MAX-ING THE SHOW

Del Worsham told the Agent at Las Vegas that his Blue Max Mustang would close the professional qualifying sessions on Friday night at the Pomona World Finals on November 4.

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"It's a way for us to show off the car to our (Southern California) family and friends who couldn't see the Dallas runs in person," said Worsham. "You know, that car is so loud and I tend to overdrive it without the 6000 pound of down force we have on the CSK Monte Carlo, but man it is fun!"

While Worsham wanted to make the West Coast Blue Max debut at the upcoming Goodguys Finals, the team took a paid gig at Rockingham dragstrip on the same weekend. "I love racing funny cars, but this is business," Worsham explained. But look for the Worshams to make the 47th annual March Meet at Famoso Raceway with their Blue Max replica. [10-24-2005]

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY

With the infusion of even more women drivers into NHRA drag racing this season, the marketing heads of some national advertisers haven't missed it. StriVectin-SD made the move with a multi-year sponsorship of Kalitta Motorsports. The Las Vegas race brought together members of a new energy drink marketer with a product geared specifically toward women. One ad exec was introducing selected women drivers to this potential sponsor throughout the weekend in the Vegas pits. [10-24-2005]

TRACK BITES BACK?

Think the first round of Top Fuel was baffling with tire smoke and pedaling of the dragsters? Despite great performances in qualifying for the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals, LVMS track prep was abruptly taken over by the NHRA Safety Safari on Sunday morning. Obviously the Strip at Las Vegas track prep crew know their stuff when one takes a look at the results in qualifying, but only a handful of dragsters made it successfully down the quarter in the first round of Sunday's eliminations.

It seems there was concern that there might be too much "bite" in the track causing tire chunking in qualifying on some of the nitro cars. However, there was still chunking of nitro car slicks during and after the first round, with too much "bite" again being blamed as the culprit. [10-24-2005]

DICKO REALLY GONE

The Agent reported back a number of weeks ago that Dick LaHaie (shown here with daughter, Kim Richards) would call it quits after the 2005 World Finals. Well, the cat is now out of the bag that Dicko will officially be leaving Don Prudhomme Racing having been crew chief on the Miller Lite car since 1999 and tuning driver Larry Dixon to 31 wins and a couple of NHRA Championships. Longtime assistant crew chief, Donnie Bender, will take over the tuning reins for the 2006 NHRA season. Don't forget to leave that hot summer tune-up notebook in the transporter, and, Mr. LaHaie, we'll miss you. (Zak Hawthorne photo) [10-24-2005]