Longtime Pro Boost driver Ric Fleck (far lane) scored his first-ever event win in the Professional Drag Racers Association (www.PDRA660.com) Saturday night, June 30, at the PDRA Firecracker Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park. Fleck defeated points leader Chuck Ulsch, who was appearing in his fourth consecutive final round. See the full race report at here.

The next race on the 2018 PDRA Tour is the inaugural PDRA Super Strip Nationals, July 19-21, at National Trail Raceway near Columbus, Ohio.  (Roger Richards photo)  [07/03/18]

At the halfway point of the 24-race NHRA drag racing season, Elite Performance-powered drivers have won half of the events on the schedule. Teammates Jeg Coughlin Jr., Erica Enders and Vincent Nobile all hold down top-10 rankings, with additional Elite drivers Alex Laughlin and Matt Hartford close behind in 11th and 12th place, respectively.

"We weathered a pretty long storm at Elite but the guys never gave up and they completely turned the tide beginning at this year's Gainesville race," Jeg Coughlin Jr. said. "We've absolutely been on a tear ever since. Check the stats and you'll see there's been an Elite car in nine straight finals and we've all combined to win six races so it's definitely been a great stretch.”

Heading into the sixth annual NHRA New England Nationals, Coughlin is hoping to return to his winning ways, which would allow him to scratch New England Dragway off the small list of places where he has yet to win. Coughlin has won everywhere on tour except Epping and Norwalk.  (Ron Lewis photo)   [07/03/18]

Although it too suffered an electrical outage and wind damage, Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, IL, played a part in helping to restore power to its neighbors in the Metro East following last Thursday evening’s devastating storm.

The storm ripped through the St. Louis and Metro East areas and knocked out power to more than 100,000 homes while an excessive heat warning was in effect for the entire weekend.

At 12:05 a.m. on Friday, Gateway Motorsports Park CEO and owner Curtis Francois received a call that the track’s neighbors in the Metro East needed help following a storm that caused severe damage in the area on Thursday evening. Hundreds of Ameren Illinois electrical linemen were heading to the area to help restore power and needed a large staging area for workers and equipment. Without hesitation, Francois opened the doors to GMP so that Ameren Illinois could help the thousands of households without power.

“I once told Ameren Illinois officials that if there was ever anything we could do to help in this kind of situation that our doors were open,” said Francois. “When I received the call I knew we had to mobilize our team to help. One of our missions here is to be a good neighbor to everyone in the St. Louis area and do whatever we can do to help in a time of need.”

Within a few hours Ameren Illinois had taken over the drag strip pit areas as a staging area for supplies and equipment. A dispatch area was established, and the track’s meeting rooms and suites were pressed into service to feed the emergency workers. All of this was taking place while the track’s operations and facilities workers were busy cleaning up from wind damage.

“We lost ticket booths, trees, fences and lots of signage around the facility. We suffered roof and water damage as well,” Francois explained. “We are thankful that the storm picked a week in which we had already postponed a weekend drag racing event due to an excessive heat advisory and most of our set-up from the NASCAR weekend was secured.”

By Monday morning, electrical power had been restored to the area and the emergency workers were on their way home. The staff at GMP now is returning to life as usual and preparing for a drag racing event on Tuesday night, July 3.

A tip of the Agent’s hard-hat to Gateway for being a good neighbor.   [07/03/18]

The latest software upgrade from Holley EFI – Holley EFI V5 – features Active Speed Management and also allows racers to completely customize up to three sets of injectors. At the drag strip, the all-new Staging Assist feature makes it easy to smoothly and consistently inch your boosted car into the staging beams run after run. V5 features an integrated traction-control system called Holley EFI Active Speed Management that's engineered with drag racing and motorsports that start from a stop in mind. V5's ASM functionality is based on the time from launch versus engine speed and driveshaft speed (one or both can be used). You can enter numerous different curves to retard ignition timing and even enable rev-limiting based on the departure of wheel speed or engine speed from the base curve. The addition of ASM to a Holley EFI system requires the purchase of PN 555-100. Each purchase allows activation of the Active Speed Management in a single ECU.   [07/03/18]