EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES
There probably aren't many of you who spent more than a few minutes watching the annual New Year's Day Tournament of Roses Parade from Pasadena, Calif. Normally, the Agent's head is pounding enough on its own and doesn't need to listen to any marching bands. So, we missed the first time in history that drag racing was represented in the parade.

The Automobile Club of Southern California celebrated its 100th anniversary by entering a 550-foot long float of Gary Densham's Funny Car. The body on the thing actually lifted up a full 30 feet in the air and showed a pretty decent recreation of an FC engine. The float was entitled "A Century of Setting the Pace," and won the parade judges' Extraordinaire Award. The flowered flopper was certainly that.

RACE TRACK AFFILIATION ADDENDUM
Of the current NHRA national event sites, only Atlanta Dragway has been affiliated with another sanctioning body ,that being IHRA. In the recent past few years, former NHRA national event sites Rockingham Dragway and Virginia Motorsports Park have returned to IHRA.

As best the Agent can recall, no race site has ever held an NHRA national event and an IHRA national event the same year. AHRA's been dead for 17 years, so who cares? Right?

BIG NEWS FROM NHRA...MAYBE
Agent 1320 hears that NHRA will finally announce the worst kept secret in the sport when sometime next week they will confirm a third race to be held at their Pomona Fairgrounds facility. The Agent hears that the reason the sanctioning body had waited so long to make the announcement was that they feared that scheduling a third race at the Fairplex would hurt ticket sales for the upcoming Winternationals.

ODDY'S 2001 'VETTE PRO MOD

By the time you are looking at Agent 1320's exclusive photos of Jim Oddy's new 2001 Corvette (photos courtesy of ace Australian lensman Gerald McDornan) the 'Vette should be arriving at New York City harbor. The sleek C-5 'Vette was built by Australian chassis builder Murray Anderson who, with help from fellow Austalian Victor Bray, designed and built the "swing arm" suspension that was under both the '37 Chevy and the World Championship winning '54 'Vette that Fred Hahn has driven for Oddy the past few seasons.

As you can see from these photos the car has no engine or rear spoiler but is otherwise complete. Jim Oddy told the Agent that Anderson has just completed wind tunnel testing of a "free standing" rear wing for the 'Vette. That wing should resemble the wings found on the '63 'Vettes campaigned by Mike Stawicki and Randy Hagerty.

With Murray Anderson building the car the Agent is sure that the suspension will be something unique. When quizzed about the subject the only thing that Oddy would say was that the suspension would be "slick." The Agent has no idea what that means. Look for more information and photos of this car as they become available.

WINSTON OUT, RJR IN?
The Agent hears that RJR may have found a loophole in the Federal regs that limit sports sponsorship by tobacco companies and that they may soon announce that the R.J.Reynolds Co will be the official sponsor of NHRA drag racing. This is just a rumor but a very interesting one if true.