IT'S LEE SMITH. WE STAND CORRECTED!
The driver of the '58 red Corvette Pro Mod earlier identified as Kirk Kuhns in our Phoenix testing coverage is in fact Lee Smith. Hmm…let's double-check those notes….

WILL THE REAL KIRK KUHNS PLEASE STAND UP?
OK, we think we have it straight now. Kirk Kuhns (left) runs a 1963 Pro Modified Corvette which will be at the NHRA Winternationals competing in Competition Eliminator. (We earlier got confused and identified Lee Smith's '58 Vette testing at Phoenix as Kuhns' ride.)

Perhaps our confusion can be forgiven; just look at the list of race cars Kuhns has driven over the last decade: a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, a 1987 Mercury Topaz F-M Funny Car, a 1959 Corvette Pro Mod, a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass F-M Funny Car, and a Nostalgia Racing Circuit Top Fuel Dragster, which he still campaigns in his "spare" time, and the '63 Corvette. Must have been a '58 Vette in there someplace.

PROCK JOINS FORCE, TWO DRAGSTERS ON WAY?
Agent 1320 hears that former Joe Amato crew chief Jimmy Prock has been on the John Force payroll for a week or so and that the team has already ordered a couple of Top Fuel cars from chassis builder Brad Hadman. The Agent hasn't been able find out if Force will have a full time Top Fuel team or just a testing program. As for who will be the driver, the two names most frequently heard are Gary Ormsby Jr and John Force engineer Tim Gibson.

FUEL COUPES IN THE 4.70'S THIS YEAR?
Agent 1320 hears that a couple of Funny Car tuners at the Phoenix test session liked the track's refurbished surface with its 700 feet of new concrete and marble-smooth transition so much that they were predicting that Fuel Coupes could run times in the 4.70s. If the speeds come along with the elapsed times, the Funny Cars will be back to where they were before the 90% rule was instituted.

F'GET ABOU DIT
There was a rumor going around that the new owner of the Texas Motorplex had ideas about running both an IHRA and NHRA National Event at the Motorplex. This magazine even ran a news story that speculated about that possibility. Agent 1320 has since learned that language in the contract that each NHRA national event track signs at the beginning of each season specifically prohibits those tracks from running unapproved sanctioning body (IHRA) events at the track. The Agent also hears that the NHRA brass has let it be known that if the new owner of the Motorplex did schedule an IHRA national event NHRA would pull their race date from the track.

LET'S PUT THESE PRO MOD RUMORS TO REST
There have been some rumors going around about the NHRA Pro Mod exhibition series for this year and the Agent has checked into them. The first rumor is that all of the events will be invitational. The Agent's sources say this is absolutely false. Only the Gainesville event will be by invitation. This is being done because that event traditionally has so many entries that parking is a problem and NHRA want to make sure there aren't more cars than can physically be accommodated.

The second is that Pro Mods will only get two qualifying laps. Again, absolutely false. As in the past, all exhibition classes such as Top Fuel Bikes have had the same amount of laps as the Professional fields.

The third was that NHRA will have its own rules for Pro Mod and that they would be different from IHRA. Graham Light has said numerous times that the NHRA rules for Pro Mod would be the same as IHRA's so that the racers wouldn't have to change their cars to run with NHRA either as a Competition Eliminator racer or as a exhibition car.