FUNNY CAR RACER RAY HIGLEY DIES
Ray Higley, a veteran Fuel Altered and Funny Car racer from San Marcos, Calif., passed away from cancer at the age of 63. Higley's career dates back to the earliest days of the sport with his initial national fame coming in the early 1960s with the Oceanside, Calif.-based Fuel Altered roadster of Higley-Hubbard-Halstead. Higley earned recognition with a number of 6.9-second runs aboard Junior Gold's "Black Gold" Top Fuel dragster in 1968 and 1969.

Higley was a welder and formed his own company, Higley Welding, in 1964. His pipeline welding skills eventually translated to drag racing where he worked up partnerships with Mickey Thompson on his land speed record car and racers such as Fritz Voight, Nye Frank, Pat Foster, John Buttera, Amos Satterlee, and Roland Leong.

Higley's biggest success came in later years in Funny Car when he ran a best of 5.00 to qualify at the 1996 U.S. Nationals. In eliminations at the 1997 Castrol Nationals at the Texas Motorplex, Higley had the header bank break off the left side of the engine, which sent him and the car flying the entire final eighth-miled of the course during a first-round race with John Force. Many consider that flight the wildest top-end incident ever in Funny Car.

If Higley did have a milestone performance, it was the fact that from the winter of 1988 to the winter of 1991, his 6.01 in the Harding Moving Fuel Altered was the quickest in the sport. He later ran a best of 5.695/252.10 in the "Climax" roadster.

KUHLMANN UPDATE
Bill Kuhlmann is still recovering from the fire he had at the Super Chevy race at Virginia Motorsports Park on October 8th. He is off of the respirator and talking, although he still sedated and drifting in and out of consciousness. DRO was told by a crew member that he remembers the fire and what happened during the rescue and apparently has suffered no ill effects from lack of oxygen. He does, however, have pneumonia in one lung, which is common in these types of injuries. If he continues to heal, he may have been moved out of intensive care by the time you read this.

NHRA PRO MODS FOR 2001
Agent 1320 keeps hearing that NHRA is about to announce an eight car "exhibition" program for their newly adopted Pro Mod Competition Eliminator class for the 2001 season. Supposedly, NHRA's program would be an open qualifying affair with the quickest eight cars making the program, with the blown AA/PM and Nitrous Oxide aided A/PM cars running together instead of separately.

The rumor has the NHRA Pro Mods competing at between six and eight NHRA National Events with the locations being split between the East and West coasts. The Agent would guess that the West Coast tracks would include Pomona, Sonoma, Seattle or Las Vegas so that the West Coast Pro Modified circuit cars could be counted on to support the event. The East Coast tracks might include Bristol, Englishtown, Atlanta, Indy or Gainesville.

Rumor has it that NHRA would like to run the Pro Mods at events that don't have trucks and at events that don't conflict with IHRA National Events in order to not step on those racers' toes, since the trucks seem to be a very popular with the factories if not the paying customers. Sources tell the Agent that a pay schedule has been worked out that is favorable with what the 6.20/230mph 'slammers are being paid at IHRA...wonder if Bill Bader knows anything about this?

TEAM HAVOC WILL RETURN
Agent 1320 hears a rumor that the Foxworth family's Team Havoc has a deal that will see the Texas-based team return to IHRA Top Fuel racing for the 2001 season. The Agent hears that the Foxworth family, along with grizzled veteran Bobby Rex, have worked out a deal with mail order mogul and Top Fuel driver Doug Herbert. Like Herbert, the car would have Snap-On Tools as the major sponsor but would have a driver other than Doug Foxworth, who is still mending from his crash earlier this year in Canada.

BARTONE GOING FUEL RACING/NEWBERRY MOVES TO IHRA
The Agent hears that a couple of NHRA's more prominent and successful alcohol, oops he means Federal-Mogul Funny Car racers will be moving on or up next year. The rumor on Mr. Bartone is that the New York state-based racer has the financing in place to finally make the move to fuel coupe, rumored to be happening a couple of years ago. As for Bob Newberry, he will eschew NHRA alky racing to join the IHRA Pro Funny ranks, IHRA's version of alky funny car.

HAAS DRIVES A BLOWER CAR
Drag Racing Online's resident chassis guru, Jerry Haas, has long loathed to drive anything but a carbureted or nitrous oxide-injected vehicle, but a recent experience may have changed the veteran race car builder/team owner/driver's mind. He recently built a new AA/Altered '63 'Vette for a customer and was asked to shake it down at Gateway International Raceway. Haas told DRO that he agreed, reluctantly to drive the car.

"I just wasn't sure what to expect," Haas said, "But actually I had a good time. It didn't leave as hard as I thought it might but it sure hit harder than anything I'd ever driven on the gear changes. It was fun!" Haas ran considerably under the AA/A comp index of 7.10 and admitted that he wouldn't mind driving a blown car again. erry Haas in a blown Pro Modified? Maybe if NHRA adopts Pro Mod.

RIEGER BUILDING ANOTHER TRUCK
Look for NMCA Pro Street champ Bob Rieger to once again have two cars at the start of the 2001 season. Even though Rieger's current '57 Chevy Coupe is the quickest and fastest Pro Street car in the world, Rieger told Agent 1320 that he still likes a truck better and will probably build a new truck for the 2001 season

NMCA TO REDUCE SCHEDULE IN 2001?
Agent 1320 hears NMCA will reduce the number of events on its schedule for the 2001 season even though the last race of this season at Atlanta was called a big success in terms of attendance. The new schedule will have between six and eight races depending on who you talk to. Reason given for the reduction in number of races was simple: lack of spectators and entries at certain races.

NSCA WILL KEEP IT AT 8
The Agent was told by an NSCA official that eight races are on their 2001 schedule. Do you suppose that if the NMCA abandons certain markets that NSCA will step into them?

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