BAZEMORE OUT, T.S. IN
Whit Bazemore is out at Etchells and Tommy Johnson Jr. is in, effective immediately. That leaves an opening at Hofmann Racing, obviously. Agent 1320 wonders if Baze's exit was probably hastened by the fact that he lost to his own Nitro Fish Car with Cristen Powell driving in the first round at Englishtown.

BAZEMORE TO GET THREE YEAR DEAL AT SCHUMACHERS?
Baze is headed for Schumacher Racing where he purportedly will drive a Funny Car sponsored by Matco Tools with Tim and Kim as Crew Chiefs and three other members of the old Etchells team in support. It's supposed to be a multi-year deal for Baze (three at least).

PROCK, MC CULLOCH TO SCHUMACHER CAMP
Jimmy Prock is supposedly coming over from the Amato team to run the second Schumacher team with a crew that allegedly will include four members of the Joe Gibbs MBNA group including Jason McCulloch. Friction between the two camps was made the worse by the fact that Alan Johnson apparently was the front runner for both the U.S. Army and Matco Tools deals, but was undercut by Don Schumacher Sr. Reportedly, Schmuacher told the Army he'd do their deal for half what Johnson had quoted.

TROXEL NOT LONG TERM?
Melanie Troxel reportedly is on with Schumacher only until the end of the season but Agent 1320 heard that she'll be back. However, looks like Exide won't. Company is pulling out of Winston Cup and rumor is that it won't be back in drag racing either.

NIAGARA FALLS HONEYMOON OVER WITH IHRA?
Apparently, the TBA event on the NHRA schedule looks like it'll wind up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. That's the track Bader made such a big deal about. NHRA has been in negotiation there and can't get anyone to deny that Niagara Falls is the site. Also, Compton has said that the TBA race may NOT be a Winston Showdown-type race but perhaps a full national event. That would boost the schedule to 24.

IRP TO GET MAKEOVER…ANYBODY WANT A JOB?
NHRA is rumored to by shopping Columbus and Atlanta (again) to raise enough capital to finance a major makeover at Indy. Also, I hear NHRA has been late on its payments to Ben Rader, which raises the possibility that Benjie could get the track back.

NHRA has announced a nationwide search for a director of sales and marketing/general manager for IRP. The selected candidate will provide hands-on professional leadership of the IRP sales and marketing effort and general management direction to the entire on-site staff. Send those resumes to NHRA, 2048 Financial Way, Glendora, CA 91740.

TELEVISION NEWS
Looks like NHRA's new TV package will lock out Steve Evans and that Dave McClelland's role will be greatly altered. Here's my guess on the TV crew. Bill Stevens will be the host, Shelly Anderson (after going to charm school over the winter) will be the color commentator, Dave Reif and Kenny Sargent will do the starting line and far end interviews. They'll add one more studio person. The only flaw is that ESPN still has a bunch of talent under contract including Dr. Jerry Punch and others who used to do NASCAR. They may want to put them in the mix. Big Mac is going to do historic pieces (i.e., "A look back...with Dave McClelland")

Diamond P Sports, which is going to be cut out of the TV package altogether, OWNS the rights to the NHRA video library. NHRA currently is in litigation to win access rights. How could they have let that happen, he asked.

Shirley will be back for the AAA Finals with Goosehead.com sponsorship and is trying to put something together to get her to Dallas as well (50-50 on that). She was very complimentary of how she was treated by NHRA officials at Indy and, for the most part, by racers.

WHAT'S THE SPIN ON THIS ONE?
The Agent hears that Integer Dallas, one of NHRA's highly-touted "partners," already has been canned and a replacement hired (another high dollar agency).

SANTOS GOES TOP FUEL
Rumor has it that Rick Santos will go Top Fuel Racing next year with Oakwood Homes sponsorship (though my take on this is that that's an awful lot of mobile homes).

ARMY INTELLIGENCE?
Reliable sources say that NHRA negotiated a deal with the Army which gives it exclusivity among the services. That means no U.S. Air Force deal for Bob Vandergriff Jr. (who was working hard on one), no Navy, no Coast Guard. No sense."U.S. Army, official armed service of the NHRA." The Agent understands that there will be two show cars with the U.S. Army deal, one a regular static display and the other a dragster capable of being started up on nitro -- all of that at the insistence of the Colonel who oversees the program.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES
Those who were there tell the Agent that Bader's IHRA national event drew a smaller Saturday crowd than the Funny Car race featuring Force, Tony and Skuza. So much for the Thursday-Friday-Saturday format.

GHOULS IN THE NEWS
John Force and Tony Pedregon, Matt Hines and Joe Amato will unveil Universal Studios "monster" theme cars in competition at the O'Reilly Nationals presented by Castrol SYNTEC next month at the Motorplex. Force will have a Frankenstein-themed car, Pedregon one featuring Dracula, Hines also a Dracula and Amato The Wolf Man. Promotion also involves cars in Winston Cup Bobby Labonte (Frankenstein) and Robby Gordon (The Wolf Man); Busch Ron Hornaday (Dracula), Casey Atwood (Frankenstein), Jason Leffler (The Mummy) and Randy LaJoie (The Wolf Man) and IRL Al Under Jr. (Dracula). The Winston Cup cars will run Oct. 8 at Charlotte; the Busch cars Oct. 29 at Memphis; and the IRL car Oct. 15 at Texas Motor Speedway. Force and Pedregon also will be included in a "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" promotion around the AAA Finals. With problems at Action Performance Companies, Inc., what will happen to the trackside souvenir operations of John Force and the WWF? Action handled both of those deals at the tracks. Looks like it will finish out the season but no one is talking about 2001. Sports Service seems a possibility, though.