D1430 GOODYEAR TIRE ALLOWED AT DALLAS

Goodyear, in conjunction with NHRA, has decided to offer an additional rear tire for the Top Fuel class beginning with the O'Reilly Fall Nationals at Dallas Sept. 23-26. The D1430 will be identical to the tire of the same code offered in the early part of the 2002 season. The current D2300 will continue to be offered to the Top Fuel cars and is the only tire available to the Funny Car class.

Goodyear conducted nitro tire tests at Indianapolis on Aug. 24-25 and again at Chicago on Sept. 14. Additional testing is planned after the Chicago race which ends Oct. 3. [9-21-2004]

HORTON DIES FOLLOWING RACING ACCIDENT

Veteran driver John Horton, 30, died following a racing accident September 19 at Milan (MI) Dragway. The Top Dragster Horton was driving crossed the finish line at 160 mph. Skid marks, beginning near the finish line and continuing down track a distance of 524 feet, showed Horton lost control and the car rolled numerous times. Med Flight and Milan Fire Department responded to the accident but Horton was pronounced dead at the scene. The Walbridge, Ohio driver finished 11th in the Hooters/IHRA Top Dragster championship in 2003 and was the Division 3 Top Dragster champion last season. [9-21-2004]

DRAGSTOCK PURSE ANNOUNCED

Promoter Kenneth Nowling has announced the payout for all events at his "Dragstock" at Carolina Dragway. The top eight qualifiers will compete in the Didicom Clash on Oct. 9 for $10,000 to win, $5,000 to runner-up, $2,500 to semi-finalists and $1,000 to first round losers.

The Oct. 10 AMS All Stars vs. Flowmaster Outlaws Challenge will consist of 11 drivers on each team competing in three rounds. The 11 winners will receive $2,500 each and the 11 runners-up, $1,000 each. One thousand dollars will be awarded for low e.t. of each round and also for top mile per hour each round.

Nowling says that as of Sept. 21, the purse and contingency totals over $100,000. Over 47 outlaw racers have pre-entered, along with 25 AMS series drivers. [9-21-2004]

SCOTT PALMER SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT, GETS A NEW TUNER!

Every once in a while Agent 1320 gets bad information sort of like good ol’ Dan Rather of CBS News and like ol’ Dan the Agent should have checked the “facts” his source gave him about the Scott Palmer rumor that he had lost his sponsor and bought a Pro Mod a little closer before putting anything in print. Palmer did indeed buy a Pro Mod but hasn’t lost his sponsorship or parked his Top Fuel operation. Thanks to a very nice call from Scott who could have been highly ticked off with good reason but wasn’t, we can now set the record straight and even explain a little about Palmer’s unique method of funding his program.

Palmer’s operation isn’t actually sponsored by O’Reilly at all. What O’Reilly does is to allow their vendors like ACDelco to fund the operation in return for signage on the car. According to Palmer, that allows him with the help of the O’Reilly folks to set up one-race sponsorships or multiple race deals where some of the manufacturers who distribute through O’Reilly stores divert some of their advertising budget to Palmer on a single or multiple race program.

So O’Reilly couldn’t have dropped Scott Palmer because, in fact, that company doesn’t sponsor him at all. The Agent’s sincere apology to Scott and to any of his sponsorship partners that may have had some heartburn over this gaff. The only up side to this is that both Palmer and the Agent now know that the right people are reading this magazine. One last note, Palmer did let the Agent know that the Kalitta group is now helping his program and that one of the Kalitta guys, Ted Fasching, is now going to be with the Palmer team as the tuner and get info and other assistance from the Kalitta folks. [9-21-2004]