MELTDOWN IN HOUSTON

Houston Motorsports Park will host the Texas Meltdown Outlaws on Feb. 19. Featured match-ups will be Shannon Jenkins' nitrous Pro Mod (shown) against the supercharged entry of Thomas Patterson, and a best two-out-of-three showdown between Rickie Smith and Texan Frankie Taylor.

And if that's not enough for ya, there will also be a $10,000 Outlaw 10.5 shootout. Cool. (Ron Lewis photo) [1-27-2005]

WEIGHT-LOSS SPONSOR IS KALITTA MOTORSPORTS' GAIN

Another non-automotive sponsor moves into drag racing with the announcement that Zantrex-3 will sponsor "Aussie Dave" Grubnic's Top Fuel dragster for the complete 2005 season. Grubnic got his first NHRA win in the Budweiser Shootout last November at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the high-energy weight loss supplement was sponsor of the car for that race.

Fred Miller, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, has been named manager of sports marketing. He formerly worked with Raymond Beadle and the Blue Max Racing Team.

Legendary Top Fuel racer Shirley Muldowney also was named the team and sponsor relations representative. (Jeff Burk photo) [1-27-2005]

OH RON, YOU BRUT!

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Let's see -- if a car driven by a certain driver with a certain sponsor's name painted on the side of it shows up for pre-season testing, can the official announcement of a sponsorship deal be far behind? On Jan. 24, the Agent ran a photo of the car from the Las Vegas test session and on Jan. 26, Schumacher Racing confirmed what everyone already knew, that Brut will sponsor the Funny Car driven by Ron Capps. Ed "Ace" McCulloch will tune the Dodge Stratus, along with co-crew chief Dan Olson. [1-27-2005]