celebrities from those eras mugging it up at the speedway.
There [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Alex Tagliani is in and Bruno Junqueira is out at Indianapolis.
That is the word from Conquest Racing Monday as it announced that it has made a driver change for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.
On Sunday, Junqueira had qualified his Conquest car into the field on Bump Day. Tagliani, however, was bumped by [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Brandon Bernstein felt odd as he left Gateway International Raceway two weeks ago. Empty, kind of. And not just because he left the NHRA O’Reilly Midwest Nationals there without a Wally.
Bernstein felt the kind of oddness which comes with the breakup of a 30-year-old partnership.
It was announced in March that [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
They are usually dull and always predictable, but people who have the chance to somehow work their way into a pre-race Sprint Cup drivers meeting usually grin like children all the way through them.
There are probably a variety of reasons for that – the chance to see drivers and crew [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Rick Hendrick can drive a hard bargain. Hey, the guy owns car dealerships, like, coast to coast, so he’s been doing sell jobs for decades. But perhaps his biggest sales pitch came just a couple months ago. It was used against a reluctant mark named Mark Martin.
The pitch was long [...]