Drag Racing Online - Race Results

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When Tom Martino drove the Century 21 Pontiac to a best-of-the-event 200.17 mph speed at the Winternationals, it marked the first time in 30 races that top speed honors HAD NOT fallen to Warren Johnson and the first time in 46 events that one of the two Johnsons (Warren or Kurt) had not had the fastest Pro Stock car on the grounds.

WJ, who ran the race on Hoosier tires, qualified 12th, his worst starting spot since 1989, but still managed to direct his GM Performance Parts Pontiac to the final round before falling to Jeg Coughlin Jr., who repeated as Winternationals champ in the Jeg's Oldsmobile.

— DD

Bob Panella Jr. defeated his former teammate Greg Stanfield in the final round of Pro Stock Truck with his 7.544/178.52 pass. Said Panella after the run," For some reason I really wanted to win that race bad. I don’t know if it’s because we were partners one time or we wanted to start the year off right. We both had great lights. I think we bring the best out of each other. I know he’s tough, he knows I’m tough."

— JS

Ron Capps went out in the first round, losing a .007-second squeaker to Gary Densham. Capps was asked to describe his view out of the Camaro: "A lot of times with the funny car with the body over you and being tucked back into the Camaro body as you are, it’s like being in the back seat of a production Camaro. You don’t have good peripheral vision out of the side window. To put it into perspective, if you take one of the new production Camaros and put a case of oil in the middle of the dashboard, then crawl into the back seat and sit on the hump of the back seat, that will give you a view of what I look at out of my Camaro Funny Car. Just picture yourself going down the track at 300 mph looking at the case of oil on the dashboard."

— JS

Cheerleaders at a drag race? Yep. At the Winternationals, NHRA introduced its "Ignition Girls" (the company's new slogan is "We Have Ignition). Clad in red two-piece outfits, the "Ignition Girls" performed cheerleading routines during down time, which, from casual observation, included a lot of high kicks.

Jury is still out, though. They're a great alternative to Sports Magic, but they're not as good as the Frisbee® dogs that performed last year at Billy Meyer's Texas Motorplex.

Also, there's no guarantee that they'll be seen or heard from again. The "Ignition Girls" are just one of the many attractions being tried this year for the first time to assess spectator reaction.

— DD

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